Jan Ball Project

[emmadog]

I finally got some time to hit the road and go pick up the Jan Ball and do some work on it where it was then packed it all up and brought it home.
I've decided to do a complete redo of it and have started to reassemble the cleaned parts. I didn't take any "before" pics-once I started tearing it down I didn't stop plus I was in a nice workshop and time was at a premium.
So far I painted the frame/case black using enamel paint, polished all the metal pieces in the tumbler, primed them, and painted them using the "hammered" finish in gray. I've cleaned the electrical parts as well and reassembled some of those. The metal rack holding all 17 micro switches was also prepped and painted as it was in need of it. I loaded a pic of the cel and using a draw program I cleaned up the old image and emailed it to a local print shop. They were able to print it out a few hours after receipt. So now I have the new cel back on and covered with mylar as well as the ball tracks and the plastic number buttons.
I'm whitening the upper plastic marquee as I type and by the end of the weekend I should have much of it back together. I'll post more pics as I go.

[emmadog]

Case-mounted electronics.
Disassemble of the playfield from the frame was much easier than on a typical vintage pachinko. As opposed to nails, the frame and playfield are held together with large wood screws. Once they're removed, the pieces come right apart. Took me about a tenth of the time.

[rubberratt]

I am not a vintage guy (wait for it Compirate) but this excites me

[emmadog]

I love working on the vintages. It's gotten to where I fix and tweak on them far more than I play them. Used to be a good cleaning and fixing broken parts was enough. Now I don't consider any of my machines to be complete. Even though they all work, there is always some part that can be cleaned better or restored to it's former glory.

[emmadog]

This is where I am so far. I've managed to reinstall all the electronic components and even get the correct screws back where they belong. I've repainted the pockets using thinned enamel so that it flows easily into crevices. The nails are back in but they still need to be positioned correctly and polished. I would have repainted the spinners but I don't know of a good technique to use to keep the circles perfect. The pockets/fixtures are held in temporarily using their old screws, I haven't gotten new screws yet. Local hardware stores don't have any that small. The center feature below the number square sadly is off color. I think the plastic has faded and not discolored due to fire retardant. The left "flap" is missing it's small counter weight that keeps in in the same position as the right one. I'll epoxy a piece of bolt in there later. Still a lotta work to do on the cabinet, token insert strip, and the lower tray. I have airbrushed the lower plastic tray in metallic chrome using Alclad airbrush paint. The finish is indistinguishable in appearance from metal. I will definitely be buying more of that stuff and also since I spilled half of the 10 dollar, 2 ounce bottle on our picnic table. I used thinner to remove it which it did as well as the finish on the table. I predict 2 more hours before I hear about it. Anywho, the original chrome finish had flaked off to expose the whitish colored plastic underneath. Once that dries I will use thinned enamel to paint the blue accent areas. Also I used a great liquid masking product. It is the consistency of yogurt and color but dries to a clear amber. I applied it to the chrome "Shinko" letters to protect them from the new airbrushed finish. I did that instead of repainting them because they are in very good condition and they reside in a blue area so it was easier to mask them instead of masking the whole blue surface. Anyway, once done painting the mask becomes rubbery and rolls off using your fingers. It behaves just like rubber cement.

[Moparformances]

try puti9ng the spinners in a drill and turn them reeally slow that way all you have to do is keep your hand still.. turning them slow will keep the paint from splatering out from centrifugal force

really looking good

[emmadog]

Excellent idea!!! Gonna give that a try.

[emmadog]

Here's a pic of the plastic accent piece that I painted with the Alclad chrome. In a previous post I mistakenly labeled this as the tray. Anyway, I stripped this piece down to the original white plastic and airbrushed it. This is the result after one coat. Ultimately, I'll put on at least one more and maybe two coats to even the finish out. It's too humid to paint right now but after that is completed the blue areas will be painted in using thinned enamel and a small brush.

[emmadog]

Latest:
Reinstalled chrome frame. I'd like to get them all rechromed one day.
I put a second coat of Alclad chrome on the lower marquee, painted the blue areas with thinned Testor's enamel, and reinstalled it. The coin strip on the left was wet sanded with 600 grit, then prepped with Testor's plastic prep, then I used Bulldog Adhesion Promoter, then airbrushed with Createx Auto Air paint. I tried to match the original blue and it came out close. Not sure if I'll clear coat it or not. The characters were painted using a good quality gold paint pen and I went over the characters twice.The piece is temporarily placed on the machine here. I still have to reconnect the 4 micro switches for each of the buttons as well as polish the payout button's metal border as well as polish the button itself.

[candyflip]

You are building yourself some kinda nice collection there my friend!

[emmadog]

Thanks. Not too bad of a collection in a year and half of being in the hobby. I have a couple of "strategies" that also help out, nothing profound though.I also was fortunate to get into it before the advent of CL aggregate search engines. Or they weren't as well known. YJA seems to be more competitive as well, at least for certain vintages. Shipping costs and ancillary fees will always keep a number of buyers away though.
It's been lots of fun not only collecting but refurbishing and meeting people on here.
I figure in two years roughly I'll have my current collection as new or as close as possible. Problem is, I can't stop searching and acquiring which extends that timeline but I'm not compaining.

[emmadog]

A little more done. Was out of town for 3.5 days so only had a little time.
The weather was conducive to painting so I prepped the plastic coin tray piece. Same treatment-wet sanding, plastic prep treatment with q-tips to get in all the tight spots, adhesion promoter (highly recommended for ABS plastic), painting, and curing.
I used the Auto Air brand thinner for these paints which provides smooth paint flow thru the airbrush, and quicker cure times. I put about 5 coats of paint on the part and sped up the process by using a hairdryer between coats. This way I was able to wait only about 5 min between coats. Also these paints are non-toxic and water based which seems hard to believe. So cleanup is simple. Better living through chemistry I suppose.
Forgot to mention in the previous post that it is highly recommended to heat cure this paint in an oven. 150 degrees for about 20 min. This causes some sort of cross-linking of the paint molecules or some such.
So I made sure the oven temp was accurate using a separate thermometer, cooled the oven back down, placed the parts in for the right time, and then let the parts cool down in the oven. Of course I sat on the floor the whole time making sure the parts didn't warp. I wasn't sure about the durability or resistance to heating up and cooling down which is why I did both gradually so as not to shock the parts.
As you can tell by the pics the lower part of the frame nor the ashtray have been addressed. That'll be next.
Once cooled I went over the flower with the gold paint pen as was the original color.
These pics are with and without flash.

[emmadog]

Latest:
Cleaned and polished lower marquee. I decided against repainting the whole thing since it was in good shape and when I compared it to the color on the reverse side, it was pretty much the same. So it didn't change color much at all over time. Same with the upper payout indicator plastic. I considered retr0brighting it but it hadn't yellowed much at all. Although the difference can be seen now that it is up against the white background of the cel.I should have done the cel background an off white but too late now.
Back to the lower marquee-I repainted the "Jan Ball" logo, the "Meiyu" badge and the narrow white line surrounding much of the piece with Testor's enamel that had been thinned out to flow better.
I used small brushes from Micro-Mark which came in a kit and are suited for detail work. The white line was a pain to keep in the borders since it lies in a channel. The technique I used was to not worry about getting paint on the borders. I placed the paint a drop at a time in the channel and each time it flowed about a quarter inch in each direction. When i completed a side I very carefully dipped a q-tip in the bottle of thinner. You don't want the q-tip wet. Thinner wicks very easily and if the q-tip is wet a bigger mess will be made. Anywho, I then held it at a 45 degree angle from the wall of the channel and pressed down so the tip was just touching the surface and made a pass down the length of the wall. In a couple of passes all the paint was removed like it was never there. Saves a bunch of time as well.
Still have to address ashtray and part of frame below it as well as plastic piece around keyhole and finger rest near shooter lever. Not sure how I'll deal with that one. I may paint it with chrome paint and then several coats of clear for durability or just have it rechromed along with the frame.

[emmadog]

A closeup of the logo. Once the thinner evaporates the ridged surface texture comes through.

[emmadog]

And a pic with the enamel paint removed from the lower frame. I didn't mask this area off when painting since my original plan was to redo the surface on the frame. I then decided to keep the original laminate since it was undamaged and still very white, plus I wasn't sure if I'd be able to find the original pattern anywhere.

[mackoftrack]

Wow! Incredible!!!

[emmadog]

Here's a couple of pics of the machine basically finished. Still always some fine tuning and I am still going to refinish the finger rest, ashtray and the keyhole decoration. When that's done it will still look essentially the same as these photos which is why I am posting them now.
Also today I received the brass fasteners from microfasteners.com. They've got a great selection of the small brass screws used in these old pachinkos.
I used 6 of them for the coin strip as can be seen in the pics.

[Hope Chest]

That is such a wicked machine. Beautiful work!

[emmadog]

Thanks. I was thinking it would take me all summer but work has been unusually generous with down time. I had a lot of fun on this one and learned alot about painting plastics and preparation. Next project is the Satomi "San Diego".

[compirate]

Looks familiar