Latest Pin Projects
Just got through bringing these pins back from the dead. The first candidate was the '65 K&Q. I obtained this one awhile back, had it in the house and it would barely start a game. I decided to put it back in the storage unit and pull out some other pins that I new would need much less work to get going. However, all this time the K&Q was in the back of my head thanks to it's reputation. So I made some room and got to work. I first had to decide whether to fix it up so that it plays correctly or go all out and replace the play field (pf) with a new one I have. I took one look underneath and decided to go with the former option. Even though the play field has seen beter days, I just didn't feel like a total play field swap at the time. So first order of business was to remove all pf parts and tumble the metal posts and other metal parts. A tumbler is worth it's weight in gold especially since this pin has the cool, jeweled, metal pf posts. Some Gottliebs had them but most didn't. Then they stopped using them all together. Then i pulled the whole pf out of the pin, turned it upside down, and soldered all feature/insert lamp sockets to insure connectivity. With time corrosion causes the connection to fail and a slight modification along with soldering insure the sockets wll remain trouble free. Next was to wipe down the pf with 91% alcohol, then go with alcohol and a magic eraser, another wipe down, Novus 2, and then a couple coats of wax. Even on this rough pf the wax helps with ball speed. As seen in the photos, the kickout holes are chewed up, especially the center 2. So I broke out epoxy putty made for wood and patched the holes and then block sanded everything down. Looks less than unsat but plays original now.
Next was to deal with the 0-9 stepper unit. Several of the brass rivets had deep grooves gouged from the wipers which caused the 4 kickout holes to fail to light up when Ace thru Jack is completed. I placed dots of solder on them to fill the gap, then filed the leading edge of the solder down so the wipers transition easily. This was all after cleaning the rivets with alcohol and sanding them clean, then lube. Also replaced the 5 large sand resistors that connect to the special when lit light and the kickout holes. I also sealed the backglass with a couple coats of triple thick.
Next I replaced the top yellow dead bumpers with new caps and put new caps on 2 of the 3 pop bumpers and filled stripped pf holes using the old wood glue and toothpick trick. The ball trough was filthy so that was removed, taken apart and cleaned and a new 1-5 sticker affixed. I then completely rebuilt the flipper units using PBR's kits and installed slightly stronger orange-dot coils and also removed 3 layers of windings from the slingshot coils to give them a little more pep plus new sleeves. I then rebuilt the pop bumpers with new coils, springs, etc. Put everything back together, installed new rubbers and after a little tweaking to the ball kickouts (which feed the ball into each other), have played a bunch of games. 55 games to be exact in 2 days thanks to the play counter. So after about 8-10 hours of work it's playing like new and maybe a little better due to the slingshot coil mods and new, stronger flipper coils.
Next up is the '59 Queen of Diamonds. Pretty much the same routine as for the K&Q above with the exception of also having to flatten the spinning disc in the back glass. Its plastic attached to bakelite so I had to devise a way to flatten it carefully and now it's almost perfectly flat. This pin also has a new back glass and new plastics.
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