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Thread: Latest Pin Projects

  1. #1
    Pachi Puro emmadog's Avatar
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    Default 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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  3. #2
    Pachi Puro emmadog's Avatar
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    Default Re: Latest Pin Projects

    and the backglass pic
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    Pachi Puro emmadog's Avatar
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    Default Re: Latest Pin Projects

    got the Queen of Diamonds assembled and tweaked so it was time to move on to the Sing Along which has a Christmas carol theme and some great Americana art on it. This machine was in rough shape with the exception of the backglass, plastics, and cabinet. The play field has lots of wear, the rubbers on the posts and lane guides didn't pull off they crumbled off, pop bumper caps were faded and stained, PF was full of dirt, hole kickout plastics almost completely melted, and on and on. Underneath the hood was pretty bad as well, a dozen or so wires with burned off insulation, grime everywhere, 2 missing score bells and their coils, etc. So first thing to do was to remove everything from the top of the PF and clean it with the usual routine-91%alcohol and magic eraser, Novus 2, and then wax. then i pulled the PF off completely to turn it upside down and place it on the workbench. removed all coils and put in new sleeves, soldered all lamp sockets for better connectivity, installed new kickout hole plastics, 4 new ceramic resistors, complete flipper rebuilds (flippers, coils, sleeves, end of stroke switch, flipper button switches, springs, arms, linkage) with stronger coils, all new bright "44" bulbs, new insulation on burned wires and then i cleaned and gapped bunches of contacts. inside the back box i installed new score bells and coils, cleaned the rivet contact points and wipers on the 0-9 unit, credit unit, and ball-count unit, and installed new coil sleeves for those, unhacked a couple of mods on the credit unit, new back box bulbs, sealed the back glass and cleaned the 4 digit counter units. lotta work for a machine that was heavily played and has 101,234 plays according to the counter! But that's because it is such a great game and is actually a copy of a Kings & Queens with a somewhat different layout. gottlieb did that on several of their more popular pins. after all of that i still had a few hours of trouble shooting left to sort out once everything was back together. had a self induced short caused by a lamp socket solder tab touching a slingshot mounting frame. then had a missing spacer on a switch stack which was causing the game to go thru the start sequence over and over. without the spacer, the relay controlling the start sequence was continuously getting power. so all the work needed to it and the rough shape of the PF made for a very cheap game. all the repairs i made were from stuff i had laying around (old switch blades, etc.). another reason why i love EM's. i spent more on some new cosmetic parts such as bumper caps and functional parts like rubber rings and flipper rebuild kits than i did on the pin itself. so anyway the plan was to switch out the playfield with a NOS one i found but as a brand new newbie what i ended up buying was the play field for the add a ball version of this game called "Harmony". the PF fits fine but there are slight differences in the graphics. i thought about installing it anyway since the casual player would never notice but i decided to keep it original.
    so the pics show the 100% working pin with just about everything pulled off the playfield with the exception of new pop bumper caps and their skirts and a few targets. the other pic is of the NOS "Harmony" board. Probably just hang it on the wall.
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    Pachi Puro emmadog's Avatar
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    Default Re: Latest Pin Projects

    i'll post pics of the finished pin when done.
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    Waste not, Want not mudfud's Avatar
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    Default Re: Latest Pin Projects

    nice work!

    have you thought of a way to repaint some of the really worn areas? I'm thinking if I don't do it right, there will be bump ups and imperfections. my williams SF has had a lot of play time... finally decided that I should just leave it worn and authentic.
    PachiTalk

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    Pachi Puro emmadog's Avatar
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    Default Re: Latest Pin Projects

    i know how to do it but i don't have the expertise and it's looks much better worn than with obvious touch ups. i've got a beat up '59 Around the World that someone touched up and it looks like hell. when i finally get around to it my plan is to see if i can remove the touch up paint. for small areas such as round key lines around inserts, holes, etc, you can use a home silk screen kit to make exact copies of the original rings and get factory results. this also means if you are very careful and precise, you could use the same technique for larger, more complex areas. of course the problem is always color matching.
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    Pachi Puro emmadog's Avatar
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    Default Re: Latest Pin Projects

    new paint will be higher than old but the worn areas will be deeper to begin with. So ideally it evens out but it will require sanding with obviously fine grades of sandpaper. once that's done the playfield should be clear coated to prevent further wear and to ensure a perfectly flat, smooth surface. that's generally how it's done.
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    Mr. Vintage wrkey's Avatar
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    Default Re: Latest Pin Projects

    Cool pins! I played the Sing Along at the Houston Arcade expo back in November and it was really a fun game.

    As for some of the missing paint, about the only thing I really do on mine is clean up the black rings that are around the playfield holes and lights. These black outlines are generally worn off because there is a slight ridge between the playfield and the inserts or, as the case is around the thumpers, the hard hit ball wears it down. In either case you have this ring of 'white' that shows up through the black. I have a medium point black permanent ink sharpie that I cover up the while/tan that shows through. It works great and really makes and imediate and apparent improvement to the looks of the machine.

    On the 4 Pins I have this is really the only repair I make to the playfields. I am very inexperienced in restoration of Pins so I concentrate mostly on just bringing it back to 100% mechanical working and live with whatever imperfections there are in the paint.

    One other quick and dirty trick I do is to 'repair' the sunk light inserts on the playfield. These are the colored semi-clear plastic inserts that sit over the bulbs and over time they tend to sink below the level of the playfield causing the ball to either change direction as it rolls over the indention or (worse case) the ball get stuck in the indention thus leading to a 'Tilt' as you try to shake it free. I've heard of methods that use a hair dryer or heat gun to loose up the inserts and then they are pulled out and re-glued in the correct position. But doing that scares me as I'm afraid I'd damage something in the process. So what I've done is to use some strong clear 'packing tape' that I cut to just larger than the insert and loosely place on top of the insert. Then I use an Exacto scaple knife to cut around the insert edge and remove the excess tape that would be on the playfield. I then make sure the tape is well stuck to the insert. Generally one layer does the trick but sometimes two is needed. The clear tape allows the light to show through and you can't tell that it's been done. I've even gone 3 and 4 layers and you can tell it's been done.

    Anyway, someday I'll get to the level of Restoration that you're doing, but I tend to get distracted playing the games or getting something else to restore!
    Rusty Key

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    Pachi Puro emmadog's Avatar
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    Default Re: Latest Pin Projects

    thanks for the tips. i hadn't heard of using packing tape for the inserts. i know a lotta guys use gel superglue with excellent results and varathane too. personally i've used clear liquid acrylic and had very good results with it.
    i have used a sharpie on the black lines but have found that it smears when waxing the play field. i think it's the petroleum distillites in the wax that do it but unfortunately all the recommended waxes contain it.
    i haven't restored a pin yet. i own a few that are 9+ but most have been project pins which is what i really enjoy. i don't mind the wear showing and this Sing Along with it's 100,000+ plays is a testament to gottlieb's quality and how well things used to be made. EM pinballs are a tinkerer's dream and as much as i enjoy fiddling around with pachinkos, they really don't compare. i realized that when i plugged in and played my first EM pin and saw it come to life. the fact that all those things are done without any computer chips is amazing. i realized then that i had been missing out all these years. i never played pins in the arcades as a kid and EM's were long gone by then. i played a few of the "new" solid state machines but that was usually when whatever game i was trying to play was occupied. i wasn't impressed and that carried over all these years until i bought a '69 Mini Pool and then i was completely hooked. it's always interested me that more pachinko fans aren't pinball fans.
    so i normally gravitate towards project pins and they are much cheaper too. on these i just clean them really well, replace any missing/damaged parts and parts like the solenoid coils. one day i may do a full restore on my '67 Diamond Jack and '65 Kings & Queens. I've got new play fields for both and installing those without bringing everything else up to par wouldn't look right.
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    Pachi Puro emmadog's Avatar
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    Default Re: Latest Pin Projects

    pic with everything assembled
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    Waste not, Want not mudfud's Avatar
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    Default Re: Latest Pin Projects

    very nice!
    PachiTalk

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