My vintages finally restored

[TilionMtl]

I decided tonight to take and post some pictures of my two vintages. I know some of you like pictures, so here they are.

This is the first vintage I got.
The feeling of understanding the mechanism behind it is just wonderful, I can understand why some person are vintage pachinko collectors.

Here is two pics of my first vintage. Before and after restoration:
FirstVintage.jpgFirstVintageRestored.jpg

The windmills have been paint with children paint, I repainted them with enamel.
Unfortunately, maybe the enamel I used (for car models) is cheap, but it doesn't stick well to the metal of the windmills.

Here's two pics of the windmills and center part, before and after restoration:
CenterOld.jpgCenterRestored.jpg

The tray and ashtray was covered with burn marks, at some place the plastic was melted and black:

TrayOld.jpg

I used a sandpaper, lightly sand the burn marks until the dark spot was gone, and I repaint the Nishijin and Super Deluxe text. Of course like many of you, when I removed these plastic parts, I braked the plastic pins and I had to make a solution to be able to put them back in place, you can read my solution there if needed.

TrayRestored1.jpgTrayRestored2.jpg

Next post here about my Powerflash restoration.

[pachitimsj]

nice job love the black

[TilionMtl]

nice job love the black

hehe thank-you The black frame look better in real than on photo

Now the PowerFlash restoration. This restoration was a complete one, the cell has been resurfaced. Hopefully I had the Nishijin first so I learned the mechanism from it, it greatly helped.

Unfortunately I don't have a photo of the whole machine before restoration, but here is some pic of the cell, the dirt, stain on the cell, on the side of the tulips and center part. I had to sand the plastic to get rid of the stain marks.

PowerflashOld.jpgPowerflashDirty.jpgPowerflashDirty2.jpg

I carefully peeled the surface (paper+laminating film) from the cell without destroying it to be able to use it later as guide to know where to punch back the holes of nails in my new design. Here is a pic of the back of peeled laminating film. You can see all the water stains. The second pic is the wood of the cell, sanded to remove any paper and glue. The third pic is nails before and after polishing them. Thanks to Musky for the tips about vinegar. Bath in vinegar then polished with Brasso

PowerflashStain.jpgPowerflashCellWood.jpgpolished_nails.jpg

I made a custom theme for the cell, got it printed at Staples. I used HeatnBond sheet to get the printed design glued to the wooden cell

PowerflashHeatBond.jpg

I must say that the HeatnBond is pretty good for this purpose, I was surprised. I bought a roll of heat activated laminating film. First I tried with an iron to apply the laminating film but it don't work at all, bad result. I got a really good result using a plastic scraper and a paint stripping heat gun.
heating a small spot then when the glue of the laminating film turn clear, quickly scrape the spot with the plastic scraper, being sure to get all the bubbles out. The result look really good.

Now here is the wooden cell with the printed design glued and the laminating film applied. The next pic is with the nails and ball track installed. Thanks again to Musky for the paper clips tip to support the track in the wood.

My new theme to go with the card theme of the Powerflash is "Fortune Teller"

PowerflashCell.jpgPowerflashCellNails.jpg

Once laminated, I made the biggest holes in my printed design using a cutter, then I placed the previously peeled cell surface over and used a pin to puncture all the nails hole in my design. Easier to know where to put back the nails.

[TilionMtl]

follow up:

Now I have 300 feet of laminating film lol. I will surely try to make my own cell at some point, but it will surely not use that much film lol.

I removed all the lacquer and paint of the frame, die it and put some lacquer back. Unfortunately while trying to remove the white plastic part (with hole for balls dump) to the left of the frame, I destroyed it. I've been able to pull the one from my first vintage and make a mold of it, and make new plastic parts. If someone need some I can make some other ones. I actually have orange, blue, black white, brown dyes. Can make some shade of them.

Here is a pic of some plastic parts for ball dump

PlasticHoleBallsDump.jpg

Then two pics of the complete machine upon restored

PowerflashRestored1.jpgPowerflashRestoredCenter.jpg

[pachinkojeff]

Gnarly!

[MrGneiss]

Wow Til, Super Rad!!

[beachcat]

Very Nice!!!

[OneBigTuna]

Very Very Impressive

I love the new cell of the powerflash! The paint, chrome, and polished nails work so well together. You have set the bar my friend, set the bar!!

Out of curiosity, how long did the powerflash restoration take? If I decide to take on a project such as this, I would like to know how long and how much space is needed.

Thank you for the pics!!

[Habious]

Wow! Very Wow!

Nicely done sir, nicely done!

[JACKSJE4]

Awesome Power Flash mod!!! Love the new cell.

[millermaster1]

Holy Crap !!!
I'm going to send you all my vintage games!!

Nice Work

[dattia]

Great job Tilion... your Powerflash is now superhot!!!

[yose]

truly amasing the theme is awsome nice restoration.

[Moparformances]

Very Nice work... Looks Great

[TilionMtl]

Thank-you all for the good words

Out of curiosity, how long did the powerflash restoration take? If I decide to take on a project such as this, I would like to know how long and how much space is needed.
Thank you for the pics!!

Well it's hard to say because I didn't made all this in one shot. The longest part is cleaning the back, cleaning the nails and have all the tool and parts to do the restoration. To pull the nails, I made the corkscrew mod, you can learn from it in the forum here, not my idea but I made video about it here and it work pretty well. I had to drive to 3 stores to find the proper one. For the HeatnBond, took me a couple of day to decide what to use. Glue in spray, or this or that and so on. Checking the store again for possibility.

Gone back to store to buy paper clips long enough to make the holding pins for the track.

Gone in the major city to buy the roll of laminating film.

This is what took the most time.

I pulled off and cleaned the back parts, one or two hour per days, took about 4 days.

Took about half an hour to pull all the nails with the corkscrew mod.

Before pulling them, I found the ones that look the most well aligned to the cell and not bent. I used them to build a gauge. This gauge have three purpose. 1- Proper nail depth in the wood. 2- Proper upward angle of the nail. 3- Proper left right alignment to the cell.

I built the gauge using a metal corner and carved a V-shape notch on each side. When this gauge is placed on the cell, the notch closer to the cell is lower than the notch on the opposite side, so if I place a nail in these notches, the nail will be lightly angled upward. The thickness of the gauge is used to know when to stop hammering the nail, so each nail have all the same depth in the wood. Here is a pic of the gauge, it will probably help to make more sense.

NailsAlignDepth.jpg

Now that my nails gauge, nails puller are built and other parts bought, it would take me less time. the first is always the worst one to do because it's always mystery, enigma, problem and so on. Too me mostly the same time to just clean the first vintage than rebuilding the second one. The experience acquired with the first one saved a lot of time.

I suppose the whole process would take me about 10 to 15 hours now. I think a person should not be in hurry to do it, it's as rewarding as making it slowly as the final product

[TilionMtl]

...I'm going to send you all my vintage games...

hehehe

[pinball wizard]

nice work !

[pachinkojeff]

[hanabi]

That is truly a beautiful restoration, and all super shiny too

and I absolutely love the new cell!!

[takethecastle57]

Now thats what I call a "Front " Restoration . What No restoration with the back plastic and mechanicals ??? Very nice and love the 3d effect of the lady