1973 Nishijin Model B Restore

[Grizzly Adam]

I have been working on restoring the machine Dad and I traded for a used washing machine back in the '90s. It was in pretty poor shape. So far I have stripped it down, removed the water damaged playfield, removed there plies from the backboard that were punky, glued on new plies, routered to match the other plies, and sealed. I also retro-brited some parts, repainted the nameplate, polished all the visible metal, and waxed all the plastic I currently have removed. Finally, I repainted the knuckle guard and the finger grip.
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[Grizzly Adam]

I am going to do some light sanding to make sure my paint is nice and smooth and then put down a vinyl playfield tomorrow and then start reassembling and touching up paint/adding black light paint. I am adding a blacklight strip inside the cabinet and converting it to run the blacklight and the new led bulbs on 4.5v. It will get all new wiring as well.

[takethecastle57]

First rate workmanship ! I can't wait to see the finished machine .

And a and biscuits award for your endeavor

[sparky kilowatt]

Nice work, keep posting pictures as you progress.

[Grizzly Adam]

We made a lot of progress. Here she is fitting the background. The one I ordered actually didn't line up right, but I caught it and was able to adjust for it. There will be nothing visibly amiss inside the playfield. We used the extra scrap at the bottom to try to protect the wood better-- I layered them as one does shingles so any water would roll over instead of under.



I forgot to get a pic with everything cut out, but I got one shortly after.


I made a super-accurate depth gauge for the nails.


Here is where I stopped for tonight. I am short a few nails and she is still touching up the paint. The pinwheels are being painted to look like targets, the nail in the center will be painted red.

[MrGneiss]

Looking good so far!!


There was an error with what I think was your last picture that I had to remove.. So you may want to repost!!

It posted 2,859,141 random characters instead of the pic!! It happens sometimes..

[Grizzly Adam]

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[Johnny Bravo]

Beautiful work. The nails don't look fully polished to bright brass finish. Is it a preference you have towards keeping to as-aged condition?

[Grizzly Adam]

To hold the races, I used 22gauge galvanized wire as James King suggested in his book "Pachinko Machine Restoration." However, when it came time to twist the wire I did not use aviation safety pliers as suggested, instead I loaded a screw hook into the chuck of my drill, wrapped both ends of the wire around that hook 3 times, and engaged the drill until the wire was a tight twist. I then secured the twist wire to the back of the board using 3/8" staples. It worked really slickly, and by using a hook instead of an eyelet, I could just slide the wire off the end of the hook instead of having to untwist the end. Picture of hook below.

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[Grizzly Adam]

Tonight I worked on the wooden case. I did not tear it as far apart as I probably should of, but I am really wanted to get this up and running by this weekend. I removed the old finish, filled the giant cracks in the front with opaque epoxy and then gave it a coat of stain to match the trim of the room its going into.

This is the before photo of the area with the worst water damage:


Here is the same area with the new stain still soaking in:


This simple box is what I am planning to wall mount the machine in. It fits like a glove! I am going to add some cup washers to give it the same general style as the cabinet. I also want to add in some bump stops inside it to ensure that it lines up easily. It took the stain well, but I couldn't get a picture that did it justice.

Good picture of it before finish:


Tomorrow everything is getting a coat of shellac and I will try to get the the bottom hole cover onto the playfield that I forgot yesterday.

[Grizzly Adam]

@johnnybravo Correct, I have no interest in trying to keep the nails polished and will be dabbing the heads with glow in the dark paint since we will be playing in a low-light environment (I have additional lighting on to make the picture turn out, its just neon, black light, and disco lights).

[MrGneiss]

Rad!!

[Grizzly Adam]

I got everything shellacked last night, so I will be working on assembly tonight. I am nervous that I won't remember how to get it all back together!

[REIDBOY]

Nice "Rolling Stone".

[Grizzly Adam]

Thanked Reidboy!

i got it completely back together and played it a little bit. I think the launcher shoot is out of alignment but I didn’t think to used the adjustment screw because I was too focused on the jackpots not paying out. I found that the payout module was full of spider eggs and had the pins missing. Luckily, I had spotted the pins during my initial disassembly and saved them. With it back together, it still wasn’t paying out reliably. Now I have all the plastic parts removed, cleaned, and waxed. I need to remove aome material from the back of the tulip pockets because balls are hanging there occasionally.

Anyway, here’s a pic!
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[MrGneiss]