The Aussie Pinball Arcade
Aussie Pinball Forums => Restorations => Topic started by: Mr Pinbologist on April 25, 2009, 11:33:49 PM
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Here are a few pics of the Zaccaria Universe machine i picked up thanks to Tony ^^^
Its still packed up in the car as i write this, but i got a few pics on my phone yesterday arvo of the backbox and backglass coz it was easy and quick to take outta the car for a few pics. the backglass has some flaking as can be seen in the pics, but after my Dracula glass restore im pretty sure i can pretty this one up without too much drama.
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more pics... notice the back door for the backbox.. i guess someone needed some metal to repair or build something!! yet again im amazed by what some people do to these machines :lol
i'll post some more pics tomorrow when i get the game home. (im posting these from a friends computer). the playfield is in AWESOME condition and wont take much work at all to restore $#$
so playfield/ cab pics etc will be posted tomorrow.
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Great score, Mitch - another game for the resto queue - looking forward to it.
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Nice one mitch looking forward to the restore. That missing corner is a nice touch??? !@#
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Here are some more pics as promised. As can be seen in these pics the playfield is in great condition, the only wear marks are some flipper drag.
Plastics are also in great shape. Just the bumper caps look a bit crappy. Two of the drop targets are broken too, I should be able to make these myself so im not at all worried about these.
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Wow, that looks nice. Looking forward to see it all sorted!
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more pics
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And here is what I was greeted with when I lifted the playfield at home today. The 1st pic is the outhole switch.. theres no way that could’ve EVER worked!!! (I didn’t even bother lifting the PF for a look when I picked up the game).
Notice the two stepper unit pics, the bakelite switch PCBs on the two units mounted to the bottom of the PF are both damaged.. one must’ve worn out and was repaired with bits of thin metal soldered onto the PCB, and the other had the bottom section snapped off and completely missing ( I only discovered this one after switching the game on to see if anything worked). Seeing this my heart sank and I began to have thoughts that I might’ve wasted my money on this machine, but after thinking about it for a while I have a plan to repair these stepper units boards. *%*
Also notice the melted insulation on the yellow wires in the score motor switches in the last pic.
I’d decided first thing to do was to see what did and didn’t work. Initially not much happened, the score reels tried to reset, some did reset ok but a couple were sluggish so I just reset them by hand for the moment. Flippers, bumpers and slings all worked (good start), but none of the scoring relays would latch, I eventually found a switch in the score motor that completes the latch circuit for the relays and opens the circuit after points are scored (readjusted the switch). I’ve got heaps more to do yet.. outhole relay still not latching, scoring switches are activating the 100, 1k, 10k point relays but the reels are not advancing which is causing coils to lock on, because the latch circuit is not being broken EOS switch on the reels. (I worked this out by advancing the reels by hand, when the reel coil plunger is pushed in the score relays reset and the locked on coils release.
I’ll get there eventually!!!
There was no manual or schematic with this game so I’m flying blind with the repairs. I do have some of it working, I gave the seized stepper units a quick clean up (I’ll restore them properly later) and have adjusted a few switches. I’ll get it all working first before I do any cleaning repainting etc. I definitely have my work cut out for me with the electrical/mechanical repairs to this one!!
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I think you could reproduce or repair that stepper bakerlite. Luckily, there looks to be one wiper on one "track". Not as bad as it looks.
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Mitch,
I parted out a Zac EM years ago (like over 10 years ago) - will have a look around over the next few days and see if those parts are still here.
If they are, they are yours!
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thanks Tony, thats an awesome offer, no probs if you dont have any of those bits as i can easily make them.
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I think you could reproduce or repair that stepper bakerlite. Luckily, there looks to be one wiper on one "track". Not as bad as it looks.
if Tony doesnt have the bits i need, i'll make the stepper unit discs out of fibreglass pcb. will be heaps stronger than bakelite
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well i've been messing around, on and off trying to get this game up and running for a few days now... and to be honest i'm not really getting anywhere much with it!!! !@# its really startin to piss me off. Having no schematics is not helping either, so i think im gonna leave it for a while, and have a break from it.
Im even having thoughts of maybe selling it off to someone else who might have more patience for it :lol
Honestly though i've NEVER had any game.. EM or SS, that has given me as much trouble trying to get it going. it sure is turning into a real headache for me.. maybe i'll have to change my username again.. lol
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After your magic resto threads and this machine is giving you the shits after a few week it must be bad. As for the stepper unit bits ive remade one of these onto the Fibreglass PCB and it worked a treat. GOOD LUCK
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Thanks i think i'l need a LOT of luck with this one.. especially getting it going!! the rest, (cab paint, PF resto etc) will be easy as, but im not touching anything else unless or until i can get it going properly. failing that, it 'll be sold, parted out... or..... you really dont wanna know what else ^&( ^&(
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Do what i did and shoot it lol **& **& Let me know if you want to see the video lol
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Nah it wont be necessary to shoot it.. not now :lol :lol
I ended up sorting out the problems i was having with it #*# #*#
The problem i was having was that several of the scoring relays on the bottom board wouldn't latch on when tripped by the PF switches.. there is a set of contacts on each relay to do this, and a switch on one of the score motor switch stacks that breaks the circuit when a particular score sequence is completed. It was the switch on the score motor that was causing all the grief!! (needed adjusting/cleaning).
I ended up finding it using my multimeter on the continuity test function. it was this switch that was stopping a total of six relays from latching that i found by tracing the latch wire from. Each relay has a wire from one side of the coil that goes to one set of switch contacts on the relay.. this is the relay latch contacts that latch the relay on after it is tripped, and the circuit is broken by the switch on the score motor that i traced the wire on the other relay contact to. (hope this makes sense.. i'll include a pic to hopefully help explain what i mean). i just included this little bit of info in case anyone else encounters this kind of problem, and that it might help!!
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A couple of pics to show what i mean.. the first is one of the score relays, showing the wire(s) for the latch circuit for the relay(s) and the white wire from the coil to the contacts, and the 2nd pic showing the set of contacts on the score motor switch stacks that caused all the problems i was having!
It was last night i worked on this and managed to find out what was wrong. the game could actually be played after i did this work!! though still with a few problems with a couple of the stepper units, and sticking score reels, that i'll work on next.
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Great work ! ^^^
Been down that tracing wires path on EM's a few times myself now .. can be tricky , espcecially with no manual or schematic .
Glad to hear you've overcome over that hurdle
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Great work ! ^^^
Been down that tracing wires path on EM's a few times myself now .. can be tricky , espcecially with no manual or schematic .
Glad to hear you've overcome over that hurdle
Especially when the colours on the (fabric) cables are faded and you cant tell which wires which ^&^
Or the fabric pulls back exposing naked wires and there touching each other.
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Great work glad to hear you got it sorted as now we get another restore thread $#$ (We will wont we?)
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Great start Mitch - and it is all the more satisfying when you find an issue without a schematic - just as hard as doing them over the 'net !
Even if you had the schematic, I THINK Zaccaria often ran out of the colored wires and they were not always what was indicated in the schematics.
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Great work glad to hear you got it sorted as now we get another restore thread $#$ (We will wont we?)
Yes you'll definitely get another restore thread *%*
It might not happen for a while though.. Armidale is a COLD bastard of a place in winter and it'll be too cold in the garage to do anything. I'll get it going then i'll most likely put it into storage for a few months while i do a few other things.. in the meantime i'll do a few more resto threads on some of my other games.
Plus im being asked to work on a few other peoples pins so i'll get them outta the way first
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Cool Mitch looking forward to more of your threads. Ans i know what its like others machines seem to take priority
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G’day all..
just thought I’d add a few more pics of the cabinet and backbox. As can be seen there are quite a few chunks of plywood missing that will need to be filled.
Don’t ya just LOVE the coin door lock??? :lol :lol
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I’ve been concentrating on getting the game up and running before doing anything else to the game. So far I’ve managed to get the game about 75% working… and WITHOUT the aid of a manual!! Speaking of which I managed to track one down, should have it some time next week. $#$
Last weekend I spent some time removing everything from the bottom board (one section at a time) and cleaning the 30 odd years of crap off the bottom board, using Nifti, and old toothbrush and rags. This is a step i've NEVER done in the past.. seems i've been looking too many of Nino's resto threads :lol :lol I didn’t get a pic of what it looked like before, believe me it was filthy. Notice the screened on markings for each relay/switch etc… these markings could hardly be seen. :lol :lol
And today while taking a break from repairing other peoples stuff, I removed one of the stepper unit discs from the bottom board so I could scan it to duplicate it. The second pic shows the stepper unit in question, after I took a pic of the wiring to the disc pcb, I unsoldered and removed the disc. Next I took it into my PC and scanned the disc at 300dpi, and spent a couple of hours editing and cleaning up the image, the 3rd pic shows a test printout on plain paper.
This will be printed onto “Press n Peel” film (a special type of transfer paper for making PCBs, available from Jaycar) on a laser printer, and ironed onto the copper board, (using an ordinary clothes iron) and then etched. I’ll describe the process in more detail (and post pics) when I get around to making the boards.. for those of you who are not familiar with making PCBs.
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aahh f**k i did it again, forgot to resize one of the pics!! &^& no wonder this lot took so long to upload :lol
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Well its been a LONG time coming, but I finally decided to do some more with that damn old Zac Universe, after some six months of dormancy with the project. TO be totally honest , I’ve not been motivated to do anything at all with it, deciding whether to pull my finger out and restore it or just to sell it off to someone else!! Well I decided yesterday to have a go at making the replacement stepper discs, that I did the artwork for six months ago. I may still end up selling the machine yet.. if I do it’ll be offered for sale here on AP first.
Ok here are the results from making the stepper discs. First I printed the art onto the “Pres n peel” film as per the instructions provided with the film (1st pic). First its necessary to save a ‘mirrored” copy of the art before printing it. Next I cut and prepped the blank pcb for the film by scrubbing with steel wool, and then scrubbing with water, Ajax and cloth, making sure to get all of the soap residue off. 2nd pic shows the press n peel film placed on to the pcb ready to be ironed on.
For anyone not familiar with this stuff, it is ironed on to the copper clad board with a clothes iron. In the past I’ve stuffed up a few attempts at doing this by (I think) not getting the board hot enough. Its important to get a LOT of heat into the film / board, usually about 4 to 5 minutes. (this is stated in the instructions for the Press n peel film). Also I use a piece of plain white A4 paper between the iron and the film. Once the film is ironed on and the board is nice n hot, I then held the board under running water to cool it and peeled the film off carefully. Sometimes there will be a few small bare patches where the film doesn’t iron on , these can be touched up with a pcb etch resist pen.
Last pic shows the board ready to be etched.
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Ok, heres the board being etched in Ferric Chloride pcb etchant, in the etching tank I bought years ago from Dick Smith (1st pic). This usually takes anywhere between 5 – 30 minutes depending on the strength/age of the etchant, temperature, etc, as anyone reading this who has made PCBs before will know. I actually diluted the etchant with hot water, 50/50, to get enough to cover the board. I actually made four boards while I was at it.. three stepper boards and another pcb I was making for another project. It took me about 30 minutes to etch four boards, one after the other!
Remaining pics show the end results, 2nd pic is before cleaning the resist off (I used thinners for this), last two pics are the boards cut and cleaned. I tinned the edges where the wires will be attached with solder, and just smeared the sections where the stepper unit fingers will rub with 3 in 1 oil to keep them from tarnishing before I fit them into the game.
The board in the bottom right of the last pic was made for my home made Vortex pin, it will be an upgraded solenoid driver board for the game. You can expect to see a thread soon about the work/upgrades Ive been doing on Vortex..
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Now, when you go to those lengths to restore a machine we know you are serious!!
I have often thought about buying some PCB making gear but never had anything motivating enough to justify the cost, but I can see you have made it worthwhile.
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Impressive Mitch - I learn something new every day ^^^
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Thats awsome mitch i usually make PCBs the hard way by hand with the etch resistant pen after seeing your great results ill be buying some Press N Peel for sure
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Hey Mitch - firstly it's EXCELLENT to see you back here, just hasn't been the same here - we need some more EM love
So keep the updates coming.
What pisses me off is I totally stripped an EM Zac about 10 years ago and threw nearly all of it away cause I thought nobody would ever need it @.@
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Hey Mitch - firstly it's EXCELLENT to see you back here, just hasn't been the same here - we need some more EM love
So keep the updates coming.
What pisses me off is I totally stripped an EM Zac about 10 years ago and threw nearly all of it away cause I thought nobody would ever need it @.@
I wouldnt worry to much Tony from what ive seen so far Mitch can make anything he needs from scratch *%*
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Any one can,you can do. *%* just wait till someone see's and plays he's Vortex.It's some thing else.
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Now that's a restoration! Need a part? Make a part!
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so how long has press and peel been available?
it would have been great if it was out 8 years ago.
it would have made making proto type p.c.b's so much easier for me
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It's been around for at least 5 years.
If you want some then I know you can get it from Electus/Jaycar.
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Actually, further research suggests that is has been around since at least 2000 (but maybe not available in Australia that long?).
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It's been around for at least 5 years.
If you want some then I know you can get it from Electus/Jaycar.
yeah been available at least that long, i used it about that long ago at work to make boards for a customer who wanted customised timers made up. They were my first introduction into using Press n peel film. Its not that hard to use really. Just make sure, as i said, to get the board nice and hot when ironing it on. And its NOT mentioned in the instructions, but you must print you artwork in MIRROR IMAGE (reverse) onto the film! luckily that was pointed out to me by my boss or I would've made that mistake first time i used it. :lol
Available from Jaycar, packet of 5 sheets for $35.00 catalog no HG-9980, as is everything neede to make PCBs
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Hey Mitch - firstly it's EXCELLENT to see you back here, just hasn't been the same here - we need some more EM love
So keep the updates coming.
What pisses me off is I totally stripped an EM Zac about 10 years ago and threw nearly all of it away cause I thought nobody would ever need it @.@
Thanks Tony, i havent been too far away, i frequent the site nearly every day just havent had much to contribute lately.
You wouldnt believe some of the things i'd thrown out years ago... things that'd make you cry... things i thought at the time were WORTHLESS ie really nice playfields etc !!! !!!
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One thing i forgot to mention.. its possible to warp the boards from too much heat i found out the hard way when i did the last two ^&^ ^&^
Dont worry though if anyone tries this method though of making boards... if the board warps they can be reheated with the iron after they are etched (place a sheet of paper between the iron and the board) and use the clothes iron to heat it up again, then just hold it flat with a few books etc til it cools ^^^
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Mitch,can not wait for a thread on a playfield wall hanging of yours,with some hi tec lighting,sounds and effects :lol
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looks like its time to get protel out and design some more p.c.bs
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Yes Mitch I agree with Tony we have missed you. $!&
I know your not that close to Newcastle but you should try to make down to a one of our pinball meets, Im sure a lot of us guy's would like to pick your brain and chat.
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Yes Mitch I agree with Tony we have missed you. $!&
I know your not that close to Newcastle but you should try to make down to a one of our pinball meets, Im sure a lot of us guy's would like to pick your brain and chat.
If you can make id down to Rollerballs meet would be great as i dont think ill make another one up there for a while ^^^
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Yes Mitch I agree with Tony we have missed you. $!&
I know your not that close to Newcastle but you should try to make down to a one of our pinball meets, Im sure a lot of us guy's would like to pick your brain and chat.
If you can make id down to Rollerballs meet would be great as i dont think ill make another one up there for a while ^^^
Well its not outta the question for me to drive to Newcastle for a pinball meet. Definitely something for me to to keep in mind, all i need is a free weekend with no band gigs *%* *%*
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Not much progress with this one today, due to Country Energy doing powerline work in my street so no power til late this afternoon. anyhow i dragged the playfield and bottom panel relay board out to the garage to start fitting the stepper discs. 2nd and 3rd pics just as a reminder as to what im replacing...
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And heres what happened when I removed the wiper fingers off one of the stepper units. It fell apart in my hand!! AAARGH.. not good. These have plastic or nylon rivets holding them together and im not sure if they simply broke or if someone else had them apart before… because if you look at the last pic in the previous post, the top row of wires have all been moved over one tag to the left. So im guessing they dismantled the wiper fingers and moved them to suit the new wire positions!!!
This development had me worried for a while, but I decided it wasn’t too bad coz I had taken pics of each stepper unit prior to doing anything to them. So luckily I was able to work out (I hope!!!) how it all went together. Also luckily it was only the two middle fingers that fell out, the rest were held in place by the two halves of the broken rivets. Pics show me piecing it together temporarily til I decide how I can hold it back together.
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more pics
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well after THAT little disaster, i decided to put it aside for now and drill and fit one of the stepper discs i made to one of the other stepper units just to see how it would fit. Pic below shows one fitted and adjusted, just the wires to be soldered on.
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Awesome work................
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Awesome work................
Couldnt agree more - awesome work.
I have to admit, making a wiper board would have been put in the "too hard basket" for me and i like to pride myself that my basket is not too near.... nothing is impossible - many thanks for the inspiration.. this has to be the most interesting restore thread ive read for quite some time.
Keep it coming.. im REALLY enjoying this ^^^ ^^^
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Very, very clever ^^^
Following with great interest and awe !
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Very nice. Can't wait to see more!
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G’day all
I’ve been working on rebuilding the stepper units on the playfield and thought I’d post some pics of the end results.
In my last posts I mentioned how one set of wiper fingers fell to bits when I removed it from the stepper unit. Well the pics in this post show how I repaired it. I bought a pack of M2 size machine screws from Dick Smith, these packs include various length screws, nuts, flat washers, spring and shake proof washers.. just the thing to repair this wiper arm I thought! I selected a couple of screws of appropriate length and fitted two short lengths of heatshrink tubing, just long enough to poke through the wiper arm screw holes… thus insulating the screws from the wiper fingers! I fitted the screws through the holes, the heatshrink made them a perfect fit, added a flat washer and a spring washer to each one, plus some loctite for good measure.
Pics show the results.
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Next I removed all of the moving parts from each stepper unit, cleaned all of the old oil and grease from the pivot points of the levers and arms. Notice one of these actuator arms has a nylon piece that slots into the solenoid plunger and is riveted to the metal piece that moves the stepper wheel… well the rivets had worked loose on ALL of these arms on each stepper. I was going to drill the rivets out and put bolts through them but decided to use a ball peen hammer to tighten the rivets up again instead. This seemed to tighten them up nicely. I cleaned everything up with metho and refitted everything, and putting a few drops of 3 in 1 oil on any metal to metal pivot points. Note also this game uses a lot of metal coil sleeves like most of the old Wms Ems did (these Zac games use a lot of Wms parts it seems), so I pulled the out and replaced them with nylon sleeves. ALL of the small coils had these metal sleeves, the larger coils had nylon sleeves already fitted but I put on new ones. I checked the operation of each stepper unit by hand and adjusted where necessary.
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Absolutely Top Notch Work ^^^ ^^^ ^^^
Like others have said .. can't wait for more updates .. you are truly proving that nothing is impossible.
Very Very Well done
Cheers
Dave
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On one of the stepper units ( the last one I worked on)! There was one screw on one of the coils that just refused to move. Someone must’ve cross threaded it I think coz it was only half screwed in. and the slots were all burred up which didn’t help! At this point I thought some heat might help it move so out came my little Butane gas torch, this was something I bought from Dick Smith a year ago and have never used until now!! well it seemed to do the trick (1st pic)… that and a pair of side cutters on the screw to turn it and it came out with not too much effort. #*# Some replacement screws were found on an old Wms Superstar playfield I have here using for parts.
The stepper disc on the last unit (2nd pic) was still in good nick so I simply sanded the traces smooth with some 400 wet/dry sandpaper and refitted the wiper arm. Last two pics show the repaired steppers with the new boards.
all i need to do now is replace one stepper disc on the bottom panel relay board, and i'll put the pf and relay board back in the game and see if it works!!after that i'll clean and adjust score reels/relays etc and get it all up and running before i pull it all down again for a full restore *%*
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Hi again just a quick update this time nothing too exciting. Spent the last couple of afternoons rebuilding the bottom relay panel steppers, no major dramas, just a broken coil stop that fell to bits when unscrewed (see 1st pic). Luckily my old Wms Superstar pf came to the rescue again, found a good coil stop on there.
Last night i fitted the bottom panel and pf back into the cabinet and guess what...
IT WORKED #*# #*# #*#
well just a few issues that had to be dealt with.. mainly the fact that the ball in play unit wouldnt advance intermittently. I eventually worked out thre was a problem with the Index relay on the bottom board, or rather a switch on the score motor wasnt allowing it to latch properly.. when the outhole relay activated, it reset the ball index relay immediately instead of after a short delay. and the ball advance coil voltage is controlled by the index relay so the ball in play/player up wouldnt advance!! It took me the whole afternoon to work this one out ^&^
the score motor latch switch for this relay wasnt even on the schematic!! but now it works and i actually got to play a few games on it $#$ $#$
I still have some work to do... the extra ball unit intermittently wont reset after each ball, and i still have the score reels and player unit to overhaul in the backbox.
2nd pic shows the pf lit up. Note also that NOTHING has been done to this playfield as yet as far as cleaning etc in this pic.
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Outstanding, Mitch ^^^
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Congrats Mitch .. no doubt a great sense of achievement on this one eh?
Interesting to see your game has the same bumper caps as my Zac Moonflight EM.
Cheers
Dave
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Hi guys… another bit of an update on the progress on Universe. Last weekend I sealed the backglass with Triple Thick to try and save the art from any more deterioration. First I carefully cleaned it with tissues and Windex.. well as much as I could do without doing any more damage. Then I gave it three coats.. one light mist coat, then two more heavier coats. There were a couple of sections lifting badly so I used the “cling wrap” trick to hole the peeling ink down while it dried. Next day I was able to remove the cling wrap, worked a treat!! There are sections of this glass I will repaint using the same techniques I used on my Stern Dracula backglass… but for now I’ll leave it as is.
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For about the last week I’ve been doing the steppers and the score reel cleanups/repairs in the back box. Actually I’d been going back n forth between this game’s backglass, the backbox mechanics rebuild and Cam’s (big dog)’s Meteor that I’m repairing for him.
These few pics are of the player unit in the backbox, which was in dire need of a rebuild. First thing I did was remove the wiper disc and soak it in Prepsol overnight to remove any oil and grease in the contact pins. While the stepper disc was soaking dismantled/cleaned and rebuilt the rest of the player units mechanics.
Notice the crappy looking collapsed springs on the wiper unit in the 2nd pic. I had to replace these with new springs, some of them are already done in this pic(the narrower springs in the pics are replacement springs I used). The originals that were still in good shape were left alone. In order to remove the pins and springs I had to grind off the flattened ends of each pin (that holds them in place) to remove them. On each pair of pins I soldered a piece of wire to help get a better electrical contact between each pair (rather than rely on the contact between the pins, their bushings and the printed track on the disc), and the wire/solder doubles to keep the pins in place! (3rd pic).
Last pic is the player unit rebuilt. At the moment im half way through doing the score reels, i've had a couple of small issues to deal with in this area, and I came up with a couple of unusual but effective fixes that I’ll detail in the next update!!
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Loving the progress updates Mitch ^^^
Cheers
Dave
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Hi all, just another mini update. Been working on the score reels and the match unit. As mentioned in my last post had a couple of small issues doing the score reels, both the 3rd and 4th player reels are now done, just the 1st and 2nd player reels and the credit unit to go.
One problem I ran into with the 4th player tens score reel was a badly worn plunger nylon lever, the hole being slightly elongated and sloppy. Because of this I couldn’t get the reel to advance properly when actuated by hand when I put it all back together, the lever wasn’t pulling in quite far enough to click into the teeth on the reel, because of the wear. Well… heres how I fixed it..I heated the nylon with my heat gun while pushing the lever onto the edge of the workbench, thus closing up the hole slightly! I was careful to heat it just enough for the nylon to give, then I took the heat away immediately (1st pic). This worked a treat, actually too good, because I then had to open the hole slightly with a drill bit (2nd pic) to get the lever to fit cleanly onto the plunger roll pin. This completely fixed the reel and it now works like a charm. I wasn’t too worried about ruining the lever with the heat gun, as I have and old Wms Superstar backbox in storage in Port Macquarie that I will be able to raid parts from if needed.
Last pic shows the bottom reels all back together and in place.
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Next I decided to rebuild the match unit. Notice in the 1st pic how crappy and worn the some of the reel numbers were. Only the ‘300, 400 and 800’ were badly affected luckily. I decided to make adhesive decals for the damaged numbers as it was the easiest fix I could think of. Now.. I just had to scan this circular object on my flatbed scanner!!! I remembered reading, I think it was one of Daniels threads?? Hope I got that right?? Where he just rolled the reel down the scanner glass as it was scanning. So I thought id try the same thing. It took me several goes before I got it right, and I only scanned the damaged numbers anyway so it wasn’t too bad to do. Anyhow after I had some good scans of the numbers I needed to replace, and had fixed them up in photostudio, I printed them out onto clear adhesive A4 inkjet label material.
In the 2nd pic you can see my decals ready to be applied, the ‘400’is already stuck on in this pic. First though I cleaned the old numbering of with Prepsol and cloth, leaving just enough of the old number on there to help with aligning the decals.
Last two pics show the rebuilt match unit ready for the reel to be fitted.
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And here is on of my stuffups.. this match unit has a solenoid activated lever that hides the match number when the game is being played. Well the lever was slightly obscuring the bottom of the match number so I had to do something about that. Someone had previously just twisted the lever so it the number could be seen but this looked crappy to me, so I straightened the lever and thought id just bend the solenoid plunger rest stopper up a bit… well it just broke the spot weld and came off @.@ Why did I try this?? Because im BLOODY STUPID that’s why :lol Anyway there was an easy fix.. there was already a hole close by so I just remounted the stopper to this hole.. panic over.. lol
And the 2nd pic.. what is with these f**kin Zac/Wms coil stops/brackets that they just have to break when you remove them??!! ^&^ I’ve had about three coil stops break on this game and now one of the reel coils decided to break. Luckily I have some of these on the old superstar backbox I have but its not here, so I just put it back together with the broken one so I can get the game going, and I’ll replace it later when I can get to Port Macq and get the bits I need from the Superstar backbox.
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Here are some before and after pics of the match unit reel. Also I put some mylar over the reel to protect the numbering from further damage.
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Yes Yes ,more good work @@*. Looks great ,the numbers are touched up with brush or paint pen?
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Yes Yes ,more good work @@*. Looks great ,the numbers are touched up with brush or paint pen?
Neither, they are decals. I know its cheating a bit doing it that way, but that way im guaranteed to get good clean results *%*
And thanks to everyone for the positive comments so far.. muchly appreciated
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Score reels and the backbox steppers are done… WOW that was a PAINFUL exercise, the one part of EM restores I definitely do lot like. lol. Was a major pain rebuilding all those score reels but it was worth it in the end, as the game fired up and they worked pretty much first go, just a couple of switches that needed adjusting.
One problem I had with the reels after rebuilding was that a few of them were overrunning.. ie not stopping in the correct position. The 2nd pic shows what I mean..i hope..lol. notice the tooth on the reel that should come to rest in the position shown by the red arrow, on top of the coil plunger’s nylon lever, but ends up going past the lever as shown by the yellow arrow. On removing the offending reels from the game I noticed a lot of sideways movement of the reel on its shaft. So the tooth on the reel was barely catching on the plunger lever and was sometimes going slipping past, I believe because of the excessive sideways movement of the reel. I found the easiest fix was to use a slightly thicker washer on the reel, to replace the original thin washer (3rd pic). This fixed the problem completely. I just had to make sure that the reel still spun freely. (hope all of this made sense.. lol)
The game is now fully functional, apart from some minor pf switch adjustments needed. I’ll now play it for a while, then pull it all down for the cab repaint and playfield restore.
Also I’ve made a start on the backglass.. coming along nicely… will post pics in a day or two when I have something worthwhile to report.. cheers for now
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I've been looking at the backglass on this one, and i've come to the conclusion that... its ROOTED. you can see it from the front, paint is lifting just about everywhere.so i've kinda lost interest in restoring this game now. i DID start, as i said re doing some of it yesterday, but the damage, especially in the man in the middle of the glass is going to be probably too hard to repair,especially as its backlit, and will look awful if not done right. and to be honest i think its beyond my abilities to repair.
And i reckon finding a replacement is going to be near impossible. so with that in mind its looking like this game wont be taken any further, im sorry to say. !!! Anyway it will be put on hold for now til i decide what to do with it.
I hate to say it but it may even be parted out, after doing all that work on the mechanicals.
dont know at this point what else to do with it.
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I'll chime in with what I hope can be some encouragement.
Every pin restored doesn't have to be perfectly mint. Sure, we always want our projects to look as nice as they can. Sometimes the factor is time, other times money, and even sometimes, as this time appears, unobtainable parts.
You've shown that you have the ability to make what you can't find. That's awesome! A backglass might be outside of your area of skill, that's something I can appreciate, I can fix dang near anything on my machines, but cosmetics are the area that challenges me. Sometimes I can hire someone to repair something cosmetically for me.
I faced a similar project over a year ago. I acquired a Terminator 2 pinball that was a pre-production sample machine. I love the sample and prototype machines, because they are different than production, and quite rare. The machine was completely trashed.
This project is one that I spent 50% more money on than it would've cost to just go buy a dead mint T2. And it still looks like a beat to death route T2. Seriously, I've never seen one this beat before.
It plays very well, and it's clean enough to eat off of now - but it's still ugly, and will always be ugly. It has lots of playfield wear to the wood, and the cabinet is beat up.
I started with this
http://gallery.myhomegameroom.com/gallery/t2_sample_asrecd (http://gallery.myhomegameroom.com/gallery/t2_sample_asrecd)
And I ended up with this
http://gallery.myhomegameroom.com/gallery/sample_t2_fs (http://gallery.myhomegameroom.com/gallery/sample_t2_fs)
Parting out a survivor - especially one of this vintage and rarity - would be a crime against pinball. Be proud of your work. Enjoy it. And consider the fact that you've given life back to the machine.
Take some time away from it, if you need to - but please don't part it out!
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the truth is that this game has been fighting me every step of the way!! I think i need a major break from it because this game is giving me an intense dislike for EMs!! and thats NOT good! I really DONT want to give up on this one, since i've put soooo much effort into it so far!
If worse come to worse, i can always just paint the back of the glass in red and pull out the bulbs.. much as i HATE people who do that, but at the moment im just stuck for ideas. You see, the area that has me stumped has lots of detail, (black and purple lines) if it were just solid colour id simply scrape out and spray in new colour, same as i did on my Dracula glass. I tried it on one section, but leaving in the detail lines, looked GREAT unlit but showed up BAD when backlit. If i can redraw (paint) in the detail i can fix it. the acrylic red i stared using was actually a really good match for the reds on the glass.
I've never given up on a restore yet... and dont want to start now *.* *.*
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Dont worry peoples im NOT giving up yet *.* *.*
After having a bit of a think about the backglass problems, i've come up with a plan to save the glass, It'll involve a LOT of hours of work and planning, and i DO mean HOURS.. it will be a pretty big undertaking!!
what i have in mind to do, most of you will think im crazy for trying what i'm about to do, and maybe i am.. but i think i can make it work. Stay tuned, im not saying anymore about my plans at this stage.. i'll post the results when done!!
I swear this game will NOT be parted out *.* *.* *.* *.* *.* *.* *.*
Cheers ...Mitch
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Good luck with your plan! I have no doubt it will turn out fantastic and be of your usual high quality work!
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You will sort it out Mitch. I ^^^
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Good one Mitch !
Happy to hear you have not given up on this machine. Sometimes a bit of a break can give you new ideas of how to tackle harder situations like this. Keen to see your progress at a later date.
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Thanx guys for the supportive words, you wont have to wait too long for more updates. *.* *.*
i've been a busy boy for the last few afternoons, yes i've put my plans into action, and im happy to say its going well so far! been working on it from the time i get home from work til about 11 at night everynight this week so far.
stay tuned!!
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Mitch,
I can't believe you wanted to part it out at one point *.*
Mate you must of just had enough of it at that point.
Really glad you are pushing ahead (so much for your big break :lol) and looking forward to the excellent results that I'm sure you will achieve ^^^
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Mitch,
I can't believe you wanted to part it out at one point *.*
Mate you must of just had enough of it at that point.
Nah that wasnt me.. that was an imposter pretending to be me who said that.. thats my excuse and im sticking with it :lol
I never really WANTED to part it out tony, was just , as you said, i'd had enough at that point, and wasnt sure what to do about the backglass, but its ALL GOOD now, as my restoration ideas for the glass are coming together, slowly but surely *%* *%*
So i now have renewed enthusiasm for the project. expect some updates within the next few days
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Hi guys, I’ve been busy every afternoon this week after work working on this backglass, some nights til midnight!! I’ve made some good progress but first here are a few pics of how the glass looked before any work was done…
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...
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I did make a start last weekend as I said before in a previous post, touching up some of the reds, just to get the ball rolling so to speak. Here are a few pics.. the red acrylic I used is not a bad match at all. Only slightly darker, but since I intended on redoing all of the reds, it was no big deal.
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...
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And here in these pics is the BAD part, that had me stumped as to what to do with this glass, and what nearly caused me to scrap the whole project. Normally I wouldn’t have been scared by this, but look at all of the fine black and purple detail in Mr Universe’s (for want of a better name for him) body, arms & legs. It was the thought of trying to replicate all of this that had me scared. Normally with flaking backglass paint I just remove it all and spray in a close matching colour. But “what the hell do I do with THIS?” I was thinking.
The thought of sitting there and hand painting in this detail just didn’t bear thinking about, but I thought to myself ‘what if I scan or get pics of this area of the glass, and repair it in photostudio and just make decals’??? well that is exactly what I ended up doing! Sure it still ended up being a monumental task, and an INSANE amount of work doing this, even on a PC rather that hand painting, but I was able to make it work.
Some of you will probably think im crazy for attempting this, and maybe I was.. spending something like 30 hours in total in front of the computer just cleaning up the images!! But hey.. what else was I going to do to remedy the situation? As far as I was concerned it was do it or scrap the game. I reckon finding a better glass would’ve been next to impossible.
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...
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1st pic here shows the paint im using.. Holts PowerPlus auto acrylic spray paint.. same as I used on my Dracula backglass restore. the red is even the same exact colour I used on the Drac glass!
First thing I had to do was get some images of ‘Mr Universe’ to make the adhesive decals from. I ended up taking pics with my digital camera without the flash on for the images. Then it was just a matter of spending the insane amount of hours in front of the computer, cleaning up and resizing the images. If you all think im MAD for going to these lengths to save a glass.. you’re probably right. Guilty as charged.. lol
Anyhow the pics show the decals done, and the glass cleaned off ready to have the decals applied. Of course I had to carefully check the sizing, I did this by printing test images onto plain paper, and holding the paper against the glass, and making the image smaller or larger as needed before reverse printing them onto clear A4 size adhesive. I did this til I had the image size right, about 4 or 5 attempts for each decal (I did them in three sections, one for each leg, and one for his arms and body). I haven’t done anything with his head as yet.. still making up my mind whether to redo his head or just leave it as that part isn’t that bad.
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How did you remove the red from the art mitch? Was there a trick you used or just a trucklad of patience????
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Ok… these pics show the leg decals placed onto the glass. I thought id try these ones first before doing the top part of his body. I figured I only had ONE chance to get these on straight and bubble free.. scary stuff. The first one went on great, bit the second one got an air bubble under it.. AAAGH!! I managed to get it back off without doing any major damage, then I printed a second one and tried again.. worked much better this time luckily. I’ve overlapped the decals onto the surrounding artwork rather that trying to cut them in. as a result there a noticeable air gap but it can only be seen from certain angles. The camera flash makes it look bad in the last pic (near his undies) but in reality it not that noticeable really. Im pretty happy with the results, and anyway it’s a big improvement over a glass that would’ve more that likely been thrown out how it was so im not complaining..
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Next I did the top part of Mr Universe’s body. 1st pic shows my test print of his top half, checking the sizing. Soon as I had it right I cleaned all of the old cracked paint off the glass. Forgot to mention before but when doing this I use a sharp scalpel, heated with a flame (cigarette lighter) to cut the paint close to the key lines, so as not to risk damaging the surrounding art work of the area im repainting. Then I scrape the old crappy flaking paint out, up to the lines previously cut, then clean the glass with windex and cotton buds or soft cloth, sprayed onto the cloth NOT the glass!
2nd pic is with the decal on, ready for paint. Of course this one had to go on slightly crooked didn’t it??!! It shows up on his left arm a bit (black key line on the bottom ).. F**K it.. its ON there now and it aint comin off. Not to bad in my opinion, well as I said before the glass would only have been launched anyway.
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J*sus - here is a post for best restoration of a backglass on Aussie Pinball.
Mitch, you sure have balls and this has sure payed off for you.
Just lost for words how excellent this game has come up ^^^
And to think you were thinking of parting this game out! Hard to believe now, isn't it #@#
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And heres Mr Universe being all painted up!!
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I've never seen such dedication to repair a backglass. Never. Regardless of the title or era, this tops it for me. If you can save this backglass, Mitch, you can save anything !
Strange how just the reds REALLY suffered.
His underpants came through unscathed. On behalf of Mr Universe, I'd like to thank you for that %.% %.%
Awesome work.
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Repainting the purple in his cape.
Well that’s the hard part done.. the rest of the glass should be smooth sailin from now on (I hope)
Stay tuned!!
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I've never seen such dedication to repair a backglass. Never. Regardless of the title or era, this tops it for me. If you can save this backglass, Mitch, you can save anything !
Strange how just the reds REALLY suffered.
His underpants came through unscathed. On behalf of Mr Universe, I'd like to thank you for that %.% %.%
Awesome work.
Thanks Nino
There is quite a bit of paint lifting on this glass... not just the red, the purple and a fair bit of the dark blue are lifting as well... another reason why the glass/game came close to being scrapped. ALL of the red and purple will be completely redone as well. i still have a fair bit of work to do on the glass, and the results will be posted when done.
and yes his undies DID come through unscathed.. not even any skidmarks... though he may've been sh*tin himself when he saw me coming at him with a scalpel :lol :lol :lol :lol
thanks again ^^^
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How did you remove the red from the art mitch? Was there a trick you used or just a trucklad of patience????
Daniel, most of it was , as you say a truckload of patience. But in Arcsoft PhotoStudio that i use (came with my Canon scanner) there is, in the tool bar a thingy called the 'magic wand tool' that can be used to click on a section of colour to highlight it then i hit the delete on the keyboard to remove the selected colour etc. sometimes i was able to select large areas and remove the red this way, but some times it also removed things that weren't supposed to be removed! so there was also a fair bit of manually selecting small sections to delete the colour.
It took me THREE goes to do the chest/arms decal ( the last one i did) because of that magic wand tool removing too muct art, it removed stuff without me realising and i had to start all over again ^.^ and each decal artwork took me about 6 hours each to do.. so that last one took the longest to do.. worked on practically ALL day yesterday!
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couldnt help myself.. just had to sit the glass back into the game and see it backlit.. *%*
so heres a couple of pics, 1st one with camera flash on, 2nd one without.
looks even better in the flesh!!
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Only way i can really say what im thinking F@@k ME thats is awsome........ Well done mitch you truly can do anything. And now a quote from waynes world
$%$ $%$ WERE NOT WORTHY WERE NOT WORTHY $%$ $%$
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$$( $$( $$( $$( $$(
FARRRK ME ALRIGHT !
You need big cahunas to hit the bg with a scalpel !
I believe Mitch is the first ever person who i have come across on the web who has posted a BG restore in this fashion.... Go back to the Drac bg and now this !
Love you work..... Awesome stuff !
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Hey Mitch Im sure you triple thicked the glass first. My question to you is , When scratching off damaged art work I have never done this before when a triple thick paint has been applied. How easy is it to remove with a clear coat thats been added ?
Mitch here is a tip. When I have repaired the white on the backglass around the score reels. I get good results from totally removing all white with a scraper. I cut out small squares of hobby tape stick them to the glass where the reel sits and then spray a thin coat of matt white , then with a scalpel I remove the tape before the paint dries. The end result is, well it looks new.
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Mitch .. Absolutely A1 Awesome work ^^^ ^^^ ^^^.
As others have said, if you can do this, you can do anything .
Top Notch ^^^
Cheers
Dave
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Hey Mitch Im sure you triple thicked the glass first. My question to you is , When scratching off damaged art work I have never done this before when a triple thick paint has been applied. How easy is it to remove with a clear coat thats been added ?
Mitch here is a tip. When I have repaired the white on the backglass around the score reels. I get good results from totally removing all white with a scraper. I cut out small squares of hobby tape stick them to the glass where the reel sits and then spray a thin coat of matt white , then with a scalpel I remove the tape before the paint dries. The end result is, well it looks new.
Hi Mark, yes i did triple thick the glass before i did anything. It scapes off fairly easily where it has been applied, i always score the paint first with a scalpel blade heated in a flame, close to the black keylines, then scrape the paint off up to he scalpel cut, giving me nice clean edges.
thanks for the tip re redoing the white score reel areas, was already toying with that idea.. sounds like a good plan *%*
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All I can say is I admire your perseverance and commitment. That machine will be a credit to your ingenuity.
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Now there ya go, that's more like it!
Very nice!
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Another progress update;
Been busy the last few days after work repainting sections of the red and purple on the backglass, scraping out the old flaking paint, cleaning the glass with Windex, masking off the surrounding areas from overspray with paper stencils to spray in the new colour. Most of these areas are ones I thought I wouldn’t bother doing, but I decided I couldn’t leave them how they were!
Anyway some pics of the work being done…
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More pics.. and a shot of the front of the glass after this work.
Sorry .. forgot to resize the second pic!
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And here is one of the sections (1st pic) that had cracking in the paint that couldn’t be seen until backlit. And the next few pics are how I chose to correct the problem, I used this small area as a test section. Because this cracking couldn’t be seen from the front til backlit, and that id previously sealed the glass with triple thick, I just sprayed some dark blue on to hide the cracks, and later after this blue had dried I sprayed on some silver to completely block out the light. Because the glass was sealed with triple thick, there was no danger of the different coloured blue I used leeching through to the front of the glass. These pics are before the silver went on. Even without the silver it all but blocks out the light I had shining behind it. Simple but effective fix me thinks!!
Notice I have a few small areas of missing paint to touch up.. I’ll probably just do these with waterbased artists acrylics.
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Looks great mitch are you tracing the areas then cutting them out with a scalpel? Looks very good i have a few i might have to try your method on
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And heres what I did this morning. I thought id have a go at repairing the white score reel areas. Originally was going to use white adhesive label to replace the white paint and cut out the score windows, but I decided to give SPURRs idea a try (repaint these areas). Only variation from his idea was how I chose to mask off the score windows. I scanned one of the score reel sections, cleaned the image up a bit, and copied it to make four images in photostudio and made adhesive stencils from adhesive clear inkjet label! Worked a treat as I was able to print out perfectly sized and spaced windows onto the adhesive label that could be simply be cut out with a scalpel once stuck down onto the glass.
Once the adhesive masking stencils were made I cleaned all of the old white out of the 1st and 2nd player sections to start with, and cleaned the glass with Windex. Of course.. as I was cutting the white paint close top the black with the heated scalpel blade… some of the surrounding black came off didn’t it?? ^.^ Making more work for me. I then had to fix these bits before I could continue. After masking off and airbrushing down some black paint I was back in business. After carefully applying the score window maskings and cutting out the sections to be painted, I masked off the surrounding areas and sprayed on a few light coats of flat white acrylic paint. Then after a couple of minutes I removed the score window masks.. worked a treat!!! Thanks SPURR for inspiring me to give this a try!! As I said before I HAD been thinking of trying this, but it was SPURRs tip which provided the inspiration to give it a go!! ^^^
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Looks great mitch are you tracing the areas then cutting them out with a scalpel? Looks very good i have a few i might have to try your method on
yepp just tracing the areas onto plain A4 paper, shining a light through the glass and tracing the outline of the light. then cutting out the tracing and using the paper as a stencil for spraying the paint.
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Looks great mitch are you tracing the areas then cutting them out with a scalpel? Looks very good i have a few i might have to try your method on
yepp just tracing the areas onto plain A4 paper, shining a light through the glass and tracing the outline of the light. then cutting out the tracing and using the paper as a stencil for spraying the paint.
You make it sound so simple mitch well done ^^^
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a couple more pics showin how the glass looks now. just have to do the bottom two score reel areas, and do some touchups in the blue areas #*#
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Great job Mitch , how good does the score reels look now ! When back lite it will look so much better done this way.
Keep keeping us updated Mitch its great to see.
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Another update;
Been busy as with the backglass, working on some of the smaller paint loss areas, mainly in the dark blue. In the 1st pic is an example of what I had to repair. Most of this was done with waterbased artists acrylic paint. After several attempts of trying to colour match the blue and just brush it onto the chipped areas in the section pictured, I decided to scrape out the whole area close to the black keylines on the yellow stars (2nd pic) and just brush in the new colour right up to the keylines.
To me, nothing looks worse than mismatching patches of colours in a large area of one colour, we’ve all seen it.. backglasses and playfields with a blob of mismatching paint in a large area of colour, with no other detail.. stands out like a third nut on a greyhound!! So a trick I occasionally use on glasses and PFs is to just repaint an entire area, right up to another different coloured area, as can be seen in the 3rd pic. So basically in a nutshell what i mean is, i find its easy to conceal a slightly mismatched colour touchup in a highly detailed area that it is in a large area of a single colour. if those missing sections of blue paint were out in the open i would've scraped out and repainted ALL of the blue.
Yes the repainted area IS slightly darker in that pic, but it looks much better in person, trust me! And as I’ve maintained in the past, these things will NEVER look like new no matter what you do. BUT they can look 100 times better if you just put the time into making them look , as I call it “decent”. Like I said before, im pretty pleased with how this glass is turning out, a glass that would’ve otherwise been launched.
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Spraying on the silver/grey masking paint to block out the light. Once again it just automotive acrylic spraypaint. To mask off the areas I don’t want painted I make paper stencils by placing A4 printer paper onto the back of the glass with a strong light shining up from the front so I can see where to trace. Then I cut out the unwanted areas with a scalpel and place it onto the glass, and hold it in place with a few weights (sockets nuts or scraps of metal etc, im using electric screwdriver bits..lol). I then cover the rest of the glass with paper or cloth to protect the rest of the glass from overspray.. you should see the glass as I do this… a backglass covered with sheets and paper with just a small section exposed.. it looks like im doing surgery. :lol :lol
Then I spray the paint on.. 2 or 3 light to medium coats, then I usually pull the stencil off straight after the last coat. Doing this type of thing, I HAVE had the paper pull up surrounding paint because of spraying on too much paint, and leaving it on too long.. not good! Hence why I remove the paper stencil quickly.
Anyway here are a few pics showing the process I used. It aint that pretty from the back I’ll admit, but the silver also helps hide most of the touchups from a casual glance at the back of the glass. but not too many people will ever see the back once its in the game hey??
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And here is the end result… well not quite finished.. about 90% done. I still need to clean the front of the glass yet (not done in these pics, its covered in fingerprints and crap!). I have a couple of small touchups to do on Mr Universe’s head, but that can wait for now. I need to get a start on a few other jobs that are waiting to be done.. including the wildfyre pf that I have to do.
Next… cab respray will be started after new year when I have time off work… watch this space!!
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Very inspiring Mitch from talk of parting this machine out because of a stuffed backglass to this in such a short time....
You really are the man ^^^
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Outstanding, Mitch ^^^
Certainly gives hope to a few of us that would not have attempted this level of backglass restoration.
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I really like the techniques and approach you have taken here on the BG. Each of the steps is achievable by ham fisted amateurs (like me) and the attitude that you wont get perfection but will improve what you have so much is spot on. When you finish I reckon you should post side by side pictures of before and after just to demonstrate the dramatic improvement.
Thanks for documenting and showing, it does inspire us to be a bit more bold and attempt something we might have previously thought impossible.
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Thanks guys.
This backglass sure was a challenge for me, im pretty happy with how it turned out.. and yes the game was close to being parted out or sold at one point but im glad now that i persisted with it. At that particular time i was fed up with the problems i was having with the game, and with the backlass issues i thought i'd had enough of it. BUT... after leaving the game alone for a few days and having a good think about it, i came up with the ideas that i put into this glass. Im not aware of anyone having restored a glass in this fashion before, but im not going to say im the first to do it either.. i reckon some one out there would've HAD to have tried something similar. And i have another game coming soon that has similar backglass issues, only worse... so it'll test me out for sure!!
PLUS, in between doing this glass i managed so sort out the mechanical issues i was having with it that were pissing me off. only very minor issues with the electrics (switch adjustments) that can be dealt with after the playfield is stripped and restored and the cabinet is resprayed.
So now im pretty fired up to get the rest of the game done now..
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Ive never seen your tecnique with priniting out just the black line but im doing one at the moment printing the whole color sections onto water slide decals which seems to be working ok but wont be anygood with light shining through it like yours
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Ive never seen your tecnique with priniting out just the black line but im doing one at the moment printing the whole color sections onto water slide decals which seems to be working ok but wont be anygood with light shining through it like yours
Printing the colours as well would make the job simpler, i thought of doing that myself, but decided not to go that way as i had the matching red paint on hand to use. Just in case you havent already done so, before placing water slide decal on the glass it might be a good idea to seal the glass with Triple Thick first, otherwise the water might lift the surrounding paint/artwork
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Awesome work Mitch ^^^
No doubt this thread will inspire many too have a crack at their BG.
Cheers
Dave
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Very inspiring Mitch, I'll will be working on a few BG's in the future. Great work.
GT #*#
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Hey Mitch, not sure if you have seen this, came across this link on the RGB site:
http://www.seriousviewers.com/rainbow/rainbow.htm
Alan Lewis has added another chapter to backglass repair, results look good as well.
Cheers
Dave
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CABINET RESTORATION;
I’ve been busy going back n forth between the Wildfyre PF and my Zac cab restore.. well I decided on starting on the backbox first. Naturally first thing to do was do the tracings of the stenciled designs on the backbox, so I can later redo them. I wont be able to use my usual white cardboard trick on this game as the stenciled designs taper off into really fine sharp points, so I’ll probably have to mask off the designs. Im still not 100% sure how im going to do this yet, I have a couple if ideas, but I’ll worry about that when the time comes.
Next thing I did was take it out to the garage and clean it up inside and out with Nifti and cloth, then I glued all of the lifting ply in preparation for paint stripping and filling all of the huge gouges and scrapes in the timber. The last pic shows the fillers im using to do this. The auto body filler for the large areas and the Polyfilla for the smaller dings and scrapes, and the Dulux enamel undercoat I used. Im using Dulux paints throughout the repaint.
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Okay… Fastforward several days to the undercoated backbox.
I didn’t get any pics of the repairing/wood filling stages, but basically I paint stripped the and sanded the backbox with 80 grit sandpaper before filling all of the damaged bits. I then sanded the car bog back smooth, again with 80 grit, and the polyfilla I used 120 grit, then refilling any bits I missed and sanding back again. After that I sanded the whole thing down with 120 grit paper, then 240 grit and then finally 320, before, dusting it off and giving it several coats if the Dulux undercoat.
After that had dried (next day) I sanded the undercoat with 320 grit sandpaper, then with 400 grit before spraying on the basecoat. I used an off white for the basecoat, as it matched the original hue pretty well and I think an off/antique white looks much better on these older games than a real bright white. 2nd pic shows the results.
The 3rd pic shows the paint I used, along with the silver/grey webbing paint that I used to recreate the webbing effect that this game had on it. The game actually had webbing AND dots on it, originally I wasn’t game to use the webbing paint and just added the silver dot pattern using the old toothbrush trick.. dipping the brush into the paint, holding the brush a foot or two from the cabinet and flicking the bristles with a icy pole stick or piece of plastic etc ( I ALWAYS test this first onto cardboard before going anywhere NEAR a newly painted cabinet!!).
Then I remembered I had the webbing paint that id bought years ago to do MIBS, but wasn’t game to use it as it looked too thick when I tried it onto cardboard. Well after some experimenting, I found the best way to spray it on was hit the spray nozzle with short, sharp hits with the heel of my hand, while standing back about a metre away from the cab. This allowed me to get the webbing on without being too heavy or thick.
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Here are a couple of pics showing the webbing.. turned out pretty sweet! now I can get started on the cabinet!
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Hi all just a quick update…
Here are the results of restoring the cabinet. All of the repair details etc, it’s a case of “2nd verse, same as the first”!!
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Undercoat and basecoat pics. The basecoat pics were taken before the webbing was applied.
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I still have the stenciling to do, will get a start on the backbox stenciling this weekend since its bascoat has had a full week to dry now. The cabinet I’ll let dry for about week before I attempt to stencil it. Anyway now for some pics… hope you all like so far!!
Stay tuned for the stenciling progress pics.
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Looks really good.
Not a criticism, just an observation and curious question. Why not remove the rails before painting?
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Looks really good.
Not a criticism, just an observation and curious question. Why not remove the rails before painting?
Mainly because its a royal pain in the arse to do at the best of times!!
Though i WILL remove rails on a game if i have to for any reason, usually because it just makes it simpler when making stencils on some games.. some 70s Bally games come to mind, eg 6million$man or Silverball Mania are two that i resprayed that i removed the rails on. Oh and Stern Dracula it was necessary to remove them.
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Looks really good.
Not a criticism, just an observation and curious question. Why not remove the rails before painting?
Mainly because its a royal pain in the arse to do at the best of times!!
Though i WILL remove rails on a game if i have to for any reason, usually because it just makes it simpler when making stencils on some games.. some 70s Bally games come to mind, eg 6million$man or Silverball Mania are two that i resprayed that i removed the rails on. Oh and Stern Dracula it was necessary to remove them.
That they are - and removal can sometimes damage them. However, I simply take my time with removal, and it does give you the opportunity to regrain the siderails and replace the nails. So there is a reward for the tedious job of removing them.
That topcoat looks AMAZING - Looks like it come straight out of a paint booth - Well done.
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BACKBOX STENCILLING;
Now that the backbox has had about a week now for the paint to dry, I thought it was time to start redoing the stenciled designs.
To do this I used clear adhesive contact book covering rather that my usual cardboard method, as the stenciled art on this game would’ve been impossible to do with cardboard due to the very clean edges and sharp/fine points of the original paint. Im guessing that on these Zac games must’ve had some kind of adhesive stencil used in the factory?
Anyway after some experimentation I found the best way to do this was to place the contact straight onto the sides (a real pain to do without getting too many air bubbles btw!!), place a few sheets of carbon paper over the contact and taped the tracings of the art I’d done previously over the top of the contact and carbon paper. Then I simply traced the art onto the contact with a pen and ruler (1st pic). Worked a treat!
2nd pic shows the backbox with the traced on artwork ready to be cut out with a sharp scalpel and a ruler. First I cut out the sections that were to be sprayed red.
Before any colour was sprayed on I sprayed on some basecoat colour to seal the edges and help prevent paint bleed (this tip was picked up on a resto thread here, cant remember who originally posted it though). I allowed about half an hour for this to dry before spraying on the red, in two coats (3rd pic) not too heavy.. just enough to cover and not be see through anywhere. After allowing the red to become touch dry (about 30 minutes) I cut out the sections of contact for the blue, and masked off the red sections. As an added precaution, I placed some strips of 1 inch thick strips of wood on the cab to keep the newspaper from touching the red, and sticking to it.. yes I’ve done silly things like that before, and I wasn’t taking any chances. Most sane people would wait a day or so for the paint to fully dry before doing the next colour but I’m not most people.. lol … patient bugger aren’t I? :lol :lol
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Ok here is one side done!! (1st pic) I DID get a small amount of paint bleed in the red on the bottom edge but nothing that I wont be able to fix.
Rest of the pics are the opposite side being done. I did all of this in one day! To do the other side, I clamped a piece of plywood to my bench and hung the backbox on that from the inside, so that the newly painted first side would not be damaged.
What is it with insects and paint??? The bastards just HAVE to land in it when its wet! ^.^ After spraying the red on this side and leaving it to dry, I came back to find a f*^kn bug stuck there! Luckily I was able to remove it, without doing any harm to the paint.
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And…. VOILLA!! The finished product
Next cab of the rank will the cabinet stenciling.. hopefully next weekend!!
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Looks really good.
Not a criticism, just an observation and curious question. Why not remove the rails before painting?
Mainly because its a royal pain in the arse to do at the best of times!!
Though i WILL remove rails on a game if i have to for any reason, usually because it just makes it simpler when making stencils on some games.. some 70s Bally games come to mind, eg 6million$man or Silverball Mania are two that i resprayed that i removed the rails on. Oh and Stern Dracula it was necessary to remove them.
That they are - and removal can sometimes damage them. However, I simply take my time with removal, and it does give you the opportunity to regrain the siderails and replace the nails. So there is a reward for the tedious job of removing them.
That topcoat looks AMAZING - Looks like it come straight out of a paint booth - Well done.
Thanks Nino, im pretty happy with how the paint has turned out.. its all out of spray cans.. Its dulux brand paint.. the BEST spray enamel bar none i reckon.
another reason i didnt remove the side rails was that they were already in great condition, they'll need little more that a good polish, they already have an almost mirror like shine to them so i didnt want to risk ruining them.
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Looks great Mitch ^^^
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Great work as usual Mitch ^^^
Cheers
Dave
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Looking good Mitch those tiny little jagged bits would have been a nightmare to get right ^^^
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Hey Mitch I have been using the hobbie tape method for my stenciling because it gives you clean lines (no need to seal for bleeding required) and is low sticking. BUT the hobbie tapes are not cheap, There hard to get (not many places sell it) and there is a bit more mucking around to do the job. I have thought of using the clear book plastic as you did but I was afraid of how hard would it be to remove after painting (lifting up your base coat) or some plastic films I have used before, when the paint was applied it had a reaction with the plastic and started to shwithel up. ^.^
So seeing how good your end result came up I think it may have answered my questions.
1. Was it hard to remove the stick on clear after painting ?
2. Did it cut easilly with the scalple with out damaging the base coat ?
3. Did it leave any glue residue behind at all ?
ps. good job *%*
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Hi SPURR, to answer your questions in order..
1. The contact came off pretty easily. It wont lift any paint if the cab is properly prepared before painting. I've been using clear contact on playfields when restoring, im doing a Stern Wildfyre pf at the moment, most of it is to be repainted, sticking it over newly painted sections to mask off those areas while painting adjacent areas. it has lifted NO new paint at all. though some of the old pf paint comes up occasionally but those bits will be redone anyway...
getting off track slightly... but provided the paint prep is done right you shouldnt have any probs using contact.
Sealing with basecoat was done as a precaution, probably wasnt necessary, ive NEVER had paint bleed under contact when painting playfields.
2. cuts nice n easy with a good new sharp scalpel blade, you dont need to push down real hard with the blade either, so shouldnt damage the basecoat. on a couple of bit where i pushed the blade a litle bit too hard it cut into the bascoat slightly and took up a couple of tiny bits of basecoat but was nothing major that couldnt be easily fixed. though that was due to carelessness on my part, and that the blade wasnt a new one. once i had the hang of it NO paint came up.
3. left no glue residue at all.
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looks new,amazing work once again
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CABINET STENCILLING;
I’ve been taking my time doing this, been working on it for the last two weeks in my spare time after work and on weekends, I just got the 2nd side finished this morning after spraying on the blue on the 2nd side yesterday.
I used the same process as used on the backbox… clear contact, trace the stenciled art onto the contact etc etc. this time as I said I took my time, allowing each colour to dry for about 24 hours before doing the next. I did one side at a time… spraying on the red, letting it dry then masking off the red and then cutting out the sections of contact for the blue and spraying the blue on. I sprayed on some of the base colour white to help seal the edges before spraying on the red and blue.
Here is the left side being done. Notice that after spraying the red, I cut and removed the contact for the red parts... The reason I did this was to check that everything was ok before doing the next colour… something that I didn’t do when doing the right side. A small amount of paint underspray got under the contact in a couple of spots where the contact lifted a bit.. not a big deal really as it was easily fixed, more on that later.
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1st two pics.. Spraying on the blue paint. 1st pics shows the white sealing basecoat sprayed on and 2nd pic shows the left side done. Spraying on the white first proved its worth here, because I actually missed a spot with the white (can be seen in the 1st pic), and when the blue was done it bled under the contact a bit!! Luckily I was able to fix it without repainting, enough to make it look presentable. One the two colours were done, I let them dry a couple of days.
Last two pics show the start of the right side being done.
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Right side stenciling progress;
In the 3rd pic you can see one spot where the contact lifted. Fixing these bits was as simple as polishing the overspray off with some Re-po Paint Doctor auto polish. This can be done as soon as an hour or so after the paint has been applied.
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And finally some pics of the cab and backbox
The backbox pedestal hasn’t been sprayed as yet in these pics, it was only sat on the cab for the pics. Now I’ll let the paint harden for a few days then I can start putting the parts back on #*# #*#
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Again you do great things that looks a million dollars
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This job is better than the original !
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Thanks guys ^^^
well she's starting to go back together finally. This afternoon i bolted the new legs on... yeah i know they should be plain legs and not ribbed ones, but they were readily available and the right size (28 1/2"). they were bought from one of the pinball parts suppliers in Melbourne that some people seem to not like #@# anyway i buy my bits n pieces from whoever has them when i need them.
I bought my first lot of parts from PSP this week (ordered them online last weekend and they arrived today) ^^^ just a small order, some chrome leg bolts and a couple of boxes of lamps... would've bought the legs from them as well had i not already bought them a few weeks ago.
Any just a few pics of the cab with the new legs bolted on. I made some cabinet protectors to go under the legs from mylar.. same as i did on Dracula.
EDIT... the side rails were yet to be polished when i took these pics.. they have since been polished up with Autosol and look heaps nicer now!!
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I will be starting the clean up/polishing etc this weekend starting tomorrow of all of the bits n pieces that bolt onto the cabinet, then fitting them to the cabinet.
also i still have to remove all of the lamps etc from the light board out of the backbox and give it a tidy up coat of paint.. will hopefully get that done too this weekend.
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Man that looks awesome!!!!!!! one question though and im sorry if i missed it, but how do you peel the contact off? i would have thought that once that stuck, you would remove paint (base) to get it off? any tips on that?
Thanks! and well done!!
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Man that looks awesome!!!!!!! one question though and im sorry if i missed it, but how do you peel the contact off? i would have thought that once that stuck, you would remove paint (base) to get it off? any tips on that?
Thanks! and well done!!
Contact comes off easy peasy. So long as the basecoat is allowed to dry thoroughly, and the cab was prepped properly in the first place, there is no danger of removing basecoat paint. another thing to remember is not to cut too deep with the scalpel when cutting out the shapes, it isnt necessary to put a lot of pressure on the blade when cutting, otherwise if you cut too deep tiny bit of basecoat can come off where the blade cuts are. This DID happen to me on a couple of sections of this cab.. very minimal though, and was easily touched up. The blade also needs to be super sharp too, this makes a BIG difference and makes the job much easier.
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Just a quick update on what i got done today.. The chime unit was totally dismantled, cleaned and polished up as best as i could do. In the first pic are two of the plungers, one polished up (left) and the other as it was removed. To do these i just placed them in my electric drill to spin them, first sanding them with 800 grit wet/dry paper and windex, then polished them with Autosol polish and rag. All of the metal was sanded, again with 800 grit and windex before polishing with Autosol. On some of the pieces i had to first sand them with 400 grit, then 800 to get them to a point where i was happy with them. the chime bars also got the same treatment. What screws that weren't replaced with new ones had the heads polished up with Autosol (i spun them in the drill while polishing them). some of the screws i first sanded with 800 grit before polishing.
The tilt board was also dismantled for polishing of all of its components. While the tilt unit was apart, i also decided to remove all of the wiring as well and give the board a quick sandpapering and a few coats of clear lacquer... something i've NEVER bothered with before!! Last pic is of the tilt unit back in the game, minus the ball roll tilt assembly, which will be polished and installed tomorrow.
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Truly inspirational work you do.. there is no way that looks to be 30+ yr old machine.
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Wow ^^^ I'm speechless
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Next i fitted a new power switch to replace the crappy looking original one which wasnt hooked up anyway! But first i had to clean up the rusty switch mounting plate. I used a Clean n Strip disc in the electric drill to do this... made short work of it!! The i gave it a couple of coats of hammertone finish paint on both sides and let it dry before refitting. I soldered in the new switch, and encased it in heatshrink, as a safety measure in case anyone decides to stick their hand in there! Another mod i intend on doing is to ground the switch plate, the side rails and all exposed metal on the cab.. something i always do on EM games.. stops that tingly feeling when you touch or rub your hand on the metalwork on the game.
the replay knocker was missing when i got the game so im using a Gtb EM knocker assembly to replace the missing original. This is a new assembly from PBR that Cam (big dog) got for me in one of his PBR orders (thanks Cam) ^^^ ^^^
Stay tuned for more updates!!
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Truly inspirational work, Mitch. Your attention to detail is outstanding.
Just the "little things" like the rubber boot over the power switch and the two cable ties - ^^^
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Time for another update;
I've been busy with polishing and assembilng cabinet hardware. 1st pic shows a couple of the coin door bolts, before and after polishing. These i simply spun them in my electric drill while holding 120 grit sandpaper on a rubbing block against the bolt heads while spinning to remove the crappy looking surface, then 400 grit and then finally Auto sol polish and rag to get the shine you see here. The ball shooter rod copped the same treatment (2nd pic)
The coin door i regrained with 400 grit wet/dry paper and windex, then 800 grit and then finally Autosol polish.
The lockdown bar clamp was disassembled and cleaned up with a clean n strip disc in an electric drill, then sprayed with hammertone paint, same as i did with the Dracula lockdown bar assembly.
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More reassembly pics. Also shown here is the backbox pedestal after repainting and refitted to the cabinet. Before the relay board was fitted into the cabinet i fitted a new power lead. Rather than tie a knot in the cord (this is illegal to do) where it slots into the backbox pedestal i used a couple of zip ties to help prevent the cord from being pulled out.
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Before fitting the backbox light board back into the backbox, i removed the reel assembly brackets and gave the light board a lick of fresh paint to brighten it up a bit. While the score reels were out i gave the mounting brackets an cleanup before refitting them.
One mod i did here was to space the lightboard back a few mm from the glass, by adding aluminium strips to either side where the mounting screws are. the main reason i did this was because the chipboard surrounding the lights had swelled a bit, making it very difficult to remove the backglass as the lift channel on the glass was catching on the chipboard. When i brought the game home i had a hell of a time removing the glass, until i worked out what was stopping it coming out. Eventually i worked out that by loosening the lightboard screws the glass could be safely removed. The aluminium strips fixed problem completely. Also i spaced the reel brackets out closer to the glass, with washers under the mounting screws to compensate for spacing the lightboard back. Moving the lightboard back also spaces the lightbulbs back from the glass, which might help save the backglass paint from heat. I'm also using #47 bulbs behind the glass.
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Here are some of the grounding mods that are being done on the game. Before the backbox was bolted on, I drilled and fitted two screws into the siderails at the back of the cab, beneath the backbox, not real pretty but practical, and wont be too noticeable being at the back. On the inside of the cab i ran some wires from these screws to the ground connection on the transformer. In these pics the side rails, power switch plate and front right leg bolt plate have all been grounded. I still have the metal ball shooter assembly to do, coin door frame and lock down bar.
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Last pic for now.. backbox with glass installed. I've fitted the playfield for the time being, just to fire it up and test the game, The pf resto is yet to be done but i have to finish the Wildfyre pf first so i can use the jig.
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Looks like a completely different backglass ^^^
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Hi guys just a quick update of the things done today...
The 1st pic shows a mod i did to the light board in the backbox. Note the chip board strips marked with the red arrows... the two lower strips used to be one long strip which went from left to right, blocking light from Mr Universe's head on the backglass. So i decided this was something i had to change.. now normally i dont like modifying games in this way too much, but i felt that this mod was definitely needed on THIS game. I cut and bent a piece of 20mm x 25mm angle aluminium strip to fit into the area where i'd cut out the chipboard light blocking strips. As an added bonus, there was already a hole drilled in the lightboard for a light socket behind Mr Universe's head, so i just need to fit a socket and lamp here so Mr Universe is fully lit!!
2nd and 3rd pics show the coin entry plate being painted. This is made from chrome plated plastic on this game, and the chrome was damaged and peeling off in places and looked like crap (didnt get any pics of this damage). So what i did was to sand the coin entry plate back with 220 grit sandpaper and spray on some acrylic etch primer I did about three coats, sanding back between coats, then spraying on some silver acrylic. hopefully the etch primer and silver will stay put and not peel off, otherwise i'll have to try to find another Zac coin entry plate. I masked off the area with the name as the chrome there was still in good nick.
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More pics.. this time the shooter assembly cleaned resleeved and reinstalled, and the start of the coin door assembly.
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Wow !!! Looking absolutely supurb Mitch ^^^
There aren't many Zac EM games around far as I am aware .. and I reckon yours must surely be No 1 now as far as looks go. ^^^
I'll have to see what I can do to tidy up my Zac Moonflight EM on of these days .. though its in pretty good shape already.
Cheers
Dave
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Looking good - Whats the hole directly above the barrel lock ? Some sort of Free Play button ?
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Looking good - Whats the hole directly above the barrel lock ? Some sort of Free Play button ?
I have no idea what that hole was put there for.. possibly did have a button there at some stage !@# (i HATE people who do crap like that)
the only practical thing i could think to do was to put the black rubber grommet in there.. looks better than a big ugly hole in the door!
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A link I remembered from Zaccaria-Pinball.com
Rechroming and repairing coin bezels
http://zaccaria-pinball.com/projects/bezel/index.html
Neat article.
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A link I remembered from Zaccaria-Pinball.com
Rechroming and repairing coin bezels
http://zaccaria-pinball.com/projects/bezel/index.html
Neat article.
Cool thanks for the link ^^^ VERY interesting.
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Hi guys, i've been busy working on the coin door mechanics, nearly done and thought it was time i posted another update.
I rebuilt the coin switch actuator lever and switch.. i say "switch" as the game had one complete mech missing, and its switch lever and brackets removed. I brought home an old WMS superstar coin door last weekend to raid the missing parts from. but before then i'd removed, cleaned and rebuilt the one switch and lever assembly that was on this game. As can be seen in the pics it was pretty mangled up. I like to have all the coin mechs operational in my games, if possible that is. The wire on the switch actuator i made from a spring, i bent it out straight and re-bent it to the required shape, i copied it from my Klondike coin door to get the shape correct.
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Here is the Williams Superstar coin door im raiding the missing parts from. Notice in the 3rd pic, the original plastic coin reject chute.. its been melted, just how this happened (or why) is a complete mystery. and the last pic is the same part from the Wms coin door, made from die cast aluminium, that i used to replace the melted original
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and here are the parts after having been cleaned, polished and/or painted. i polished up the aluminium reject chute, and cleaned and painted the steel parts with hammertone paint.
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more pics.. this time the reject button components, getting the paint n polish treatment
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None of the coin entry plastic bezels were good enough to use, (imo anyway) so i decided to make up some new ones. So what i did was so scan the ones pictured here in the 1st pic, tidy the images up in Photostudio and reverse print them onto clear adhesive. While the ink was drying on the decals, i cut out some pieces of polycarbonate plastic for the new plastic bezel pieces, (2nd pic shows one of them being test fitted with the nylon coin entry sleeve.
I made a fair few of the decals an you can see.. just in case i screwed up and had to start again :lol
Once the decals were stuck onto the plastic i placed some white adhesive label over the main decal to diffuse the light and to protect the decal ink.
last pic shows the end result
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That door looks Great Mitch this machine will look new by the time your finished with it.
I might have to get a copy of your images for the coin entries they turned out really well ^^^
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Thanks Daniel
Yes i can send you the coin entry images if you want.. no worries at all ^^^
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After a month of dormancy with this project, i thought it was time for an update...
More coin door work... as i said before, some parts were missing from the coin door, including the 2nd coin switch actuator. 1st pic shows the donor mech, freshly ratted from the Superstar coindoor... nice n rusty!! And the 2nd pic shows the same mech after a soaking in Ranex rustbuster, and a bit of a sand with wet n dry and a polishing with Autosol.. much betterer me thinks!! :D
Last two pics show the coindoor wiring harness and the start of the re-wiring of the door. The wire for the 2nd coin switch was missing so it had to be replaced, i used wire from the Superstar playfield, also i replaced the wire for the 1st coin switch as well, using similar colours to the originals, as marked on the schematic.
while running the new wires, i discovered a cut off yellow(?) wire on the plug... i dont really know what this would've been for, as there is no mention of it on the schematic !@# !@# Im thinking maybe it was for a coin lockout coil??
Can anyone reading this, who might have a Zac EM tell me if their game has a lockout coil??
Anyway i added a new wire to the harness... maybe i'll work it out later on.
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more pics... While i was on the wiring job, i did some tidying up if the left flipper switch and credit button wiring that needed to be done. the green ground wire will be attached underneath one of the door hinge mounting nuts.
and the last pic shows the coin door wiring finished #*#
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and lastly some before and after pics of the adjustment instruction card for the coin mechs, that i decided to reproduce..
dont ya love the spelling of ADJUSTMENT :lol
I could've easily changed it in photostudio when i scanned the original card, but decided on the "keep it original" thing!
Now i can start on the playfield... STAY TUNED!!
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Nice work there Mitch !
I usually replace the cards that are in the cabinet with the yellowed originals. I just laminate them. But having seen yours, I think I might try scanning, printing and laminating - *%*
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Now he is an idea's man
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After a month of dormancy with this project, i thought it was time for an update...
Can anyone reading this, who might have a Zac EM tell me if their game has a lockout coil??
Gday Mitch
Just checked my Zac Moonflight EM and it doesn't have a coin lockout coil
Cheers
Dave
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After a month of dormancy with this project, i thought it was time for an update...
Can anyone reading this, who might have a Zac EM tell me if their game has a lockout coil??
Gday Mitch
Just checked my Zac Moonflight EM and it doesn't have a coin lockout coil
Cheers
Dave
Thanks for that Dave ^^^ Now i just need to work out what that extra wire is for... it 'll shit me til i find out now :lol
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PLAYFIELD RESTORE;
Well yesterday i made a start on the playfield, removing everything from the top side and giving a bit of a cleanup with Prepsol (1st pic) to get a look at what i have to do. There was very little to do in the way of touchups, this will easily be the quickest, and easiest PF resto i've ever done!!
There was some fine vertical planking around the top and right bumpers, and a few ball swirl marks in the yellow in front of the slingshots, which i cleaned up as much as possible with magic eraser and Isocol. Came up pretty sweet i think.. nice n easy $#$
The last 3 pics are of after the cleanup with the Isocol and ME. In these pics i'd already had a go at the yellow near the flippers.
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Okay.. 1st and 2nd pic, the wear from the flipper drag i had to fix, before and after, done with waterbased acrylic.
Next two the orange before and after. Nice n easy!! The whole playfield will be mylared when im done.
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More pics... The first two show the lettering above the top kickout hole, before and after, done using a sharpie pen.
And final two pics for now.. where im at with the playfield. all cleaned and nearly ready for the mylar! i just have to reglue a few loose inserts and touch up the black around them and im done.. YAY $#$
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Looks Sweet Mitch !
I noticed with my Moonflight that the insert holes are not routed thru the whole playfield , just deep enough for the inserts to fit so they can't fall thru the playfield ^^^
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[/quote]
Thanks for that Dave ^^^ Now i just need to work out what that extra wire is for... it 'll shit me til i find out now :lol
[/quote]
Just had another look at the door on Moonflight and have a yellow wire soldered to the base of the left coin insert lamp.
Thats the only yellow wire I can see on my door.
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PLAYFIELD RESTORE CONTINUED;
All of the inserts were checked and reglued as needed. I use PVA woodglue to do this, and seems to hold the inserts in place well, and gives plenty of time to level them before the glue dries. ALL of the star inserts in th 1st pic had to be reglued as the were very loose.
The bonus inserts (2nd pic) were all still firmly in place and level except for one, which was reglued. I retouched the black lines arount the inserts using acrylic paint and a fine brush. I had initially done these in sharpie pen ink, but didnt like the way they looked... Sharpie pen ink has a purpley tinge to it whe viewed at certain angles, and stands out like a 3rd nut on a greyhound! Very little was needed in the way of touchup work on this playfield.. definitely the easiest and quickest playfield touchup work i've ever done!!
Next i measured up and cut out the new mylar. The 3rd pic shows the mylar being test fitted to the playfield, and the last pic shows the mylar being applied, half done. I started fron the apron end, rubbing side to side with one hand to stick the mylar down while pulling the paper backing with the other hand.
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After the mylar was on, and before the protective plastic coating was removed i burnished the mylar down onto the playfield, by using the back of a table spoon so rub the mylar down nice and hard onto the playfield. The 1st pic shows this, and you can see where i've been with the spoon where the rubbing marks are on the plastic backing on the mylar, which i remove after this step.
And finally the end results!! From stripping the components from the surface, to this, took about 2 days start to finish!!
next i'll rebuild the bumper and flippers and start reassembly.. the fun part $#$
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That looks awesome Mitch.. ^^^
Where do you buy the Mylar from ? !@#
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I got the mylar from Bumper Action
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Looks Great Mitch
Ive seen a few great Mylar jobs since AP and im thinking its time i have a try ^^^
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I got the mylar from Bumper Action
Thanks Mitch....
It does look great mylared ...
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I spent the last couple of afternoons cleaning/polisihing of some of the playfield parts, namely the upper ball gates and posts and post screws.
So here are a few pics of where im at with it at this moment... in the 1st pic, (though not entirely obvious) @.@ the left one had not been done and the one on the right is all cleaned up, they were covered in black crap! I dismantled the ball gates to clean them properly, i cut the hinge pin out with pliers to get them apart, andsimply used a nail as a new pin.. cut to length and peened over with a ball peen hammer to stop it falling out. I used a wire wheel in the electric drill to clean them, followed by a polish with Autosol.
Next i cut out the areas of the mylar where the posts go (2nd pic shows this) before fitting the posts. This is necessary because the mylar would bubble up where the posts are screwed down otherwise, and look awful!
And finally a shot of the posts screwed on, I polished the posts by spinning them in the electric drill, and using Re-po Paint Doctor on some rag.. works a treat!! the post screws got the same treatment, first a light sand with 800 grit paper then the Re-po Paint Doctor.. (works well as a metal polish too!)
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Just a few more pics for now.. a few close up shots of the playfield with all the posts installed and some of the switches and targets reinstalled.
Next step.. rebuilding the bumper, sling kicker and flippers!
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That second photo with the target reflecting in the mylar really shows how good the mylar looks well done
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Has to be the best Zaccaria EM resto I've ever seen. Those posts look very much the same as the old Bally Bingo posts !
Have you got room for this machine in your collection, Mitch ?
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Thanks guys ^^^
Nino, i have to make room for this one, as well as Quick Draw and Pinball Pool when they are done too ^&^
Vortex will be going to a new home soon (temporary.. im NOT selling it!! *.* ) so that will give me a bit more room.. possibly to a recently signed up AP member, havent decided yet
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Today i decided to do something about the bumper bodies and bumper caps.. as you can see in the 1st two pics they are pretty bloody ordinary!! I had already decided months ago i was going to make decals to repair these, as exact replacements would be near impossible to find i would think.
So the first thing i did was to scan one each of the caps and bodies into my PC, clean up and touch up the images in Photostudio, and print them onto A4 size clear inkjet adhesive. last two pics show the printed decals ready to be applied.
For the bumper caps i boughht three new Gottlieb caps from a (Jungle Princes i think they were from) and removed the hot stamped art with a small amount of thinners on some rag.. the thinners DIDN'T hurt the plastic at all, believe it or not! hence why i didnt use too much thinners, just in case!! (i had tried this in the past on old bumper caps with success).
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For the bumper bodies, i sanded off the art, as the plastic on these bumper bodies didn't like the thinners ^&^
as it turned out, two of the bodies were cracked anyway, so i found some old Gtb ones and used them instead, as they are essentially the same.
Anyway i sanded off the art, placing some 320 grit sandpaper on a flat surface and rubbing the bumper body across the sandpaper to remove the art. I finished off using 800 grit to ensure a nice smooth surface for the decals. 1st pic shows the bumper bodies after sanding.
And the second pic shows the end result, with the decals applied and after a couple of coats of clear. should look quite presentable i think!
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These came up great!
How hard and time-consuming do you find the Photoshop work in cleaning up the scans?
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It took me about an hour to scan and clean up the images for one bumper cap and one bumper body. I then simply copy/pasted the single images to get the extra images i needed for the other bumper bodies/caps... pretty simple to do really.
Now im just waiting on the new bumper skirts, and a few other bits to arrive!
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Hi Mitch Very impressive the whole job looks fantastic I luv looking @ these restos howzat
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Hi Mitch Very impressive the whole job looks fantastic I luv looking @ these restos howzat
Hi Ian, Thanks for the compliments, glad to see you posting on here!
How about doing an introduction post now?? #@#
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Mitch this is coming up a treat, great work.
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Hi guys, Spent some time over the last couple of days rebuilding the bumper and flipper mechs. The bumper and flipper coil sleeves and mechs on this game had at some stage had WD40 or something similar plastered into them, leaving a black and greasy mess, so a good clean up of the parts was first cab off the rank. Didnt get any pics of just how filthy they were, but the bumper coil in the 1st pic will give you an idea how bad they were! I wish i knew why people do dumb things like this ^&^ ^&^
The disassembled parts were soaked in metho and scrubbed with a tooth brush to clean them up, then i gave them a sandpapering with 400 grit and nifti, followed by a polish with Autosol. then everything was reassembled with new coil sleeves in the coils.
Last pic shows the bumpers reinstalled on the playfield. I ended up re-doing two of the bumper body decals, after discovering they werent applied straight @.@ @.@
I also dug out another Gtb body and used it to replace the only original Zac bumper body i was using, so they are now ALL Gtb bumper bodies!
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Next i rebuilt the flipper mechs. Once again, they were filled with WD40 or something and a mess!! so its a case of "2nd verse same as the first!" with cleaning etc. The 2nd and 3rd pics show the finished flipper mechs. The coils will be replaced later on.. i'm using Gtb coils to replace them, and the plungers and links were still ok so i didnt renew them.
and finally, a pic of the playfield so far... i started fitting the new rubbers this afternoon. I fired it up to check the bumpers and flippers, have to do some switch adjusting on the bumpers, and i still have to repair two of the drop targets which have the plastic faces broken off.. i have to find some yellow plastic to make new ones. Also i need to check and clean the lamp sockets.
shouldn't be too much longer now!! #*# #*#
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I think that the residue is lubricant that has been sprayed on and left to attract dust and grime over the years. I guess the operator thought that it would be a good idea to keep the coins flowing through the machine rather than repair it properly !
This machine is looking really nice - I love the vibrant colors on the playfield.
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Hi again guys.. i've been chipping away at this game, doing bits n pieces to it when the mood takes me.
Anyway here are a few pics of what i've been up to with it.
1st pic, the ball trough components, after being cleaned/polished and refitted. The game is actually now playable, i have played a few games on her, and i must say its playing really SWEET *%* *%*
2nd pic.. the yellow standup targets were held together with rivets, which had worked loose, allowing the switch blades to move.. so i removed them to repair them and clean them up a bit better. I ended up drilling the rivets out and using 1/8" screws, nuts and washers to hold them together (and some loctite on the screw threads for good measure). The end result is switches that work much better, and no more wandering switch blades!!
Last two pics show two of the drop targets.. or rather whats left of them. I need to find some yellow plastic to make new target faces out of.. so far i havent had any luck finding anything suitable. There IS a backup plan in case i cant find solid yellow plastic for these, more on that later.
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And today i started on the plastics. These pics show the two broken plastics. I was originall going to try to reglue the longer right hand side one and re-use it, but i have since decided to make a complete set of new ones. I'm using 3mm polycarbonate plastic to make them out of, so i should hopefully have no heat related bending problems. Today i took scans of some of the old plastics and got a start on making the new ones.
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so far i have re-made the slingshot plastics. After clening up the scanned images in Arcsoft Photostudio, i reverse printed them onto clear A4 inkjet adhesive label and put them aside to dry. I've used the same techniques i did on my Dracula plastics so i wont go into a great amount of detail. Next i traced out the old plastics onto the 3mm polycarbonate and cut them out on my scroll saw. I then cleaned up the cut edges with sandpaper.. first with 80 grit paper, then 280, and finally 800 grit to get the edges nice n smooth. Then i peeled off the protective backing from what was to be the underside, ready for the plastics images to be stuck on. Next i carefully placed the images onto the plastic, being careful not to get any air bubbles.. i actually DID get a couple of small bubbles in one of them, but it doesnt look too bad so i left it as is. next i trimmed up the clear edges with a scalpel (pic #1). then i burnished it down hard onto the plastic using the back of a tabespoon and a sheet of a4 paper between the plastic and the spoon.
For the white diffusing layer i used white adhesive label (pic #2). This was also trimmed along the clear edges with a scalpel and then burnished down on the plastic.
Pic #3 shows the new and old plastic together. the colours ARE slightly different.. hence another reason why im re-doing the whole set, so the all match.
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and now a sneak peek of them installed on the playfield, they look much better in the flesh than they do in the 2nd pic (lit up and room lights out). tomorrow i'll continue with the rest and will post pics when done ^^^
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Great job on the plastics Mitch, sure is a colourfull playfield.
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Nice one Mitch ^^^ . Must have been great to finally play a few games on her too.
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Good work again Mitch ^^^
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Finally got the plastics finished and installed tonight $#$
As i said before i had decided to re-do the whole lot, and scanning the old plastics and cleaning up the images took the most time! And yes i DID have a couple of stuff ups along the way and had to re-do things ^&^ ^&^ but in the end the plan came together!
Anyhow here are a few pics.. the first couple of some of the reverse printed decals read to be applied to the 3mm polycarbonate plastic, and marking out one of the plastics to be cut on the scroll saw. This is the right side plastic which had been broken at some point and reglued with a piece of tin and what looked like liquid nails or something similar.. theres that bastard barry the bodger again ^.^ i just sheld it together with a piece of mylar so i could trace it out onto the polycarbonate.
And finally... VOILLA... the end result!! not too shabby i reckon. I ended up replacing some of the post mounting screws with 6-32 threaded ones from my old Superstar playfield ( the originals had no thread on the top and the nylon caps just pushed on to hold the plastics in place) and used brand new 6-32 acorn nuts bought from PSP ^^^ the top ones still have to be replaced as yet, they will bee soon as i find some more threaded post mountings.
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I also replaced the flipper coils... I would've used original Zac coils if i had them, but instead i used Gtb A-5141A (also bought from PSP) hi power coils which make the flippers nice and peppy, without using the hi tap on the transformer. Yeah i know.. they aint original.. but they do the job well so i dont give a shit :lol
All thats left to do now is to re make the drop target faces, and tidy up the apron and its finished #*#
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Just look at that playfield - looks like it just rolled off the assembly line ^^^
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Hi guys just a quick update:
Today i rebuilt the drop targets. Since i couldn't find some yellow plastic anywhere i decided to use the same 3mm clear polycarbonate to remake the target faces, and print out the art (along with the yellow colour) onto clear adhesive and stick it to the back of the target.. same deal as making playfield plastics. 1st pic shows me tracing out the old target shape ready to be cut out, and the 2nd pic shows my printed artwork. the artwork was a pic i found on ipdb, resized and cut/pasted in photostudio into the scans i took of the original target face.. worked out pretty well i think, a nice and easy fix to the target problem.
Last two pics show one of the target banks after being pulled apart, cleaned and rebuilt. I had to make new links for the plungers as the metal originals were fairly worn. I used fibreglass pcb material, two pieces superhlued together to double the thickness, and thus help extend their life expectancy. I've used this trick on flipper plungers as well, and they seem to last pretty well.
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And finally some pics of the targets assemblies reinstalled into the machine. I have played a few games on her with the new targets and they work really well $#$
Next on the to do list is the apron resto, and i still have to remove the wood rails from the playfield to tidy them up, and make up a new back box door (might be getting a steel one made rather than the usual plywood ones i usually make myself!! )
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The new targets look great Mitch ^^^ Nice work *%*
Amazing to think that you were originally thinking of parting this game out and now look at it !
Cheers
Dave
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The new targets look great Mitch ^^^ Nice work *%*
Amazing to think that you were originally thinking of parting this game out and now look at it !
Cheers
Dave
Thanks Dave, and yeah i was thinking about that earlier, how i almost scrapped the whole project at one point! it was mainly the backglass issues that had those thoughts crossing my mind. Its sure been a long haul getting the game to this stage, but its well and truly worth all the effort now.
Im redoing the apron at the moment, it has been primered and painted, i just need to re-do the artwork, which i scanned into my PC before i stripped the paint off (more on this in my next update). About another week and the game will be finished!
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Hi guys, another mini update: Apron restore..
1st pic.. the point of no return!! Stripping the old paint off after i had scanned the old artwork into my PC and tidied it up ready to print out as decals.
I used a clean n strip disc in an electric drill to strip the paint right back to the metal, these discs make short work of this! *%*
After that was done, i wiped it down with Prepsol and rags before applying several coats of acrylic grey primer.
Once the primer had dried, i sanded it back with 400 grit wet n dry paper in preparation for the white acrylic top coat. Once again i wiped it down with Prepsol before the paint went on. After the paint was sprayed on i put the apron aside and allowed the paint to dry overnight.
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I used waterslide decals to re-do the artwork, done in about five sections to make the job easier.
1st pic shows a couple of the decals cut and ready to be applied. the last few pics are with all the decals done and after several coats of clear acrylic applied.
The end result is not as good as i'd hoped for, but for the most part i'm happy to leave it as it is. I only just finished spraying the clear acrylic on tonight, and i'll leave it for a day or so before refitting it back onto the playfield... nearly done.. not too much to do now... should be finished next weekend $#$ $#$
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That apron looks great!
Did you use an inkjet to print out the decals?
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Yes, printed them out on a photo inkjet printer and sprayed them with acrylic clear to seal the ink before applying them.
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Yes, printed them out on a photo inkjet printer and sprayed them with acrylic clear to seal the ink before applying them.
Sounds easy enough! I guess the hardest part is cleaning up the scans.
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Mitch - You make that apron restore look easy !
Where did you source the waterslide decal paper ?
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a place called "The Copier Company" someone mentioned this place and posted the link here on AP ages ago, i cant remember who though
http://www.thecopiercompany.com.au/products.asp?id=127
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Yesterday i re-did the shooter gauge, againby repainting and using waterslide decal for the art. Also i removed the wood rails from the playfield and sanded them back and gave them a few coats of acrylic lacquer.
And this morning i made the new instruction cards, downloaded them and printed them onto photopaper and applied some mylar over them to protect them.
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The game is now complete! well about 95%. She plays reall sweet too! I might have to just make a few minor adjustments though.
Only things left to do are a new door for the backbox, the above mentioned adjustments (the top right drop target sticks occasionally). Also i want to do a bit more work on the backglass (Mr universe's head needs fixing up a bit), which i will do later on when i get a few other jobs out of the way.
EDIT.. and a new playfield glass as this one is a bit on the ordinary side
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and finally some before and after pics.. unfortunately i dont have any pics of whole machine before any work was done
Backglass...
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And playfield...
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Man, that looks sweet!! Thanks so much for sharing the resto this beautiful game with us, great job!!
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You are one dedicated and talented man well done
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Looks fantastic Mitch ^^^
Really enjoyed following all your updates with this project.
Cheers
Dave
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thanks for the kind words guys ^^^
Universe now lives in my loungeroom of my unit, along with Klondike, and Vortex :D :D
Mibs lives in the opposite corner of the room.. the pins are taking over... :lol
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Again well done Mitch it looks fantastic. Great to see it next to the great Vortex im going to have to make a trip and visit just to see your handy work ^^^
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Wow, I just went through 17 pages of this thread and I simply had to keep reading to find out how it ended up
I'm so impressed, you are one talented dude
I know I would never have the patience and attention to detail to do something like this
My hat's off to you #*#
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Simply outstanding effort, Mitch. I look forward to your next restore.
#*# #*#
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Truly amazing results, such a turn around and a great looking machine. Thanks for taking the time to photograph and describe it for us, I really like the breakdown on all the steps and techniques you've used for all of the issues and think lots of us have learned and will be trying little bits out, so that's a great help. @@*
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Thanks for the positive and kind words guys ^^^ It was a long haul getting this game to this stage, and at times, in all honesty it was hard to find motivation to work on it, due to the various hassles i was having with some of the mechanical issues.. there are STILL a couple of minor issues to deal with, (mainly an occasionally sticking drop target) but they will be rectified all in good time. Anyway its basically all working pretty well so far, with no real problems.. it got a pretty good work out last night *%* *%* So its definitely been worth all the effort!
Great to see it next to the great Vortex im going to have to make a trip and visit just to see your handy work ^^^
No worries Daniel, anytime you're passing thru my way definitely call in ^^^ same applies to all AP members.
Quickdraw will be the next cab off the rank, Some parts arrived today that Cam (big dog) got me from PBR in one of his orders, (new plastics, lane guides and bumper caps).. thanks buddy ^^^ ^^^ im starting on your Travel Time soon *%* *%*
so i have to get a few other jobs done first, Cam's Travel Time and the wildfyre PF im currently doing (which is giving me some grief at the moment ) ^&^ then i'll get started on Quickdraw #*#
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Have to say that what you have done here is one hell of a restore... for many, this machine would have been parted out, but it looks like you keep your "too hard basket" far from arms reach and that in itself deserves great applause @@* @@*
I take my hat off to this restore.... unbelievable... well done mate ^^^ ^^^ ^^^
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hey Mitch the zac looks great lined up there with the other pins,got ya drawings on back door of zac (no worries).Will have to come over for a game soon and bring backglass and door up.How many frosts have you had so far ? once again Congrats on finishing universe,top job again mate @@* @@*
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hey Mitch the zac looks great lined up there with the other pins,got ya drawings on back door of zac (no worries).Will have to come over for a game soon and bring backglass and door up.How many frosts have you had so far ? once again Congrats on finishing universe,top job again mate @@* @@*
Thanx Cam that'd be great. Come up anytime u want (to get thrashed on Vortex).. :lol Had a few frosts here already, the grass in my backyard is already dead :lol
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Just look at this restoration.
I'm bringing this thread back from the dead for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it documents a truly heroic effort on Mitchs' part to overcome a bunch of hurdles that would have had us mere mortals give up. Maybe this rare machine would have ended up scrapped, put in the too hard basket or sitting around being a sad eyesore. Instead it can be held up as an inspiration and a lesson.
Secondly, as it's new owner i want to tell you just how fine a restoration this is...believe it or not, the words and pics can't do justice to the finished product.
If you've read this thread before, do yourself a favor and read it again. If you haven't seen this before make the effort. See Mitch recreate whole components (stepper unit rooted?...hey, make one from scratch!), chase down switch gremlins and generally unf*ck a whole lot of questionable Italian engineering ravaged by time and abuse. Be inspired by an epic backglass restore that is full of lessons for anyone doing even basic fixes. Follow Mitchs' steps to get a perfect cabinet finish.
In the flesh this machine is an absolute stunner. So shiny, so tidy. The closer you look the more impressed you are. Attention to detail, getting it right rather than "good enough". Effort, effort, effort. It looks and feels weeks old rather than decades.
This is the third machine I have bought off Mitch and I only wish he had more to sell. All his restorations have a similar "feel"; smoothness, reliability, and a warmth that comes from enormous amounts of care and passion for what he does.
Take a bow mate you're a legend in the true sense.
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Great work on the machine . I've only just read this thread. The work on the "stepper units" alone shows the commitment you have. Nice feeling when it all works as it should. Really good read cheers
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Just look at this restoration.
I'm bringing this thread back from the dead for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it documents a truly heroic effort on Mitchs' part to overcome a bunch of hurdles that would have had us mere mortals give up. Maybe this rare machine would have ended up scrapped, put in the too hard basket or sitting around being a sad eyesore. Instead it can be held up as an inspiration and a lesson.
Secondly, as it's new owner i want to tell you just how fine a restoration this is...believe it or not, the words and pics can't do justice to the finished product.
If you've read this thread before, do yourself a favor and read it again. If you haven't seen this before make the effort. See Mitch recreate whole components (stepper unit rooted?...hey, make one from scratch!), chase down switch gremlins and generally unf*ck a whole lot of questionable Italian engineering ravaged by time and abuse. Be inspired by an epic backglass restore that is full of lessons for anyone doing even basic fixes. Follow Mitchs' steps to get a perfect cabinet finish.
In the flesh this machine is an absolute stunner. So shiny, so tidy. The closer you look the more impressed you are. Attention to detail, getting it right rather than "good enough". Effort, effort, effort. It looks and feels weeks old rather than decades.
This is the third machine I have bought off Mitch and I only wish he had more to sell. All his restorations have a similar "feel"; smoothness, reliability, and a warmth that comes from enormous amounts of care and passion for what he does.
Take a bow mate you're a legend in the true sense.
I know its a bit of a late response, but cheers Andy thats some pretty good advertising for me :D
And yes the machine came close to being scrapped a few times during the resto.. it REALLY tested my patience at times! (it came very close to being smashed to pieces at least once!!) but it all worked out well in the end.
Glad to know it has gone to a good home *%* *%*