Buck Rogers restore

[Mr Pinbologist]

Here is yet another of my early restores, my 1980 Gtb Buck Rogers that I did about six years ago.
 
Purchased in 1994 not working for $100, along with a Charlies Angels (and heaps of System 1 parts) as part of the deal from Christmas Cove caravan park in Laurieton. The Charlies Angels was too far gone (missing parts, shot backglass from being left out in the rain!), so it was parted out, and the cabinet used for my homemade VORTEX pin. I’m kind of sorry I did that now as it had a VERY nice playfield, which I raided parts from and launched it!

Anyway, as for the Buck Rogers, I knew this game well as I used to play this exact same game at the Pinball Parlor in Port Macquarie where I grew up (they bought it from the Pinball Parlor). This game had the same old story, “it lights up but wont work”. It had a dead CPU board, caused by battery acid. The backglass had only minor flaking and the playfield too had only very minor wear, having been Mylar covered from new. The only bad wear spots were near the kickout hole and just above the right bumper.

The cabinet was still in pretty good condition, both structurally and cosmetically, just a few wear marks around the flipper buttons, and a few scratches and dings. Most people would’ve probably been happy to leave it as it was, but not me… being the fussy bastard I am Although I did leave it like this for about nine years before finally deciding to do a ground up restore.

The pics below are of how the game looked before I did any resto work. Once again sorry for the poor quality pics.. crap camera I had at the time I started restoring it. All of the later or“after” pics were taken when I got my digital camera.

[Mr Pinbologist]

I also ended up with a few Sys1 CPU boards out of this deal and managed to get one going by swapping a few parts. That, along with a few connector pins repaired/replaced saw the game up and running. The game was then pretty much left as it was for the next nine years until the big restore took place.

[illawarra_steelers]

Cool! Another Mitch restore 

Have always thought this game is a 'sleeper' - nobody really rates it but I sure do. 

My brother-in-law (the Illawarra AP lurker we will call him - hi Anthony  ) has a real nice example in his gamesroom and when I'm over this one gets played the most.

Keep the updates coming Mitch!

[Mr Pinbologist]

The Restoration begins: July 2003.

All of the hardware was removed from the cabinet. All of the boards and the backglass were removed from the back box and the back box and the playfield were removed from the cabinet.

First the stencils were made by tracing the artwork with tracing paper and then placing the tracing paper onto white cardboard and cutting out the shapes. The cabinet was paint stripped, then sanded back with 80 grit sandpaper, all major dents and scratches filled with automotive body filler and sanded back again with 220 grit then 400 grit sandpaper. It was sprayed with enamel undercoat and allowed to dry; I then sanded back the cab again with 400, wiped it down and sprayed on the black gloss enamel basecoat.

After the basecoat had dried the speckling was applied by dipping a toothbrush in thinned white paint, holding the brush about 2 feet away and scraping the bristles with a piece of plastic.

When the speckling had dried, the cabinet was laid over onto its side, (one side finished at a time). The stencils were placed on the cabinet, aligned properly and then weighted down with sockets, spanners or anything else I could find to hold them in position while spraying. The back box was done first. The yellow was sprayed first in several light coats (given about 10 – 15 minutes between coats), allowed to dry properly then the orange was sprayed on. The same technique was used for the cabinet (one side at a time, first yellow, then orange).

[Strangeways]

Good One, Mitch !

Underrated machine.

[Mr Pinbologist]

Backbox Stenciling progress:

[pinballist]

When I die I'm gonna go in style buried in 1980 Gottlieb cabinet.  Nice work Mitch!

[Mr Pinbologist]

The finished product!!

[Mr Pinbologist]

Backglass Repair:

As mentioned, the backglass was in good condition, with only very minor flaking. It was given several coats of Bodytech clear acrylic lacquer. Pieces of cardboard were cut and placed over the score windows. It was given two light coats, allowed to dry, and then given two heavy coats.

This was my first backglass I sealed with acrylic lacquer. And to this day its still as good as the day I sprayed it! I was really careful not to spray too heavily for the first coats. As I said in my Solar City resto thread the inks can bleed back through the white light diffusing mask if sprayed too heavily, so very little bleeding back of the coloured inks occurred on this glass.

Another trick I experimented with (a few years later) on this glass was to re do the blue display filters. I actually made stickers by printing a similar coloured blue onto clear adhesive inkjet label, cut them to just larger than the score windows and stuck them onto the cleaned off glass! I finished them off with a layer of mylar to protect the ink. The colour isn’t quite the same shade as the original blue but it looks MUCH better than the crappy worn/scratched filter ink I had on this glass. I was impressed enough with how this turned out that I also later did this on my Solar Ride and Roller Disco glasses.

[Mr Pinbologist]

more pics

[Mr Pinbologist]

The playfield surface was stripped ready for restoration next. Every lamp socket was removed and repaired by cleaning out with a 3/8” drill bit and resoldering the base. I removed the old mylar with a paint stripper gun on the LOW setting!! and removed the glue residue with Prepsol, a plastic scraper and rags. The playfield surface was in very good condition needing only minor touch-up work near the kickout saucer and around the right hand bumper. The touch-ups were done using Chromacryl water based acrylic artists paint.

[Mr Pinbologist]

After the playfield repairs were done it was then recovered with a new sheet of Mylar purchased from Bumper Action . It was then reassembled after cleaning all of the parts. The posts and all of the wire forms were cleaned with Nevr-Dull.

Some of the plastics were warped from the heat of the lamps so these were straightened by using the paint stripper gun to soften them, then clamping them between two sheets of smooth wood and letting them cool. After they cooled they were polished with Turtle Wax and installed. New rubber rings from Bumper Action were fitted. The yellow drop targets had been repaired many times so these were replaced. Yellow targets were not available so new white ones from Bumper Action were used instead. (BEING REPLACED WITH THE CORRECT TARGETS SOON!!)

[Mr Pinbologist]

The coin door, plunger and side rails were polished with Auto sol metal polish.
The chrome on the front legs polished up ok but the back ones didn’t, so these were rubbed back with 36 grit sandpaper, sprayed in etch primer, rubbed back when dry and sprayed in silver acrylic. (THE LEGS AND SHOOTER HOUSING WILL BE CHROME PLATED SOON). The coin door decal was replaced with a reproduction item from Pinball Rescue.

[Mr Pinbologist]

While going over the electricals/ connectors etc I pulled apart the power supply board for an overhaul and found it had been repaired a few too many times with lifting tracks, and was generally in a very bad state, so I designed and built my own power supply, making up my own PCB layout. I stuck with the original +60 volt and –12 volt regulator circuit designs, but came up with my own +5 volt regulator circuit based around an LM338K regulator IC.

[Mr Pinbologist]

RESTORATION COMPLETED... Nov 2003