Bally Rolling Stones Restore

[Strangeways]

I've had a couple of requests for restores that I've documented previously, So I thought I'd post them here more as a reference. This restore was one of my favorites as I love working on old school Bally machines. This machine is just out of the Bally "Golden Era" for me.

A Classic Bally restored for MarkC's personal collection !

Background

Whilst a couple of us AP pinheads were assisting the unloading of the EM container at Childs a few months back, we were astonished to see a Bally Rolling Stones body half way through. As we dug deeper into the container, we found the head right up the back. While removing the head, I nearly broke the Backglass by accident, thankfully, my hand was in the way of some nasty Backglass breakage. After removing the machine and having a look over it - the machine was average - at best...But the backglass was a nice.....

Obviously, I love Ballys of this era, so I took a liking to it immediately and I wanted to check it out. It had heaps of problems that needed attention. Mark had plans to keep the game for his own collection, so I though I'd ask if I could work on it.

I figured that Mark had done me so many favors locating a Medusa, CV and a really nice JP - that I offerred to restore the game for his own personal collection..In fact, I insisted...After all - it was going into his personal collection, and I saw the game restoration as a challenge.

Condition

Backglass - 9/10 - Really nice. No fade, no flaking. Just a couple of minor scratches.

Cabinet - 7/10 - Faded, but structurally ok. No repairs required. Repaint is a possibility in the future

Playfield - 7/10 - Day 1 Mylar on the bulk of the playfield. Not on the top ball arch and the area under the flippers.

Electronics - 6/10 - Some real ugly "route" repairs done by a bushman mechanic....

Objective

To restore the game - not recondition. The cabinet will remain unpainted, the electronics will be rebuilt and the playfield will be restored using some interesting techniques. I've never used a airbrush, and I didn't for this playfield. Read on to see what I mean !

In hindsight, I'm STILL happy with the process I used to solve the problems with the drain area - But I now would like to learn how to use more advanced techniques - like airbrushing - Similar to Gavin and Mitch's efforts. I guess the problems for me would start with the sealing of the touch ups - such as clearcoat VS mylar. I guess this is part of the learning process.

Starting point

So here is what the game looks like, an hour after being removed from the container. I was sprung admiring this game, and I just had to assemble it to see what it looked like. I was a Rolling Stones fan, so it was pretty cool to see the game up close.








The playfield was filthy and the non mylared section had a fair bit of wear. Had it not been for the mylar, this playfield would have been "shot". Bumper caps were yellowed and burnt, targets worn - usual problems.. But look closely under the flippers.. What the hell is that ?





Now this picture takes the cake for the biggest butcher job on a power supply.. This was just shite..BRs just floating in the air, wires soldered directly to the connector pins, wires joined to other wires with gaffer tape...sigh...



Under the bonnet - Filthy.. every moving part was seized from lubrication gone mad. Ever screw was glued to its bracket or to the base. Dirt was forming around the dirt that was stuck to the dried grease...




FYI - As explained above - this is a restore I did a while ago, so updates will be quick. I hope that members find it useful as a reference !


 

[illawarra_steelers]

Looks good mate - if you can't get those caps and need a set of reproductions PM me and I will point you in the direction of a set 

Will post more tomorrow - time for bed 

 

[Strangeways]

I've had the first "bite" on the thread and it's a big fish !

Mate - This machine was completed over a year ago !

 

[Strangeways]

The Blue Goo !

what were they thinking ?




Body

The body is a straight forward procedure. The body is stripped completely, washed and cleaned, the metal parts are removed and polished in the tumbler. Legs are cleaned and new legbolts and leg levellers are installed. A new power cord is installed. The door is stripped, washed - all parts in the tumbler. The door skin, side rails and lock down bar are regrained simply by using 180 grit wet/dry followed by 320 wet/dry with windex. The ball plunger is polished on the buffer wheel, and new springs installed.

Electronics

Solenoid Driver has the ground mods done and a new 5V Cap is installed. check the display voltage is regulated to 174VDC. MPU has its battery removed - luckily - not much corrosion. But the area was cleaned and a new battery installed with a diode to prevent recharging. Lamp Matrix needed a couple of SCRs replaced - no big deal. The Rectifier board was a disaster - see the picture above.. The fuse holder, connectors, bridge rectifiers and ceramic resistors are replaced - the whole board gets an upgrade ! The connectors and pins are replaced on the harness itself as well. When completed, it looks like this ;




Displays are all checked and connectors re flowed. All the digit resistors are replaced with 100K OHM 1/2 Watt resistors.

The Blue Mess

Whats underneath the gaffer tape ??? Well after a few Beams, I decided it had to come off...Pictures describe it better than I ever could



Here's an even "better" picture...



There were two options - Airbrush or Decal... I can't airbrush for crap, so its going to be a decal. first thing to do is trace the area up and then think about how to fix this problem - biggest challenge I've had so far !

Here's the trace...



Hmmm.... What to do next ??

[illawarra_steelers]

  Yeah I remember now 

To be honest I had been working on the Sunshine (Gottlieb 58) rebuild last night and had 6 beers in me when reading the post above 

Friday nights - they are the best....music pumping (Queensryche last night for many hours) some nice Redback beers and working on restorations...what a way to finish the working week

Keep the updates coming and it's about time you got a real old game to test your restoration skills 

[ddstoys]

Love that butchered power supply Nino id like to nominate that for butcher of the year award.   Interesting post so far cant wait to see how you go about that playfield ewe

[Strangeways]

Yeah I remember now 

To be honest I had been working on the Sunshine (Gottlieb 58) rebuild last night and had 6 beers in me when reading the post above 

Friday nights - they are the best....music pumping (Queensryche last night for many hours) some nice Redback beers and working on restorations...what a way to finish the working week

Keep the updates coming and it's about time you got a real old game to test your restoration skills 

I have a Bally Star Jet up next, so that will be fun - I've done a Bally Miami Beach - 50's Bingo machine - But they are VERY difficult. I'd love to do a woodrail.

[Strangeways]

Up until this point, I had never had to deal with this kind of wear, but I guess it makes sense. There are plenty of examples where a playfield is completely worn to wood in the "high traffic" areas. Well I think this game was one of them. Thankfully, this game had "Day One" mylar (installed on the production line), so 80% of this playfield was protected and the artwork is intact. So you should be able to work out the areas where the mylar is. It ends under the "1000 Bonus" light - in the shape of a "V". So there are three different levels to contend with.

The highest section was above and beyond the "V" in the section between the flippers. This is where the Mylar is applied from factory. Then there is the area below that, which is simply the bare playfield with its protective clearcoat (factory). Finally, there is a section "worn to wood" - and within that section, there is some sort of reaction with either water damage or the adhesive backing from the gaffer tape than was applied.

So there was some method in my mad idea to apply a decal here. The first thing to do was remove the existing wear by creating a "flat" area. The areas left with artwork just peeled off - it was unstable anyway. So I used a chisel and just lifted it gently, but creating a border beforehand. This would give me a stable and flat area to work with.

The bare playfield is porous, so no decal will adhere to it for a long period of time - something I learnt from another pinhead . So I had to seal the area with some sort of lacquer or sealant. I found a can of Cabots clear lacquer finish at bunnings and started to experiment on pieces of wood. The aim was to have a level area that would be a great preparation to lay down the decal.

Decal

The trace was scanned into photoshop and with a bit of time and luck, some "mock ups" were printed out - using no colors - no color matching yet. Just the size and alignment were important here. Here is an early sample of the decal ;





Bit of fiddling around, but the idea is starting to look like it might work. So once the size and aspect is right, we add color ;





Were is the writing ? There is no such thing as a "Rollings Stones" font, so it had to be created. Few hours later and viola ;





The color matching was a headache... All the colors were close except the light blue. That was near impossible to match... So the art is printed on vinyl adhesive paper and left aside for a while..

So now the area that the decal will be applied needs to be sealed and raised to the playfield "artwork + clearcoat" level. By doing that, the decal can be added to that level and BE level with the MYLAR... so that the additional mylar I will apply to protect the decal, and to keep the bottom of the "V" flat will be one level.. Hard to follow

The aim is to have the entire area LEVEL, by raising the non mylared areas, adding the decal and then applying the new mylar..

So first the area is prepared with a light sand and then the surrounding area masked and covered.





Thin coat first
Wait 4 hours
Thick coat
Wait 4 hours
Sand with 800 grit
Thick coat
Wait 4 hours
Sand with 800 grit
Thin Coat
Wait 4 hours
Sand with 800 grit

Test for level with the mylar - and it is JUST under.. Perfect height. Now with the application of the decal, it will be level..

Remove the paper and test the section with a "mock run" of the decal installation.. The decal has to be trimmed to "butt up" against the mylar "V"..Note the "V" is "dead centre" between the flippers, but the artwork is not. So the Decal has to be trimmed ! I did this by tracing the "V" area on the playfield and transposing that onto the decal in "reverse" - ie the underside. I trimmed the decal so that it "meets" the "V" and it does !

Further trimming is required, with a straight metal ruler and an exacto knife.





After COUNTLESS hours working on this decal, I had to remove the backing and line up the four corners - with those lines in the artwork - and I had once attempt. It took 30 minutes of procrastinating, and it was all over in 15 seconds.. It was either going to fit, or I was going back to the printer

Here it is - installed ;





Keep in mind that with the flash on the camera going off - if "changes" the color slightly - so it might not look that great, but it looks better in real life !

This was the most time consuming and difficult process of the restore.

[SPURR]

Great work Nino I have done a lot of air brushing and no way could I have done a better job than what you have done. So looks like decal is the way to go in repairs where fine detail is required to make a professional job. If you HAD to air brush this job I reckon it would take twice as long to do as what you did.

 

[Strangeways]

Great work Nino I have done a lot of air brushing and no way could I have done a better job than what you have done. So looks like decal is the way to go in repairs where fine detail is required to make a professional job. If you HAD to air brush this job I reckon it would take twice as long to do as what you did.

 

I think going down the path of a proper restoration - the mylar would have to be removed for the entire playfield - that would have been a problem, and created more touch up work, then a clear coat to seal the work. I'm afraid that level of restoration is outside my current skillset. Gavin would probably be able to do this - but the hours would be massive.

[Ford Fairlane]

i love seeing these playfield restores. Great work Nino!!! how hard is it to get the size right? and did you scan another playfield to get the missing pieces? and who prints decals... sorry for the barrage of questions 

[Strangeways]

i love seeing these playfield restores. Great work Nino!!! how hard is it to get the size right? and did you scan another playfield to get the missing pieces? and who prints decals... sorry for the barrage of questions 

That's why I post the older restorations - They sometime have tips in them that can help others, and create ideas !

What I did very early on was take a trace on tracing paper, and then an artistic friend of mine scanned the trace and created the stencil art, which was color matched (an absolute horror exercise). This was taken to a local printer and then printed on adhesive vinyl.

[Strangeways]

The RHS return lane was worn to wood where the "But I like it" writing is.

"But I Li" is under the factory mylar, the "ke it" is worn to wood. In fact, the ball could almost just sit at the crease of the mylar if the ball was trapped by the RHS flipper. I did not employ the same technique as the main worn area, so I sanded the area flat and then applied another decal running from the "ke it" all the way up to the entrance to the return lane. It was trimmed to "buff up" against the factory mylar, and it took 5 minutes to trim and install. I did a test "run" with some of the hardware installed ;




Heres a later picture with the full sheet of mylar installed over the two decals. The hardware is installed and this will be the final result;



Under the playfield

Every mechanism was removed cleaned and soaked in alcohol to remove the years of crap that had built up, and to completely remove the lubricants that were smeared on the plungers.. YUK... So all mechanisms rebuilt and re installed.

New globes installed.

All the metal parts were tumbled - including the all the plungers. All coils sleeves replaced, new switch caps installed where required.

The flipper coils were not original, so they were replaced. New full flipper kits were installed ;





Note the coil stop screw holes.. They look really bad, one is "elongated". Oversized screws and even wood svrews are common to hold things together.. All you need to do is swap the LHS plate with the RHS plate and you can use the new mounting holes on the plate. Now you can use the new screws supplied with the kit.


The game was fired up for the first time and it worked !

[63wizz]

mate i think you done a fantastic job color matching that decal, this would have to be the hardest task i have done.
the end result looks fantastic.

Ian

[Extra Ball]

Very nice Nino