Cue Ball Wizard

[Tensikka]

Hello all,

After gaining more courage from great welcome greetings in "Introduce yourself"-topic, I'll post some story about my Cue Ball Wizard (Gottlieb -92, SYS3) deep cleaning. I don't like to call it restoration because I don't feel that I did merely nothing to restore it, mostly removed dirt from different places. But here we go.

I bought this CBW from Finnish online auction site in January. Seller didn't understand anything about pinballs, this one got to his hands from some dead mans estate (or how do you call it?). History info from game was somehow limited, but it propably has been for last year or two in display in some store and before that it was in that previously mentioned guy's home. Before that it has been out in some locations for play but there was no indications, who has been operator or anything else. Only lockbar-holders were attached in cabinet sides and one note with some earning fiqures found inside cabinet.

Game was almost playable when I got it. Games could be played but almost all rubber rings was transformed to dust were broken so constant ball jams around playfield interrupted games. But main thing, display worked, all electronics worked and most of lights worked ok. Because I don't have any electrical background, these issues would be very hard for me to solve and I have to rely on somebody wiser to help me. But luckily I did only have to worry about dirt and cosmetics. Biggest problems was playfield mylar, game is played quite much so whole mylar was kind of "dull", so getting it back to shine was my biggest worry. I can be seen some of photos I'll attach to this post.

Here is some before photos that are taken during disassembly of game.


Lower playfield


Playfield from ball view (almost)


Upper part of playfield, notice that it's quite hard to see thorugh that 8-ball ramp.


Another view of upper playfield and only photo that has anything showed up from cabinet. There was thick layer of dust everywhere but nothing serious.


Left slingshot, notice playfield mylar dullness


Main (and only) ramp was also gathered some dirt


Horseshoe assebly was also little bit dirty. It has been opened some times, notice nice nail "tune up"


There was dirt for several millimeters thickness


Ball through before


Disassembled ball through. Notice that white/grey substance in suface, it was found also under playfield from many places, and I have no idea what and where that came from. Maybe some milk-based drink?


Cue Ball was also bit dirty


Targets before, over half of targets had lost it's decal and there was huge amount of dirt everywhere.

Translite was in good shape, only one minor scrape but won't bother me. As soon as I started working with this machine, I started negotiations with local bar/pool-hall that if I could put this one there to be played. Owner of that bar liked my idea much so aims for this work was clear. Machine would be located for play for some time in future so it's crucial to go through all parts and places to minimize service calls and to produce joy to players (and to me) as much as possible. Actually this was only second place in our whole city, where pinball can be played (our city has some 35 000 residents) so competition isn't that tough. Maybe there is a reason for that, only time will tell that.

In following post's I'll clarify different tasks that has been done, nothing unusual but if someone is interested.

[Strangeways]

Typical dirty and neglected game. It is always a good reference point when starting a game. When the game is restored, you can look back on your work and see how much of an improvement you have made.

I look forward to your updates 

[Tensikka]

And let's continue story. Machine is already done so now it's possible to report little faster pace than normally during restoration :) And don't let funny posting times fool you, we have "little" time difference comparing to Australia (GMT+2).

Target banks

Drop down targets were quite messy, as you did saw in earlier post. Naturally whole assembly was quite mess. It was disassembled fully and cleaned. All suitable parts (=small enough) were first washed on ultrasonic cleaner with some 55 celsius water and some local cleaning stuff, pH 10,5. Most of flipperdust was removed but still lots to do. I usually after this treatment still go through all parts by hand with sponge and Novus2. It gives nice touch to metal surfaces and removes stains that didn't came of in ultrasonic cleaner. Dropdown targets needed to sand a little bit, there was quite nasty marks in shafts and I wanted those to be as smooth as possible to ensure good operation for future. So 600 - 1000 - 1500 grit sandpaper treatment to all 14 targets. After that I installed new decals that my friend made from sample that I provided, it's printed and cutted to some vinylpaper with adhesive and surface is hot laminated. Same method and stuff is used outdoos signs that their company makes. So those should be quite UV resistant and be able to take lots of hits without damage. Anyhow, that is not so big problem, if some targets starts to have some marks, I can easily replace those, I have some 100 extra copies for future :) And no mylar etc. is needed afterwards. After new decals was installed, I waxed all targets and metal parts through with Carnauba-vax. Also coils were cleaned, plungers polished, new coil sleeves installed etc. Before coils didn't even return to down-position after bank reset, now everything worked like charm. And some pictures to follow. Story continues in next post.

[Tensikka]

Some images from parts, first upper playfield target bank that 8-ball hits. It was in good shape so basic cleaning and it looks like new.

Other images are from flipper mechanisms. Some dirt removed and assembled with new moving parts.

I know that these are quite boring stuff but these takes time so much to get it done right. And when playfield layout seems to be quite simple, there is 17 different solenoids under playfield. Going through all of them was quite big project that didn't give that much satisfaction, after all it's all hidden under the hood. But now it's good to know that there shouldn't be any hassles with solenoids for long time.

According to solenoids, I faced some odd behavior. Two solenoids stayed on after they deployed. One VUK and other pop bumper. First I got scared that there is some electrical problems but no, solenoids stayed "on" even with no power. I turned out that some parts had magenitized during resoration causing this problem. And I could only find two different solutions: heat or beat. Because VUK's plunger tip is plastic, heating was ruled out, so beating was left. So I throwed it as hard as I could to my garages concrete floor and suprise: no magentism any more. Great.

[Tensikka]

After all was done under hood, it was time to start to freshen up playfield. As you can see, whole playfield is covered by mylar. Great, no wearmarks on playfield anywhere. Bad, it's plastic that is dulled all around making all colours to fade and whole game looks like used. As you know, mylar is extremely hard stuff to operate. I had to test few different things before I found working solution. That was:
- Novus3 (a lot of it) and working. Lots of shoulder grease needed. Open parts of playfield I did go through with this non-linear sanding mahcine with sponge-pad. Actually this method didn't work that well, it only made huge amount of mess all around cabinet.
- best solution was this sponge with white, harder scraping pad on other side. This gave good results with reasonable amount of work
- After this Novus 2 with green scotchpad  (or whatever it's called)
- Novus 2 with sponge
- novus 1 for cleanup.

End result was quite satisfying. It could be better, but now it works as it should. Some photos to follow

[pinnies4me]

Playfield came up pretty shiny after all that work, well done. Treasurecove in the US sell a mylar polishing kit - I've never tried it but a few here have commented on good results.

[Tensikka]

Playfield came up pretty shiny after all that work, well done. Treasurecove in the US sell a mylar polishing kit - I've never tried it but a few here have commented on good results.

Actually this was the place where I got idea to use these scotchpads. But next time I will definetly get that kit that can be used with power drill. Actually one of my Finnish pinball mate was doing also full restore to CBW at the same time and he did use some polishing kit and said that it worked like charm.

[Strangeways]

Playfield came up pretty shiny after all that work, well done. Treasurecove in the US sell a mylar polishing kit - I've never tried it but a few here have commented on good results.

+ 1 - I've used it a few times and it is worth the investment.

Great Updates, Tensikka - Keep them coming ! The playfield looks very clean and the colors are vibrant again.

[Steevsee]

Thanks Tensikka for taking the time to post this.   
I'm really enjoying it and am inspired to do some cleaning on my own CBW after seeing how nice yours looks.

[goodolddays]

Thanks for posting .. game came up really well

[ktm450]

Nice work so far  the drop target decals you had made look great