Howdy all, The Queen Of Diamonds ......... here's a few details.... I bought this from Lee a few years back. It was as you can almost see in the 'before' pics.... (they're not great but they sure give the idea). Anyway, I bought it for a couple of reasons .... it was a wood rail (I believe that the steelrails were added later, after that hideous shade of red which you can see), and there was a good playfield... good in the sense that it was protected by a quick and nasty shellac job which had been slapped on years before with a 4" brush, without removing any playfield parts, ... of course. Did I mention that it had turned a yucky shade of brown and was from 1mm-4mm thick. Very troublesome...... But it had one really bad thing going for it ..... someone had covered all the gobble holes with their own home made plastics, and had changed the wiring of the game, and cut wires etc. And in putting in these plastics had 'hacked' about 4-5 mm of the playfield out, to fit the homemade plastics.....
So it was almost not worth trying, but I thought I could do something with it. Here's my memories of what and how I restored this oldie but goldie.
Lee put me on to a product called 'pedigree' fine filler. It great as it is as hard as a rock, yet will sand with ease. When I did the cabinet I firstly glued, then screwed here and there as there were a couple of chunks of timber missing around the bottom and rear of sides. Then, when its all stable from gluing etc, I used the pedigree to fill what was needed. I sanded the whole cabinet, of course and on the way, I got a drawing of the original design and colour. ..then finish sanding.
These days, the only spraying I'll do is what comes out of a can and even then I don't like breathing those fumes. I use sponge brushes for two real coats of undercoat, then 2-3-4 coats of the cream colour. I lightly sand between about every second coat. This keeps everything smooth and under control. My wife Kerrie usually cuts the stencils on original 'contact' paper.... Don't use cheap contact as it will lift from the surface and you will get lots of 'bleeding' that you don't want. We usually cut all the lines on the contact in one session, but then tape over all second colour sections before putting the sheet of contact on the box. ...Actually, it's probably smart to temporarily tape over the 1st colour sections, too and then its a whole lot easier to 'lay the contact on the box as the sheet is still one 'solid' piece. Anyway, after the colours, I touch up anything that bled, or other imperfections I see. Be patient; at this point as it should mostly be looking good, and there's a tendancy to 'rush' in all of us. After touch-up I wait a few days for paint to 'cure'....one final light sand and check. ....... then I do 4-5 coats of a water based clear, to 'push back' all the colour and give all the paints one common sheen. It's just 'more pinball'. I lastly nail some felt stoppers on the back of the cabinet as I hate scraping pinball cabinets in transit etc.
Guys, I'm going to stop now. I'll talk a bit about the playfield next time, and some other stuff about these wonderful machines. I hope some of this was helpful. There's as many methods as there are restorers so it's finding what works for you. ....... I enjoyed the Expo. Well done to all involved. Cheers, Mark
