Gottlieb Cleopatra Restoration

[Brettski]

Thanks Chris,
100 mile an hour tape should do the job! :)

Where do you get the glass channel guides?

Cheers: Brettski... :)

[Brettski]

Update!


Rails removed by drilling the tops of the nails off as Chris suggested, all good there!

Playfield cleared and polished ready for reassembly, waiting on parts etc..

Boards checked by Andrew (Beaky) and MPU has multiple faults and not worth fixing so I have ordered a new Pascal 4 in 1 to make it reliable.

Cleaned and inspected underneath the playfield, all coils checked and cleaned, all switches cleaned with an eraser, light sockets cleaned and solder joints checked and reflowed where needed.

Cabinet completely stripped and repair under way, I have used a product called Earl's Wood Hardner to restore the rotted areas of the cabinet caused by water damage and so far quite impressed with this product. Saved heaps of time and some money.. It was $52 a litre and I have used most of it so not so cheap but still better than having to rebuild the cabinet. see pictures below... The wood still looks rotted but it is now rock hard ready to bog and sand which I will start tomorrow..

Re pinned all the board connectors so it has completely fresh contacts, picked up a ripper crimper from Amazon as recommended on this forum, cost me about $40 to get it here including shipping and works great, a must have tool for anyone in the hobby. It is as good as the expensive Molex one except it doesn't have the ratchet mechanism but just as good and easy especially if you have a lot to do like in a Pinball Machine.

http://www.amazon.com/Platinum-Tools-16801C-Contact-Clamshell/dp/B000CSC4W2

I have found the best place to get crimps (0.156) is Jaycar.. I buy pkts of 10 crimps and a connector for a $1.20 and throw away the connector. Part # HM3440 if anyone is interested.

http://www.jaycar.com.au/Interconnect/Terminals-%26-Headers/Metric-Locking-Headers/10-Pin-0-156-Header-with-crimp-pins---3-96-pitch/p/HM3440

I also made a crimp removal tool from a small flat jewelers screwdriver and shaped it with the dremel, a few tweaks and it worked great.

Stripped the paint and rust from the Apron and repainted it, then applied a new apron decal from Pinball Rescue, top product!! Apron looks Brand Spankin New!! :)

All the playfield metal parts such as post screws, wire forms, nuts and bolts etc were cleaned up in a rock polisher I got from a local pawn broker.. great piece of equipment this is, everything comes out shiny ready for reassembly with no effort what so ever.. Another piece of equipment I recommend highly!

Here are some pics from recent work...

Cheers: Brettski... :)

[Crashramp]

Great work, it's coming along very nicely. 

[pinnies4me]

Nice one, and thanks for sharing some of the tips.

Love the shiny apron!

[Brettski]

I have now fitted a new base into the cabinet.. I used 12mm ply which will firm it right up.

It is almost ready for painting, using builders bog I repaired the bottom edges and damage to the front and sides then using gyprock top coat I covered all the panels and sanded it smooth.

This machine is base coat white and has grey spackle so I made a device (see pics below) to try and achieve this, well it hasn't been tested yet but fingers crossed it does the job. No I am not taking orders for these yet! LOL 

Stay tuned for more..

Cheers: Brettski... :)

[Strangeways]

Looking good !

For the spotted look - Grab an old toothbrush, dip in it the black paint and flick it on the cabinet. Try it first on some cardboard. I usually don't thin the paint, but sometimes I do - depending on if the brush is hard or soft. Trial and error. It will take 30 minutes to have the effect working perfectly, and 2 minutes to do the cabinet. Make sure you do the speckle straight after the base. Don't so any stenciling beforehand.

[Boots]

That's a nice solid base!
For the speckles, I take the small red insert out of a spray can nozzle (so the white trigger but is still there) and use shorts bursts from a distance.
Doesn't take very long and if you practice on a piece of cardboard you will find it looks exactly like the original.

[Slash]

That apron come up beautifully!

I used a small brush (similar to a toothbrush) and ran an old comb along it for my speckles and it worked really well. I ended up thinning it a bit as that seemed to work best with the particular brush I was using.

[Brettski]

Thanks everyone for the excellent advice..

Also thanks Nino as I was wondering when to spackle.. :)

Some great ideas there, maybe I got a bit carried away with the Spackulator but I still have to at least test it out! lol

I will post the results!

Cheers: Brettski... :)

[Brettski]

This weeks update,

I have finished the cabinet and have it ready for the stencils, the Spackulator worked a treat creating the speckle effect..
I made a video of it in action.. And I didn't get one drop of paint on me!

https://youtu.be/H5nM5ghmTYw

Really happy with how the cabinet came up so I couldn't put that dirty old transformer board back in it the way it was, after stripping it down and cleaning all the wires with baby wipes (these things clean dust and grime of anything) the board was sanded and coated in KBS. All the screws were polished in the rock polisher and the tranny brackets were polished on a bench grinder with a wire brush wheel. Now it's reassembled the next thing is to reflow all the solder joints and repin the connectors. I also noticed it is missing a Line Filter so I will grab one from Jaycar and connect it up.

Here are a few shots of the cabinet with speckle and a before and after of the tranny board.

Cheers: Brettski... :)

P.S.
Don't rush me with orders for the Spackulator!! LOL  

[Brettski]

I added an EMI Line Filter to the Transformer board, do I need to add a Varistor?? I have one on my Bally machine but don't have one on Sinbad so I am not sure..

Cheers: Brettski... :)

[Brettski]

This weeks update!

This week I managed to create the stencils and then painted them on the cabinet over the weekend.
I also dismantled the coin door, the wife got in on the action for the first time! she removed some jammed coins from the coin slots.
Found $2.45 and a washer jammed in with wasp nests, she was having so much fun digging them out I didn't have the heart to show her how the slots come out and split in 2. LOL

I had the file given to me by boots for the cabinet stencils printed to white vinyl and then cut out the pieces with a scalpel, then instead of peeling of the backing and applying the sticky vinyl  to the cabinet I used spray adhesive to create a low tack and sprayed onto the backing of the vinyl, this is because the vinyl I had it printed to is permanent adhesive not designed for stencils. This also allowed me to then spray the adhesive on the reverse side after the first shot of paint and flip it to do the otherside. Plus it only cost me $25 for the Vinyl printed to scale.

Worked perfectly plus I used Ironlak paints which are high pigmented and dry quick, I was able to spray both colours on both sides within 2 hours with no lifting of paint whatsover. The colour match wasn't too bad either for spray cans but Ironlak have an awesome selection, this is the stuff Graffiti artists use for large murals etc. Looks great on a retro pinball cabinet.

https://www.eckersleys.com.au/products/ironlak-spray-paint

After dismantling the backbox I found squatters behind the aluminum ground plane, lots of them but thank god they were old and empty. This thing was full of wasp nests all throughout the machine.

Also started to re populate the playfield, waiting on plastics and some other bits to come from PBR but shouldn't be long now.

Here are some pics..

Cheers: Brettski...

[Brettski]

More pics from this weeks stencil job!

Brettski... :)

[Crashramp]

Wow, looking great Brettski. Love the cabinet work. 

[Strangeways]

Make sure you spaculate on the inside of the cabinet as well - the areas where the white sides are visible.

Project is coming along nicely. I remember my first repaint - I used acetate sheets and it took my at least 100 hours. It was a lot of fun - but not practical for me these days !