Stern Quicksilver High End Restoration

[ddstoys]

Still blows my mind they used plastic pop bumper rings they were not afraid to try new things to save a dollar .

     As for the playfield I seen this very early on and cringed at the amount of work ahead for Tim but he pulled it off nicely


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[ddstoys]

You’ve done a great job on the nickel again and that vinyl recovering looks great I bet that’s taken some practice to get that right


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[Strangeways]

You’ve done a great job on the nickel again and that vinyl recovering looks great I bet that’s taken some practice to get that right


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It is Zinc plating. Nickel is brighter and more difficult to work with as you need industrial chemicals to strip the old nickel. Pinball machines were originally Zinc plated, which is a thinner plating. People who nickel plate assemblies etc are wasting their time as it affects moving parts due to slightly changing the dimensions. Zinc plating takes practice, but the results are amazing if you are patient and willing to learn. The only issue I've ever had is plating Stern parts. You need room and no kids / animals running around, but it is well worth not taking parts to a plater that could get lost !

[ddstoys]

You do a great job with it that’s for sure. 


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[Strangeways]

You do a great job with it that’s for sure. 


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Cheers mate - Probably because I enjoy doing it. If you need anything done - just let me know !

[ddstoys]

Thank mate


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[pinnies4me]

Looking awesome as always, glad you left the timber in its natural state, nothing worse than a glass like finish on an old game, makes it look "artificial".

[Strangeways]

Looking awesome as always, glad you left the timber in its natural state, nothing worse than a glass like finish on an old game, makes it look "artificial".

It can be difficult to explain this, as some collectors expect an almost plastic or glass finish. Even with 2 pack and several coats of clear, eventually the timber will negate the efforts to convert it to glass. The only way to have a perfect cabinet is to make a new cabinet. Even then, the timber will age and cause issues. When I approached this restoration, there was no way I was going to have a mirror finish. I just won't do it, as that's not the intention of the originality of the machine. I spent more time on matching the paint with a purple fleck. It is difficult to notice the fleck, but to me - that was more important as that's how it was originally painted.

[Strangeways]

Here's the original door with the non original paint and rivets ;





Painted and straightened door with decals from Pinball Rescue. Legs installed with black pincabs and the legbolt protectors ;






Playfield coming together nicely. New posts are placed in position with rubbers adjusted accordingly ;





The ball guide and baffle were in bad shape. I had to plate the guide several times, but it came out well in the end. Lock down bar assembly is painted with a metal paint that I've found to be very durable.





LEDs installed with Pinball Rescue plastic set. I used the factory rubber post caps and the green superbands as they fitted in well. The factory pop bumper caps were used as they looked better than the reproductions.






The apron was originally black, but according to the flyer, it should be green. It was really hard to match the green, as the only pictures were from the internet. Lucky for me, I have a collector who has an original green apron, and the color looked very close to the best photo online. Even more lucky, the collector has an Eight Ball. They are almost exactly the same - which worked out well, as I have the exact Eight Ball apron paint.





Playfield really pops with the plastics installed.






I don't like the long #6-32 machine screws that protrude from under the playfield and are fixed to the lane guides with a nut. The result is a very long, excessively long, machine screw poking above the lane guide. So I replaced them with standard machine screws, top mounted with T-Nuts under the playfield. Looks HEAPS better !








Just look at this playfield !!

[ddstoys]

Damn that game looks amazing. 

Seeing this game as a blank Playfield my first reaction was what a disgusting looking game but seeing it all pieces together with all the other colours just wow it comes together so nicely


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[Strangeways]

Damn that game looks amazing. 

Seeing this game as a blank Playfield my first reaction was what a disgusting looking game but seeing it all pieces together with all the other colours just wow it comes together so nicely


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Most Sterns are like that. The artwork is not as "nice" as Ballys of the same era, but with these games in particular, the artwork was not a priority. Playfield design and the speed of these games seemed to me to be the priority.

[Slash]

That looks gorgeous!!

[Strangeways]

This is where the fun starts - Play Testing. The playfield has the minimum 2 coats of Wax while I test the game, and the first thing I noticed was how quick the game was. It was ridiculously fast - Too fast in my initial opinion. But is was slowly sinking in that the game was designed to be this fast. I'm glad I did my standard replacement of the switch matrix capacitors, as the switches were responsive, which it needs to be for a fast game like this. The pop bumpers although plastic were responsive and in my opinion much better than metal rod and rings. I had to tune the drop targets, as in some shots, you can know over all the drop targets in the bank with one shot (I used to love this shot in Meteor). Here's a picture of the game with the backglass installed for testing feature lamps (which were disconnected when I received the game).





After tuning it in, I finished off the internals in the cabinet and the underside of the playfield. I printed up tech charts and labels, laminated them and placed them accordingly.






The correct Type 2 Flipper bases were used. These are a really good replacement.








Here you can see the difference in plating on the drop target bases. The top left turned out really good, but the bottom right I could not plate to the standard I was expecting. They go through the same steps, but some parts simply did not plate 100%. I think one reason is because they were so lightly plated to begin with, the metals must have been compromised over time and was never going to plate.





The Black pop bumper bodies. I think they fitted in well with the black on the playfield.





Inside the cabinet - Power Supply board and transformer.






Tilt Mech rebuilt - plated metal parts. Turned out nice !







Cashbox and door areas ;







Door Internals ;






Tech charts always finish off the restoration !






Flipper base plate - the correct type 2 for this title. The flipper kits are the same, but the bushing are different between type 1 and type 2.






Lockdown bar receiver and ground straps ;






Under the hood. Very pleased with the way it finished off.





 

[Ballywannabe]

Very nice Nino, so much attention to detail. I am more of an "if I can't see it it doesn't matter too much" type of restorer!
If that is the real high score, it cannot be playing that fast - I struggle to get over 3 million on mine, set at 3 balls .

For some reason Aussie delivered Quicksilver's seem to have the orange apron cover.  I swapped mine out for a Hot Hand which is very similar to the green version you have gone with.

Still waiting for the spinner decals to appear and the correct leg bolts

[ktm450]

Wow! That looks amazing! Great job as always mate