williams Klondike restoration

[Mr Pinbologist]

Heres another of my restores that was undertaken a few years ago now.. 1971 Williams Klondike. I picked this one up in 1994 along with a stuffed Williams Super star.

The superstar ended up as a parts machine… the cabinet was rotted and the backglass had half of the art gone from being wet at some stage (this game had sat under someones house without the legs attached)! I actually had this one working but ended up raiding parts from it because of the bg issues… im kinda sorry I did that now! But I still have all the major parts from it, so maybe it’ll end up as a project one day…

Anyhow the Klondike had only minor switch issues to deal with so it was working in no time. It also had some wiring mods that I later removed once I’d located a schematic for the game. The game was left as it was and stored in my shed at my parents house until I dragged it out in 2005 and loaded into my station wagon and brought it out to Armidale for a ground up restoration.

The cabinet was in reasonable shape, scratched and faded but solid. Just a few deep gouges and some of the plywood laminations separating on the bottom edges that needed to be dealt with. The chipboard back panel was also falling apart along the bottom edge.
 
The playfield was in not too bad a condition. Someone had put some very rough mylar patches over parts of it, and there were only a few minor wear spots. Also there were a few holes drilled into it where some one had fitted extra posts, just below the left and right “up post” lanes, that would need to be filled.
 
The backglass had the usual amount of wear n tear for it’s age. A few cracks in the ink etc. The worst area was the white around the score reels.

[Mr Pinbologist]

The first  two pics below show some of the dodgey bros wiring done to the game. Someone had modified the reels on the playfield so that both the left and right reels advanced together… I only worked this one out some ten years later with the aid of a manual! I found some switch contacts on the score motor that had been bent permanently closed.

Also I found a few sins in the back box as well… they had added a connector and a few wires to the match unit which connected to the reel relays (there were wires running from the relays on the pf up to the backbox) which made the playfield reels advance in a random sequence at the end of every ball, which I found out is NOT supposed to happen. I found no reference to this in the manual, and the wiring definitely didn’t look like factory issue. Removing this mod made the pf reels behave correctly. I also found out from the manual there should be a single chime unit on the game but this too was missing.

The 3rd and 4th pics show the pf reel plastic before and after. The only way I could do this was to scan the original plastic into my pc, draw in the missing art in photoshop and touch up the colours. After a few attempts at matching the colours (and a lot of swearing!) this is the end result. I printed a mirror copy of the art onto clear adhesive A4 size label (bought from Kmart) and stuck it onto a piece of clear lexan and cut it to shape. Then I sprayed white acrylic paint over the ink to diffuse the light. I think the original was moulded into the shape of the reels but it wasn’t possible to do this. Instead when drilling the mounting holes I drilled them in such a way that the plastic flexed upwards, clearing the reels. Not ideal I know… but it looks way better than the crappy old plastic it’s replacing!

[Strangeways]

This is one of those great Williams titles that I've heard so much about, but I can't recall playing one.

You have to love those "U-Beaut, Dodgy Brothers" fixes..

I can't wait to see the rest of the pictures. By the look of that upper playfield "after" shot, it looks to be a really nice game now.

[Mr Pinbologist]

10/3/06: Restoration begins:
First, I removed the back box, and totally gutted it and the cabinet of all parts. I then traced the stencilled designs so I could reproduce these later. Then I totally stripped all of the old paint off using paint stripper and a scraper, after which I cleaned it up using methylated spirits. There were a few minor scratches and dings to repair so these were filled automotive body filler where needed.
After this was done I then sanded the whole thing back with 120-grit sandpaper followed by 220-grit. It was then dusted off thoroughly and then sprayed in enamel undercoat. After the undercoat had dried I sanded it back with 400-grit sandpaper and wiped it down with a rag and Prepsol wax and grease remover. Then I sprayed the front area where the backglass fits in and the front edges with black enamel and let it dry. I then masked this off and sprayed the blue/green basecoat colour. I had to have this colour custom mixed, I had a mate of mine who works in an automotive paint shop mix this colour in enamel spray cans for me. This game had silver speckling paint over the base coat so I redid this using thinned silver enamel and the old toothbrush trick… dipping the brush into the paint and flicking the bristles with my fingernail (after testing it on cardboard first of course!)
Next the stencils were made by laying the tracings made earlier over sheets of white cardboard, and cutting out the shapes. These were then laid over the sides (one side at a time), weighed down with sockets and sprayed using three light coats of each colour, given 10 – 15 minutes between coats and allowed to dry. It was left over night between spraying each colour.

[Strangeways]

Geez - I didn't have to wait too long !! Great start, Mitch..

[Mr Pinbologist]

Cabinet restoring progress;

[Mr Pinbologist]

Next on the agenda were the playfield repairs. The topside of the playfield was completely stripped of all parts prior to doing any work. Next I removed the old mylar pieces by heating it up with a paint stripper gun (on the low setting!), and slowly pulling it up while heating it. Next the old mylar glue and dirt was removed with Prepsol wax & grease remover, rags and a lot of hard work!
All of the paint touch-ups were done using Chromacryl artists acrylic paints, using a small brush. The worst area to repair was around the centre eject hole, not only was the paint chipped away but the wood itself was splitting. This was fixed by working PVA wood glue into the cracks, then smearing a thin layer all around the tapered edge of the hole. Before this though I had to touch up the black around the hole as best as possible. It was necessary to use several applications of paint to build the paint thickness back up to the same level as the original paint. Also I had to fill and retouch two postholes, which were added by a previous owner just below the “up post” lanes, that didn’t belong there.
When all of the touch-ups were done and deemed good enough I applied a new sheet of mylar to the whole playfield. After the mylar was done, I flipped the playfield over and repaired all of the lamp sockets by soldering the bases and cleaning them out by running a 3/8’ drill bit in a cordless drill on the slow speed. Also I soldered the connecting wire to reach socket directly to the tip that makes contact with the lamp, as seen below to further increase reliability.

[Mr Pinbologist]

As can be seen here the centre reels were in a very sorry state. These reels had the symbols printed onto cardboard and then the cardboard was riveted onto the plastic reel. There was no way I was going to leave these looking like this, so I carefully removed the cardboard (they were glued as well) from the three reels. I had to mark which cardboard strip was from which reel as the right hand reel symbols were in a different order than the other two.

Next I scanned the cardboard strips into my pc, and using photoshop cleaned up and edited the images. Then I printed the images onto white A4 size adhesive label. When I test fitted these around the reels, I found it necessary to build up the reel diameter because the new symbol labels were over lapping a little too much. I did this by adding a few layers of mylar as needed. Using clear mylar enabled me to line up the new labels with the old rivet holes.
The following pics show the newly printed labels, and one of the labels applied to one reel. Another layer of Mylar was added over the labels and trimmed to size to protect them.

[Mr Pinbologist]

Next I decided to try reproducing the instruction card apron artwork. First thing I did was to scan the art into my pc… in two sections due to the size of the apron. After cleaning up and editing the images they were printed onto A4 size clear adhesive label.

The apron was sanded back with 320 grit wet/dry paper, wiped down with Prepsol and sprayed with automotive acrylic primer. Once dry it was sanded again with 400 wet/dry, wiped down with Prepsol and then sprayed in Holts brand “marina blue” acrylic, as it was the closest colour to original I could find.

The 2nd pic below shows my apron artwork decals ready to be applied, printed on two A4 clear adhesive labels as described before. In the 3rd pic below are the freshly applied decals. The join can be seen between the two halves where I butted them together (to the right of centre, between the “s” in the Williams logo and the trademark symbol. This was easily corrected using a black sharpie pen before the clear acrylic lacquer was sprayed on to protect my handiwork. Shown in the 4th pic are installed apron and ball shooter gauge, and the newly reproduced instruction cards.

[Mr Pinbologist]

Next came the playfield reassembly. All of the posts were cleaned with automotive cutting compound and polished with Repo Paint Doctor polish before fitting them. The bumper and slingshot mechanisms were rebuilt with new coil sleeves and the bumper skirts cleaned before fitting. New rubbers were fitted as well as new plastic lane guides in the centre of the playfield on the up post lanes… yes I know they should be yellow and not white! I was unable to get yellow ones so I used white ones instead. The top arch parts were cleaned and/or painted as needed. The metal ball guide rails for the up post lanes were polished with Auto sol and reinstalled. All of the plastics were straightened by heating them carefully with a heat gun, then clamping them between two sheets of MDF board and letting them cool. They were then polished with Repo Paint Doctor and installed after new lamps were fitted.

The coin door and cabinets side rails were badly scratched, so these were carefully and painstakingly sanded several times, starting with 320 grit wet/dry sandpaper, then 400, and finally 800 grit before polishing with Auto sol. These items look much better now that they did before. Since the coin door was totally dismantled for sanding and polishing, every part off the inside was cleaned and/or polished before reinstalling. The coin reject button has been rechromed (it and the top pf glass strip were sent off with my Mibs parts when they were being done). When purchased, this game had the wrong legs on it (gottlieb legs) so, these were replaced. New chrome legs and leg levellers were bolted on using new chrome leg bolts.

The 2nd pic below  show the home made chime box that I made. After finding several pictures of various Williams machines in the Internet pinball database, which used a single chime unit as Klondike used, I decided it was worth the trouble to try building one similar. I had already located the cut off wires that went to the chime coil; all I had to do was to extend them to reach the new coil. I used a modified Gottlieb knocker assembly with a Williams coil I raided from my old Superstar playfield. The coil used is from one of the stepper units, which seems to do the job ok, if I can obtain the correct part number coil for the chime unit later on, I’ll use that instead. I had an old Gottlieb chime box amongst my spare parts so I used one of the chime bars from that. I have no idea if it’s playing the correct pitch, I used the middle chime bar from the Gottlieb chime box. At least the game now has some sound!!

[Mr Pinbologist]

Next on the agenda were the backglass touch ups. First I had to clean the backside as carefully as possible so as to not destroy anymore of the artwork, and to spray on several coats of Krylon Triple Thick to seal the artwork. Some of the artwork had been spray touched before with automotive acrylic paint where the ink had lifted, I decided to leave these areas as they were in unlit sections and in my opinion didn’t look too bad as they were, and I didn’t want to risk destroying the surrounding artwork. Chromacryl acrylic artists paints were used for the touch ups. Some of the worst affected areas were in translucent areas… these areas I either made them opaque by painting silver over the touch ups to block out the light, or by just removing the light bulbs from these areas to make them less noticeable.

The white area around the score reels windows was in a bad way, so I used the same trick I used on my Mibs machine. I traced the outline of the score windows onto the front of the glass with a sharpie pen and carefully removed all of the white with a razor blade. As there were black key lines around the edges of the reel openings, I had to recreate these on the back of the glass, again using a sharpie pen and a ruler.

Next I measured and cut a piece of white adhesive A4 size gloss label paper to fit the score reel area. I carefully lined up the adhesive label with the blank area on the glass and carefully stuck it on. I cut out the score reel windows after sticking the adhesive label on by shining a lamp through the glass from the front, and cut out the windows with a hobby knife inside the black key lines previously marked on the back of the glass. The 1st two pics below show the backglass before and after.

Last two pics show the end results after about 3 months of work.

[Strangeways]

AWESOME    

The game looks as close to New as possible - I call these restores - "NIB" = "Nearly In Box"..

Very impressive Mitch.. I can't wait for more, thanks for sharing. I particularly like the Backglass restoration.

[Creech]

That is just superb. Another game saved!

I can't believe the quality of the restores we are seeing here on AP. Well done!

[Mr Pinbologist]

Thanks heaps guys for the kind words As i said, this one was restored about two years ago, so i thought i'd post pics and the story behind this one for now, until i can get a good start on my Stern Dracula. i'll add more soon as i can!

Here's a couple more Klondike pics!

[The pinballist formally known as Dean Morgan]

Very Nice, Klondike is my all time favorite EM.  I used to play this all time when I was a Kid at the Hume Weir Milk Bar in Albruy.  I used to rack up the extra balls like no ones business.  Loved the three wheels at top of playfiled, when you got three wagons in a row it would lite specials from memory.

This is a must add Pinball for me in the future.  I had one and sold it when kids were born   One sold on eBay last week for $850 that I would loved to have brought but didnt have the cash at time.

Great restore, well done