More Fire Queen, and getting ready to host a tournament!

Fire Queen has progressed to clearcoating the playfield.  So far, it has two coats of clearcoat on it, and it’s waiting to be sanded and cleaned.  After that step takes place, I’ll work on filling in the cupped playfield inserts.  It’s a time consuming process, but the end result will look amazing!

The other day, my son and I spent a Sunday working on two previously dead pinball machines – a Gottlieb Jungle King, and a Bally Zip-A-Doo. 

Jungle King is an Add-A-Ball game.  Unlike the Card Whiz I worked on earlier in the year, this game was built for the Wisconsin and New York State areas which allowed pinball machines, but mandated that the games did not give out free games.  The result is the ability to add more “balls to play” to your current game instead of winning “credits”.

It didn’t take too much to get Jungle King mostly operational.  Its biggest problem was dirty contacts.  The playfield was filthy, but cleaned up really nicely!  Some of the playfield plastics are cracked, so they’ll need to be glued or replaced.  When we stopped working on the game, we were having difficulty with the 10s reel sticking periodically (the score reel needs to be serviced), and the game does not “play” the last ball – even though it serves the ball to the shooting lane.

Mechanically, the game is similar to a replay game, except the ball counter unit has two coils on it: one to count the balls down, and another to add balls.  Replay games only have one coil on the ball counter which only counts down (during the reset cycle, the coil fires multiple times, turning the counter mechanism almost 360° until it gets to the first ball contact).  The relays are similar, but some of their names and functions seem slightly different.

After my son got bored of working on Jungle King, we tore into Zip-A-Doo.  Its difficulties were similar to Jungle King – years of sitting lead to dirty contacts.  The playfield paint on Zip-A-Doo is pretty bad, but I have another playfield which isn’t as bad, and can be restored.  We cleaned and waxed the bad playfield and tested the game.  The backbox lights weren’t working, and the game periodically doesn’t start up.  The rest of the game played remarkably well – all things considered.

As of right now, I’m trying to get enough working games together to hold a “classic pinball” tournament.  Most of the games will be EMs, and the Solid State games in the tournament will be made before 1980.

So far, I have a group of games which should be ready in the near future for the tournament (SS = Solid State):

1977 Bally Eight Ball SS
1978 Bally Mata Hari SS
1970 Bally Zip-A-Doo
1969 Gottlieb Target Pool
1973 Gottlieb Jungle King
1978 Gottlieb Sinbad EM
1975 Gottlieb Soccer
1975 Gottlieb Top Score
1973 Williams Darling
1975 Williams Pat Hand
1976 Williams Space Mission

 

Pinball for sale for the holidays!

I currently have two pinball machines for sale.  Sale price includes delivery (within a one-hour radius of Boston) and set-up free of charge to your home or other location, and a one-year warranty on all parts and labor.  If you’re outside of that one-hour radius of Boston, then there will be an additional travel fee based on the time it takes me to get to you.

Bally’s Freedom:  Freedom was one of three games designed for our country’s bicentennial!  It has a very patriotic theme – lots of red, white, and blue!  It has rebuilt flippers with all new coils, new drop targets and linkages, and new legs, feet, and leg bolts.  It’s a fast-playing game with good, powerful flippers.  It runs like the day it came off of the assembly line!  As for the looks, the playfield has some wear around the inserts, and a wear spot where the ball gets ejected out of the score hole.  The backglass looks really good with one relatively small area of flaking in the upper right-hand corner.  It’s not in a place that is normally back lit, so it’s hard to notice it.

The playfield was completely stripped, cleaned, and waxed and all of the playfield plastics were reconditioned and reinstalled.  New rubber rings and a new ball top off the job!  I’m asking $1295 for Freedom.  If you’re interested, let me know!

Also, I have a Gottlieb Top Score for sale.  Top Score has an awesome playfield.  It has new flippers with rebuilt linkages and new coils.  The pop bumpers have been reconditioned and tuned up.  Top Score’s playfield has been stripped, cleaned, and waxed to help it play like new.  I’ve also installed brand new rubber rings throughout the game.  The body on Top Score is in decent shape.  The backglass is okay.  Most of the reds have faded to pink, and those areas are also flaking (typical of these games). 

Top Score has a great bowling theme, and backglass animation where the bonus balls pop up on the ball rack.  Top Score has brand new chrome legs, levelers and bolts.  All of the Decagon scoring units have been thoroughly cleaned and reconditioned.  I’m asking $1495 for this game with delivery and a one-year warranty on all parts and labor.

Both of these games play like new, and are plug and play ready!  They’re both looking for a good home for the holidays.  If you’re interested in either game, feel free to contact me!

 

Top Score Playfield Repairs…

Part of the restoration of Top Score requires me to fill in a groove in the playfield.  The previous owners of Top Score took fairly good care of the game, but it doesn’t look as if they waxed the playfield itself.  The upper arch of the playfield has a groove worn in it.  This is common among some of the older games, however, in this case, I am trying to fill the groove to help the game play more like it did when it was new.  If this can be done reasonably quickly, I will repair these grooves in all of my future games.

 

Top Score Progress…

It’s been too long since I last worked on Top Score.  With all of the score reels rebuilt, I installed the guts in the head, and installed the score reels.  They looked really nice!  They weren’t quite working properly, but I expected that.  I’ll need to adjust the switch contacts later.

I pulled the playfield out of the game and began the process of stripping it down.  I took everything off of the top of the playfield, including the side rails.  Then the cleaning process starts.  After cleaning the playfield thoroughly, I’m going to touch up some of the finish which has worn off in the ball shooter lane.  Afterward, I’ll be applying wax, and start reassembling the playfield.  The game has several stand-up targets which need to be replaced.  I have new playfield posts which I’ll install on the game.  I’m also going to add new pop bumpers to the game, so that the game will look like new!

After that, I’ll rebuild the flippers, and replace all of the playfield coils.  After that, I’ll have to go through the rest of the game, but for now, first things first…

 

Personal Pinball Work

This past week was spent completing the restoration work on the score reels for Top Score.  The project sat half-finished over most of the winter, while my duties at work kept me busy.

The project included the disassembly of each scoring unit, cleaning and adjusting all of the parts, inspecting and adjusting the switches and contacts, and cleaning the reels themselves.  Seven of the eight scoring reels cleaned up nicely, while on one of the reels, the silk-screened numbers began to wash off!  No one makes replacement score reels, so careful restoration of the numerals is required!

The process begins by using tape to mask off the various numerals (I use electrical tape for this instance), and then using a paint pen, I repair the damaged numeral.  Any excess paint is chipped off wih a small knife when the paint is dry.  The repair is not 100% flawless, but you’d really have to know where to look and look carefully to see the repair!

The completion of this part of Top Score allows me to reinstall the assembly into the “guts” from the head of the machine.

Additionally, I ordered a new backglass for Target Pool, and I’m trying to find the remaining playfield targets to determine whether or not I want to replace all 27 of them before trying to sell the machine.  We’ll see how that goes in the near future…

 

Pat Hand 2 home safe and sound!

My son and I went out to central Massachusetts on Friday evening to pick up our second Pat Hand game.  The first game we got was from my father-in-law, and it needs a lot of work both mechanically and cosmetically.  My wife loves Pat Hand as a game, so it is not a game we are looking to sell.  Now we have two, and one may ultimately be for sale.  We’ll have to see how that plays out.

We got the “new” Pat Hand from my wife’s cousins, who got their game from my father-in-law several years ago.  They told me it worked, and so I could surprise my wife when she got home from work, my son and I raced home and put the came in the game room.  In order to make room for it, I put Target Pool in the shop.

Pat Hand works, but not perfectly.  It seems as though several relays are sticking, the flippers are sloppy,  and one of the two pop bumpers needs to be adjusted.  The machine could use a full rebuilding job, but instead, I’ll do the work it needs in the near term just to get it up and running properly.

The shop is coming along too.  It’s been tough in the cold, but I got a small heating unit in there.  At least all of the drafts have been eliminated, and I now feel more comfortable having real baseboard heat installed in the shop.  There are six games in the shop right now…Pat Hand 1, Target Pool, Mata Hari, Ding Dong, Top Score and Eight Ball.  The last two are set up, the others are standing up on end with their heads on a shelf.

With the Christmas holiday approaching quickly, I don’t see any pinball machine work taking place.  I still have Christmas shopping to do…

 

Shop Work and Maintenance Items…

It’s been a busy week.  I’ve snuck in some pinball repair work, but the work on the new shop has taken priority.

Converting my garage into a pinball repair shop has been my top priority for the last two weeks.  The roll-up door has been removed and replaced with a framed wall with a window and a steel door.  Last week’s work quickly got the basics up and functioning, this weeks work was aimed at finish work and insulating.  Doing the work was made harder by a sudden cold snap and an 11°F wind chill.  By the end of this evening, the trim was in place along with the bulk of the fiberglass insulation.  I’ll need to install more insulation and some of that expanding foam insulation tomorrow.  It just became too hard to keep warm after the sun went down…

When the work is done, I should be able to start working in the shop almost immediately after we install some heat.  I hope to have that situation under control by next week.  At least, with the insulation on the new wall and all of the drafts eliminated, we can leave the door to the rest of the basement open, and the ambient heat from the rest of the basement should at least keep the shop above freezing!

With all of the shop work taking place, I did get to do some actual pinball stuff.  I’ve been playing Big Hit pretty regularly to keep it used and to continue to look for issues on it.  I have had to replace the left-hand “special” light twice now.  At first I thought it just blew a bulb, but since this is the second in a short amount of time, I’ll be scheduling some time to investigate what’s happening.  I’ll also be looking into the ball launcher assembly.  It seems to be losing power when you launch the ball.  Big Hit is available for sale through Atlantic Pinball ( www.AtlanticPinball.com ), so these issues are a high priority.

I didn’t have much time to do anything with Target Pool except play it.  I’ve decided that the new flipper coils are too strong.  I’m going to remove the coils and replace them with slightly weaker coils.  I want the game to be responsive, but rediculously easy is not a lot of fun.  I may be moving Target Pool back in the release order.  Originally, because of it’s condition, I was going to go through Target Pool very quickly and sell it at a bargain price.  Looking online, however, I found that a company will be producing a reproduction of Target Pool’s backglass in early 2011.  The backglass in Target Pool is tough, but with a new backglass, it might be worthwhile to hold on to it for a little longer, do more work on it, and then sell it at a higher price.

With that all in mind, I went back to the scoring unit from Top Score.  Top Score will need a complete service, and it is already in the shop.  So far, I’ve had enough time to service all of the first player reels.  The second player reels are up next.  I have a long weekend scheduled at work this weekend, so I’ll probably bring the scoring unit with me for when I have some down time…

Lastly, I got contacted by one of my wife’s cousins.  They have a Pat Hand game they got from my father-in-law several years ago.  They’re having a baby and need to move on from the pinball machine.  This will be our second Pat Hand game, and unlike the one we currently have, the one we’ll be getting already works!