Big fun in saving some EMs

[hd474]

I started to help a friend in fxing some EMs. He had an Arcade 20+years ago, was in the business nearly 40 years and still has many games in basement. Some games where stored in better places than others, some are ok, some just junk.

The good games:
Dodge City (this belongs to me and I'm planning a total restore), Gotlieb
Gays 90's, Williams
Smart Set, Williams
300, Gottlieb

The not so good games (need proper cleaning and service):
Jackpot (4 player version of Klondike) -in works right now!
College Queens, Gottlieb
Jubilee,Williams
Hot Shots, Gottlieb
Whoopee, Williams

Bad games (beyond repair or incomplete)
Firecracker, Bally
Rogo, Bally (maybe repairable)
Gay 90's (another one, but we will use this one for parts)
Sheriff, Gottlieb (incomplete, head missing)

And 5 or 6 Bally Bingos, mainly Gayety and Big City (I'm planning to restore one of them. I know they are worth close to nothing, but they are pretty difficult to fix and I like challenges...

Sounds like fun!!!

We started with the Jackpot and I already did some new reel strips for the slot machine. The rest is cleaning, new rubbers and some adjustment. EMs are always fun to repair!

Jens

 

[druadic]

Thanks for the slot machine fruit strips. I could have used these in the past but thank you!

 

[digitalarts]

even there are some more or less "bad" tables - I would feel like in pinball heaven
I have ONE real pinball, the Judge Dredd. It's very fine, plays very well - but it is not the "nostalgic" feeling of an EM table.
I would be happy if i had one (just a dream for now )

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

Sounds like a lot of fun work ahead of you, Jens.

I must say I've rarely had so much hobby fun than when I was fixing up EM's back in the mid-90's.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

Btw, Jens-- what are you using to clean the corrosion from switches & metallic parts?

Back in the day a buddy recommended I use fibre-glass erasers, which yeah!... worked great at the time, but as I learned later, were a pretty terrible idea for one's health.

What else do you find interesting / challenging about an EM restore?

For example, I loved the fun / mysterious puzzle of trying to figure out which features weren't working on an EM, then tracing them down to the switches which weren't making proper contact (usually). Me, I only had the wiring diagram for one out of my three EM's, so improvisation was the order of the day!

Another fun thing was replicating plastics which were lost or destroyed. I had a couple sheets of plexiglass (or "Perspex," for the lads), and would take my teeny-tiniest drill-bit and laboriously cut them to the right size, then use a series of sandpaper grades to get the edges right. Then I'd use acrylic paint to restore the art, but it was so weird-- you had to paint in reverse-order on the plastic to make it look right, you know?

God, I wish I'd been paid for all that, lol.
Altho no question-- I did super-enjoy the work, myself. <3

Nicolas / "Ike"

 

[hd474]

Ike,

I had my first pinball in the very late 70's, a "Playmatic Fantasy", Spanish manufacturer. I didn't work, so I got it for free. Took me more than a month to fix it. I needed help from some friends, who were clearly better in reading circuit diagrams... During my time at university at worked at my friends Arcade and my job was to keep all pinballs up and running. this was in the mid/late 80's and even when I had a real job, I kept them alive. He had a huge storage of older machines (pins, video games and other stuff), which I liked to fix. It was great to learn how these things work. Some of the machines he still has, see the list in my first post. But no one touched them since 20+ years, but now we decided to take care for them. I was looking for a new project anyway and after a visit to the PHoF last year, I remembered my "Dodge City", which is still in his storage. Since I have very high expectations to myself when it comes to restorations, I decided to learn vector graphics and will reprint the playfield later. At the moment I'm also practicing scanning of playfields, for which I bought a HP 4670 Scanner. It runs fine under Windows 10, but I'm a Mac guy for more than 30 years, so I get headache everytime I have to use it...

I'm also using fiber-glass eraser, but you're right, these things are not good for your health. That's why I keep the doors open and wear a mask. Thanks to Covid I still have some FP3's ones in stock.

I don't know yet were to start in fixing the machines, but I'm sure I'll remember when starting. It's not rocket science...

The fun for me is fixing things. My last project was a 1960 Double Gunball Rocket, made by Northwestern. That thing was sleeping for more than 30 years in my cellar, till I decided to go for it. I also have an "AMI Model A" jukebox (called mother of plastics, which is waiting to be woken up. To many project, not enough time....

Jens

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

Wow, those rockets are really stylish. I've never seen such a thing in the States, but I think *maybe* I did on a trip to Europe, specifically Italy. That would have been... 1983.

Thanks for the backstory, Jens. You're a man after my own heart. (as the saying goes in the States)

So, reconstructing the playfields-- how will that work, exactly? For example-- will you sand the remaining art from the wooden playfield, clean it up, then print a new decal with the vector art you've created? Methinks one could almost go in to business at that point!

Btw, I hate to give unwanted advice, but--
I've had success using white erasers & isopropyl alcohol to clean metal contacts. Indeed, as an artist, I love white stick erasers (like this) for removing pencil, but it also works great on metal corrosion.

Btw2, I also see pinball folks recommending a Dremel 443 brush and/or a flexstone file to clean corrosion. Actually, I have no idea what the latter is, but it sort of looks like a nail file when I google it.

 

[hd474]

Ike,

the gumball rockets are "as American as Baseball and Hot Dogs" to quote Gottlieb... Northwestern was a Chicago based Company. Actually I've never seen them in Europe, but on quite a few locations in the US. Last time was about 10 years ago in the PHoF, but I haven't seen them last time.

The current plan for the playfield is as follows... I wil scan the original playfield, redraw it as vector graphics, make a test print on transparent paper to check if all the inserts and holes line up and then... There is a difficult issue... I don't like destroying original parts. So I'm thinking about building a complete new playfield and have it printed. I don't wanna use digital printing, I think I will do it the old fashioned way: silkscreen printing. I just need to convince my printer to do that...

The eraser you mentioned in your link must be great, it's made in Germany!! I let you know how I will proceed, but first, it's about cleaning all the other games.

 

[hd474]

Off topic...

Some more info on the Gumball Rockets. My painter destroyed the stand (during the work, he drove with a forklifter over it...no blame on him, shit happens) so I mad a CAD modell and had it milled out out one solid piece of aluminum (the original one was die cast aluminum). I told him, if he drives again over it, it will probably need a new fork lifter...

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

The eraser you mentioned in your link must be great, it's made in Germany!! I let you know how I will proceed, but first, it's about cleaning all the other games.

It IS!
Those suckers are awesome.

That said, euuhh-- we're not exactly known for high-precision tools in Peru, lol.

 

[pinhead1]

isaac#5....Btw, Jens-- what are you using to clean the corrosion from switches & metallic parts?

Search Results for electrical contact cleaner at The Home Depot

Search Results for electrical contact cleaner at The Home Depot

www.homedepot.com

Robot or human?

-walmart non flammable---its super expensive. $61...
----------------------
any hardware should have it.
been using this for a long time.
some of these in the pic are flammable.
look 4 a non flammmable.
i remember a non flammable way back.
have not seen it in a long time.
i checked a couple of other source around me.
they were all xtreme flammable.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

WD-40..?
That's gotta be the most Hank Hill, redneck answer ever, lol.

(made me laugh, though)

 

[pinhead1]

WD-40..?
That's gotta be the most Hank Hill, redneck answer ever, lol.

(made me laugh, though)

isaac....did you look at the products on the page and read the labels?
WD40 has different products.
i should have been more clear what i was directing you to.
the CRC QD contact cleaner was what i was directing you to.
they both should work
if neither don't do what you want oh well, you didnt get hurt.
it was only $10
that's what is available for consumer OTC chemicals.
you need to remember EPA laws have gotten super tough.
in my state all paint is water base.
even exterior paints are water base.
there are no harsh chemicals and oil base paints anymore.
i can't even get a 1gallon bucket of chemical parts cleaner for my autoparts any more.
that was banned a long time ago.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

@pinhead1,
My apologies-- it was a mix of being a smart-alec and being genuinely put off by the use of products that are solvent-based.

All three solutions I mentioned above are safe & non-carcinogenic AFAIK.

 

[pinhead1]

@pinhead1,
My apologies-- it was a mix of being a smart-alec and being genuinely put off by the use of products that are solvent-based.

All three solutions I mentioned above are safe & non-carcinogenic AFAIK.

it's ok.
and yes, CFC's and solvents are bad.
alot of things and CFC's had good intentions.
now we know it was bad.
maybe someone could explain why CFC's were used instead of Co2 or something else that is not nearly as toxic.

is co2 in the air we breathe - Google Search

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

it's ok.
and yes, CFC's and solvents are bad.
alot of things and CFC's had good intentions.
now we know it was bad.
maybe someone could explain why CFC's were used instead of Co2 or something else that is not nearly as toxic.

Well... we're talking different substances & different topics AFAIK.

CFC's were found to damage the ozone layer, and thus got widely phased out decades ago. So in the end, kinda 'no harm no foul' because we caught it early. Or at least, enough politicians who cared about the future were willing to exert themselves at the time. Yes, *phew*.

By contrast-- carcinogenic solvents are still widely used today (I imagine less so in Europe), mainly because they're so dang effective, plus there's a lack of regulation. Yes, there are likely 'green' companies that manufacture a range of parallel products with healthier, less-effective solvents, but which likely cost more. Guess which product the average consumer is going to choose?

On top of that, the companies that build up the bigger revenue-share and so forth are legally allowed to bribe "lobby" officials in the USA to rewrite the laws to be more & more favorable to themselves, over time.

 

[pinhead1]

Well... we're talking different substances & different topics AFAIK.

CFC's were found to damage the ozone layer, and thus got widely phased out decades ago. So in the end, kinda 'no harm no foul' because we caught it early. Or at least, enough politicians who cared about the future were willing to exert themselves at the time. Yes, *phew*.

By contrast-- carcinogenic solvents are still widely used today (I imagine less so in Europe), mainly because they're so dang effective, plus there's a lack of regulation. Yes, there are likely 'green' companies that manufacture a range of parallel products with healthier, less-effective solvents, but which likely cost more. Guess which product the average consumer is going to choose?

On top of that, the companies that build up the bigger revenue-share and so forth are legally allowed to bribe "lobby" officials in the USA to rewrite the laws to be more & more favorable to themselves, over time.

there is still a lot of bad things going on that is not getting attention.
what about chemtrails.
well, this is not the forum for this.
this belongs at a political forum.

chemtrails - Google Search

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

@pinhead1,
You're right-- it's not the forum for such talk.

Much better would be:

The Soap Box

A place to pontificate, a place to rant, and a place to veer wildly off-topic... spiced up with plenty of junk from times of yore.

pinballnirvana.com