What happened to April?

Machines of interest top of the month:

• Williams Terminator 2 Pinball – full restoration, LEDs, and mods.
• Williams Demolition Man Pinball (Superpin widebody) – full restoration.  Just a great game
• Stern Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Pinball (RBION) – nice home unit, being prepped for tear down, cleaning and polishing and LEDs.  Also plan on putting cabinet lighting and backbox LED retrofit.
• 1967 Williams Apollo Electro Mechanical Pinball – a GREAT classic, custom restoration.  Look soon for detailed article on this beauty.
• Bally The Shadow Pinball – We’ve decided to sell our coveted deep restoration machine.  This machine literally took a month straight to get all of the parts and items fixed.  She’s now back to new condition and ready to be played and appreciated.   This is one of the very next high-dollar Williams pinball machines, get yours now before the prices sky rocket.
• Sega South Park – Restoration planned
• Williams F-14 Pinball – full restoration, cabinet update, LED conversion, under cabinet LEDs and flasher circuit update (to properly accept LEDs).  Look soon for a detailed writeup on this classic.

Ok, so what’s so special about Comet you say?  Well ok, it’s considered by most as an average pin from the 80′s.  Sure, I’ll concede that.  However, it WAS just an average pin from the 80′s.  Something changed my mind about this machine that was worth writing about.

I see a lot of pinball machines, and it’s easy to gravitate to the pop-stars of the the 90′s era such as Funhouse, Twilight Zone, etc.  They have all kinds of gadgets and craziness to them with layers of modes.  However, there’s just something about this pin that makes me want to play it over and over.

It’s 1986, and multiball was already invented and starting to be a mandatory feature in most Williams pins of this era.  However, this machine is just a single ball player.  What this machine does give us is character.  It’s based on an amusement park and feature roller coaster – Comet.  It’s not necessarily a ground breaking idea, but it brings you back to this era.  The Comet also has a lot of completely different shots, just like a real amusement park

• Comet Roller coaster (main center ramp).
• Spiral loop (upper left). Possibly this resembles a slide at a park?
• Dunk tank – with a dummy that taunts you and screams when you dunk him.
• Shooting range (ducks and rabbits).  Light these to increase bonuses.  Cool thing is that the bonuses alternate between balls, so the challenge changes depending on which ball you are playing.
• Inverted inlane and outlane on left side.  This is actually a very simple and fun feature.  It’s the very basics of learning how to nudge your pinball machine to avoid ball drains.
• Seriously offset slingshots.  While not immediately apparent, it creates quite a wild and unpredictable ball action near the flippers.
• Funhouse outhole with bonus feature
• Cycle jump – which is also the count down timer Million Feature only activated if you light the “1986″ lanes.  This jump also can smack the ball off the glass which is a fun thing to do.

So really, this machine is jam packed with fun… and none of the shots are boring.  This machine never gets the feeling of being one-sided or single flipper one-trick pony.

Restoration

This machine was actually not in bad shape when we picked it up, considering that it was 26 years old.   We stripped the playfield down and removed the protective mylar.  Thank you, Williams, for putting this down at the factory!  While it’s a pain to remove, it preserved the machine beautifully.

After finally getting all the mylar off, it of course removed all the graphics on the inserts.  So we buffed the playfield to a high shine and reapplied new insert decals.  In the end, I was even surprised how nice it came out.  What a treat.

We then enhanced the game dynamics by adding deep color LEDs on the playfield and backbox.  It totally transformed this machine while also preserving the machine and lighting circuitry (allowing it to run cooler and with less current draw).

All of the ramps were broken – as expected.  Since they are no longer available, we sanded them down and repaired them as best as possible.  After a fresh coat of paint and clear coat, they came out pretty nice.  While we were there, all the star posts were replaced with factory new translucent red ones for a clean and tidy appearance.

Put all new flippers in, linkages, fix all the broken switches, power supply issues, new chrome legs, rebuilt coin door and DONE.   I actually played this machine for 3 hours straight before wrapping it up for delivery.

I’ll miss her no doubt, but she went to a great home where the owner grew up playing this model when he was a child.   What a great way to relive some memories – only with a better machine then when it was first released.

Pictures

Early spring – YES!  With it comes lots of renewed work.  While we’re busy in the winter months, it was still tough to motivate in the cold and dark.  Thankfully, we have a good 6+ months to operate in the heat which allows us to work later into the day and paint dries so much faster.

This month, we’ve taken on all kinds of restorations this month and we’re happy to oblige:

• 1964 Rockola Jukebox (amplifier rebuild, tone-arm correction)
• Big Top gumball machine restoration.  We converted this into latest technology with color changing LEDs and remote control.  Pictures coming soon.
• Japanese Pachinko machine restoration.
• Williams F14 Tomcat pinball – collector quality restoration.  This will be a long process and will likely exceed the value of the machine, but it will be just a fantastic piece.  With this, we’re even modifying the flash circuitry to properly drive multiLED flashers.  As well, this machine is going have all the prototype parts retrofitted back in (it may already be a prototype as it has clear flash domes and a clear MARS lamp already installed.  I wonder…
• Williams Funhouse (in house) – still TBD.
• Williams Comet (in house).
• Gottlieb Stargate (in house).
• Midway NFL Blitz 2000 / NBA on NBC Showtime – with LEDs

Mid April Update

We’re adding more pinball machines for the big party month of May.  Come back and find these items in our store in the next week or so…

• Williams Terminator 2 Pinball
• Williams Demolition Man Pinball (Superpin – widebody)
• Data East Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! Pinball
• Williams F14 clear coat play field
• New combination deals coming soon (multiple pinball and video/pinball combo packs)

Another classic Gottlieb “wedgehead” pinball from their arguably most sought after period.

True to Gottlieb’s single player design, the Skyjump is packed full of great features.  The great think about a single player  Gottlieb machine is that it still uses the same number of relays and logic circuits as the multi-player pinball machines.  This allowed Gottlieb to create depth and rules to the game, rather than it just be a simple target shooter.

Another signature feature of the this era of Gottlieb machines is their use of a long series of drop targets.  This machine integrates the 7 drop targets with the 7 numbered inlane and outlanes placed all over the playfield in order to achieve higher target scores.  Some of these shots can only be reached by rebounding shots off the pop-bumpers.  Additionally, The center pop-bumper advances the 10x lit drop target, so that the shot changes all the time.

Wonderful color graphics, Gottlieb’s patented chime sound and score match replays make this machine one of Gottlieb’s all time greatest hits.

Original Condition

This machine, seemingly typical of all Gottliebs from this era, needed some serious love.  If left alone, it probably would have rotted to the ground in another 10 years.  However, we put our hands on this one just in time.

The cabinet artwork was seriously worn off, however the wood was still solid.  If left alone, the wood would have started to delaminate and absorb water, eventually ending it’s life.

The front door and entrance area were completely worn away.  A previous owner had spray painted many of the metal pieces in attempt of preservation.  While admirable, all of this had to be junked, along with the original legs and shooter assembly.  Even the score card tray was worn and rusted.

The playfield was another issue.  It had the typical surface area cracking (as all pinball machines prior to clear coating have).  There was some wear down to the wood in front of the drop targets as well.  Again, not too bad.  This alone made it worth the restoration effort.

The backbox was suprisingly in good physical condition, but the glass had started to delaminate and the graphics were peeling.

Restoration

There was no choice but to do a full ground up restoration on this machine.  Everything had to be removed from the cabinet and it needed to be sanded down, repaired and repainted.  Of course, there are no available stencil kits for most Gottlieb machines, so we had to create our own for this model which is very time consuming.

The playfield was completely stripped, cleaned, buffed out and repaired.  All star posts were replaced, rubbers, bulbs replaced and original plastics flattened, cleaned and reused.

The backglass was repaired and resealed.

All mechanicals were disassembled – as this machine did not work when we purchased it.  So no point trying to trouble shoot this one.  New flippers, linkages and sleeves were replaced.  All pop bumpers were remvoed and completely rebuilt with new parts.   We also added pop-bumper mylar to protect that area from any future damage as well as used stealth mylar in the area in front of the flippers and drop targets.  That way, it can be pulled up without any residue and replaced in minutes without damage to the already delicate paintwork.

Summary:

• Cabinet and head fully stripped, sanded and repainted with our 4-stage paint process  (blocking/sealing primer, base coat, 2 color custom stencil).
• New replica Gottlieb coin door, shutes, lock plate and all hardware
• New modern pinball chrome legs
• Playfield stripped, cleaned, buffed and paint repaired.  Mylar and stealth mylar used for protection.  Multi wax stages
• New star posts
• New rubber
• New ball
• New pop-bumper assemblies
• New bulbs
• Plastics flattened and cleaned
• New flippers, linkages, contacts and solenoid sleeves
• Cleaned and aligned all switch contacts
• sanded and repainted upper and lower playfield skirts.
• Repaired backglass and re-sealed
• All circuits repaired to 100% operation

Pictures

Before

After

Many of you my age (ahem) may remember this ominous bar-table size stand up arcade in the corner of the arcade.  The one everyone crowded around as they watched 2 people frantically spinning over-sized trackballs in opposite directions.

This machine was something totally different.  Black and white monitor.  Simple design.  Head to head action football using X’s and O’s like that of how a college football coach would draw up a play.

This is Atari Football – reborn and just as glorious as ever.

The Donor Machine

The donor machine was actually in reasonable physical condition, given the number of years on the clock and knowing how much of a beating these machines took on a daily basis.

The odd part of this machine was that it was equipped with joysticks in place of where the trackballs would reside.  Originally, I just scoffed at the retrofit thinking it was probably the best a route operator could do in order to get the machine back out making money.  But after disassembling the machine, I realized it was no retrofit at all.

Upon flipping open the hood, I saw that this machine had custom PCBs to convert the digital 8-way joystick signals to differential pulsed voltage outputs via multiple astable multivibrator circuits.   Ok, I was showing off there because I actually knew what it was as soon as I saw it (back from when I designed one in my Electrical Engineering lab).  What this means is that, for some reason which I can only imagine is because of lawsuits due customer injury), that Atari had actually changed their design in the latter portion of the manufacturing of this machine to use joysticks.  The circuits, connectors, and joysticks were all period specific items and all factory made.  I have never seen that before, nor have I read about it in any of the forums that cover the restoration of this machine.  Great!  We had a unique discovery!

So, while that is interesting and all, we’re were not going to keep it that way.  This machine needed to be converted back to the way people remembered it…  with those huge trackballs.     After finally sourcing all the components to rebuild the trackballs in new condition, I realized why they went to joysticks.  The balls themselves are almost 5 lbs each (larger and heavier than Bocce balls to give you a reference).   Now I remember the injuries people suffered on this machine (busted fingers, welts on their palms, huge blisters from pinches between the ball and housing.  AWESOME!

Other items:

• The monitor powered up but was pretty sad and had an unstable and horrible picture.
• The cardboard bezel for the monitor (in the shape of a stadium) was deteriorated and had liquid damage from years of drinks spilled into the machine
• The control panels were rusted
• coin door was there but not appealing
• glass was chipped and scratched
• cabinet (wood grain) was damaged and the graphics were poor.

Restoration

This machine went under the full restoration process, and in the end retains 100% of the investment.  Not only that, you will not find another Atari Football in this condition regarding the price.

• Black and White Wells Gardner raster monitor fully rebuilt and calibrated.
• Coin door rebuilt and restored
• Control panels were stripped, sanded down and refinished.  New control panel overlays were sourced.  Football play controls were repaired and circuit board repaired.
• Entire rebuild of both 4.5″ trackball assemblies – new balls, bearings, rollers.  Rebuild optics and cages
• Game PCB and RF cage rebuilt
• Entire cabinet and optional pedestal sanded down and restored in black with new molding and graphics.
• New glass
• New pedestal adjustble feet
• Power supply and cabling updated
• Football stadium bezel custom designed.  This is a Castle Classic Arcade original and cannot be purchased anywhere! We redesigned the stadium with a more modern look and custom made for the new owner (which will be blurred out for privacy).

Pictures

Before

Trackball / Control Panels

After

The “wedge head” pinball machines are part of a unique series produced by Gottlieb in the late 1960′s to mid 1970′s.  They are called this because of their unusual shaped back boxes.  As well, these machines are just a little bit smaller than machines produced by their competitors Bally and Williams in the same era.

Wedge heads are considered top prizes by electro-mechanical pinball collectors world wide because of their unique game play and cutting edge features.  Gottlieb owns the top 25 spots in the ratings of the top 300 electro-mechanical ever made… so there has to be something about these machines!

Features

The Playball from Gottlieb actually differentiates itself from other machines in this era because of the following innovative features:

• Ball is stored and ejected out to the playfield from between the flippers.
• Auto plunger – no manual operation for shooting the ball on the playfield.  Use the right flipper to actuate the plunger.
• Auto ball save – must hit 10 or 100 point shots or the ball will be saved.  The flippers wont even be activated until points are accumulated.  This is so cool for this era!
• Single player game – which means they used all the typical logic for rules.  This makes this game have depth other than just shooting the ball around hitting targets.
• Score and Runs – and awards collected for reaching certain levels of each
• Match play – match the score with a “random number” at the end of the game and receive a free credit.

Restoration

Gottlieb pinballs, well in fact most any pinball that is 40 years old, suffers from a lot of wood damage, wood rot, and rust.  Additionally, most playfields will be worn to the wood by now in many places and much of the gloss finish has been worn down over time.   However, the mechanisms usually can all be brought back to life because of their excellent build quality.

Our electro-mechanical restoration process concentrates on getting the most out of these machines, while retaining high (but recoverable) street market value.  Often, these machines are worth $1000 more than the investment when completed.

This Playball had the typical rust, paint damage and wear.  The cabinet retained good structure integrity, but the back box had been pryed apart and was damaged.

After repairing all the wood, we created our own paint stencils and stripped the machine down for the 4-stage paint process (prime/re-sand, base coat, stencil color 1, stencil color 2)

The top side of the playfield was also stripped down.  This allowed us to restore the paint and extract a high gloss luster.  Plastics were replaced along with many mechanisms.

Additionally, we replaced all the external hardware with new chrome pieces

Restoration Specifics

• Cabinet and backbox strip
• Cabinet and back box wood repair
• Cabinet and back box 4-stage paint process – hand created stencils
• New Gottlieb replica coin door, locks, strike plate, coin insert cover and plastics, start button
• New legs, bolts, feet (with more modern versions)
• lockdown repair, all mechanisms for lockdown removed, rust removed and prepared
• Playfield removal, stripped and repaired.
• Playfield detailed and protected
• New star posts
• New rubber
• New ball
• New lights
• New flippers and mechanisms
• New coil sleeves
• cleaned and adjusted ALL contacts on playfield, solenoids, wipers in backbox and cabinet
• cleaned and adjusted vari-targets, ball counter, match counter, score wheels, logic wheel
• new pop bumpers and added mylar protection
• repaired flipper skirt and added new score cards

Pictures

Before

After Cabinet

After Playfield

If you have an electro-mechanical pinball machine, and would like yours restored to this level, contact us.  Or follow the link to our restoration services.

March Madness is Here

…in the form of tornadoes and snow storms on the same weekend.  We were spared, but many were not so lucky.

We however are thankful to be here and that spring has sprung early.  Which usually means we ramp up our efforts and can get more machines finished.

New This month

• Williams Comet pinball machine.  Will be fully restored and will feature full LED conversion and hardware modernization.
• NBA Fast Break – ok, so we’ve had this on our todo list for a couple months, but we’ve been too busy to get to it.  Well, this is the perfect month for basketball, and this is the perfect basketball themed pinball machine.
• Demo Use Only – Golden Tee Complete.  This machine is essentially brand new, has maybe 25 plays on it.  Once in a lifetime chance to pickup the highest earning video game in history for about 1/2 the price.  Inquire today.
• Restoration blogs coming this month: various early 1970′s Gottlieb full restorations, Atari Football X/O
• Extended arcade monitor repair and parts available for Wells Gardner CGA and EGA chassis
• More flat rate services provided and restoration plans in our new service store.

Later This month

• Bride of Pinbot – yes, we’re planning another restoration of the BoP.  These do not come up very often and expect this to be just as good as our last.
• High Speed – The original !  We’ll also be performing a restoration on this classic – the machine that many consider re-started a pinball generation (my generation).

Feature picture – Sir Ivan and his Medevil Madness machine.   Go Cats!

February must be pinball time.  Well, I’m thinking it’s pinball restoration and repair month anyway.

In the queue:

• Firepower (the classic solid state game from Williams)
• Star Wars (very fun game, maybe my favorite DE after playing it a little)
• Aladdin’s Castle (nice EM)
• Playball (old old EM, very cool game)
• The Shadow (oh boy, love this game, but it needs some TLC)

Couple random pics for this month:

Oh, and that cool pinball clock – I want one.  Waiting for the designer to sell it.  Perhaps, we can get some stateside and sell them here at CastleClassicArcade.  It’s made from a real Bally plasma pinball display like this 

Here we have an original 1980 Williams Firepower pinball.  This machine was the pinnacle of technology, even for Williams at that time.  This system used the full potential of the System 3-6 MPU board, with extended memory addressing.  Also, this is the first pinball machine to use real time speech synthesis.

Firepower also introduced 3- ball MultiBall, incorporates lane shifting (with the right flipper) and auto-save kickback on the left out lane.

All of these features are now standard on modern games.   This machine is highly regarded in the pinball collector world – and the first pinball machine I ever played when I was growing up.

Restoration

This machine gave us some problems alright.  It was passed among many owners before we plucked it up.  It didn’t work at all and the cabinet was pretty bad.  The backglass was mostly intact, but one of the priors used black sharpie to fill in where the paint was flaking off.  The only redeming quality of this machine was it’s pretty good condition playfield and coin door.  Everything else needed serious help.

This was a custom order, so we had a budget to stick to.  So using our standards for restoration – where the machine retains or gains it’s value in the future, we decided to concentrate heavily on the cabinet and appearance. It’s quite a simple machine (by today’s standards), so we didnt feel that too much  money needed to be spent on the hardware components.  Additionally, we originally felt that the main MPU and driver boards could be re-used as they were in really good condition.

MPU/Driver

Well, after about 2 weeks of fussing with them, we determined that a better and more reliable route was to go with all new MPU/Driver board option.  That way, the owner will never have to worry about reliability and flaky operations that this machine is well known for.  That stretched the budget a little, but in the end, it was totally worth it for peace of mind.

Process

In the end, here’s the final tally on what this machine went through.  We are really happy with the result, and so is the new home owner.

• Rebuilt original coin door, new locks
• New shooter
• New legs and hardware
• Stripped head and cabinet.  Repaired, repainted, stencil and hand paint.  Better than new.
• Repainted backglass and sealed
• Replaced dead displays
• Reflowed all circuit boards, new caps.
• New MPU and Driver combo board (for longevity and reliability)
• LEDs in backglass and game (except pop-bumpers).
• Repaired dead coils, linkages, diodes etc
• Touched up playfield.  Disassmbled, cleaned and waxed many times over
• New star posts with more modern versions
• New lanes with more modern versions
• new plumb-bob assy
• new flippers
• full rubber kit
• firepower target stickers

Pictures

Cabinet

Backglass

Playfield

Video

Credit: thank you www.firepower-pinball.com for all your documentation and tips.  What a great site.

Top of the year to you!  We’re gearing up for a great year full of a variety of video games and larger selection of pinball machines.  They are already selling as fast as we can restore them, so check back often or call us if you are looking for something.  Here’s a snapshot for this month already, but there’s more to come…

Restoration

We’re currently doing a custom restoration on a classic 1980 Williams Firepower.  This machine encompasses all of what Williams was about in the early 80′s.  Very high tech for the time with digital speech and all the Williams unique sounds (later re-used in video games such as Robotron, Defender, Stargate).  This machine is getting a full cabinet restoration, new game boards, and a rebuild of the playfield.  When new playfields become available, if this machine was then upgraded, it would essentially be brand new.  Otherwise it’s in really good shape for being 32 years old.

We’ve done some interesting repairs on a Megatouch Ion game, that required the motherboard to be reworked.  Man, they really cram a lot of stuff in that little cabinet.

New Items Coming This Month

We’re working to get the following machines ready for purchase in the next 30 days – in no particular order

Williams : NBA Fast Break Pinball

Williams: No Fear – Dangerous Sports Pinball

Williams: High Speed 2 – The Getaway Pinball

Williams: Demolition Man (widebody) Pinball

Multipac Deluxe 27″ – we only do a couple of these a year, and this one is pretty awesome.

The Hangout

We welcome the opening of a new arcade called “The Hangout”.

Here you’ll find a good variety of games such as:

• World Cup Soccer Pinball
• Ms.Pacman 60 game Multicade
• Megatouch multigame
• San Francisco Rush 2049 Special Edition sit down racing/simulation
• Shooting arcade
• Scorpion 9000 full-size digital regulation soft-tip darts
• Lounge with widescreen TVs and console games
• Snack bar

Come visit them (address to be updated shortly).   Off South Maple Street (behind Dan’s Discount) in the strip plaza.