A couple years ago, I was asked to restore one.  I located a machine in the middle of Indiana and trailored it back to the shop.   This included bringing in everything I knew about arcade restoration and pinball restoration.   This machine still looks new today.

Restoration Notes

• Full cabinet restoration.  Including custom yellow paneling
• Playfield was fully stripped, sanded down and restored
• New plastics and parst
• Boards were re-built
• Monitor was restored

One of the great masterpieces of the 80’s – Black Knight pinball.

This machine went under pretty reasonable surgery:

• Cabinet and backbox stripped to wood.  Repaired and painted with a 5 stage automotive process.
• New mirror backglass – a very high cost item
• All new internal circuit boards
• Play field stripped down, leveled, cleared and painted BLACK.  New graphics installed and sandwiched between automotive clear.
• Full LED conversion
• New plastics everywhere!
• New flipper mechanisms and hardware!
• New legs and misc hardware inside and out

The original machine was in good working order, technically.   It had already was partially torn down for restoration, but the job ended up being to big for that owner.

In the end, here’s the final restoration notes and custom upgrades:

• Full Cabinet tear down, sand, repaint and new graphics applied
• Freshly re-plated shooter gun from a fellow pinball restorer *who recently departed this earth*   So this machine hopes to honor his life.
• New DMD display
• All boards pulled and re-worked.
• Display panel was early production, and had the prototype inserts already milled out… So we added back the circuit to light them up.
• Playfields were stripped, repaired, recolored in some areas and many many coats of automotive clear.   This plays very fast now
• New clear ramp installed
• Propellor mod added to plane
• Additional LED lighting added to fighter plane
• Additional LED lighting added to mini playfield
• Additional LED lighting added to IDOL
• Opto circuits repaired (idol, trough etc)
• LED lighting added to shooter lane
• Full LED lighting and under cabinet flasher effects
• Custom 2-tone legs to match cabinet graphics!
• New plastics as necessary and all new standoffs

Last but not least

We topped the machine off with a NEW in the box – Indiana Jones bush knife – originally licensed from LucasFilm for the first release of the original movie.   It was custom mounted on heavy magnets (so that it would not be marred / damaged and could be removed easily).   Under-lit by color chosen LED lighting.   It’s a sight!

We were lucky enough to actually have 2 machines to restore.   They both were in reasonable shape considering, but suffered horribly from incandescent lamp burn and the resulting heat damage.   The heat from the standard bulbs over time charred the play field and dried out the inserts causing them to lift off the play field.

 THIS GAME IS FOR SALE

Cabinet Restoration

• Original artwork was salvaged.  Color keyed repairs and wood damage repaired.
• clear coat re-applied over entire surface to lock in the repairs and prevent any further sun damage and abrasion wear
• New legs, misc hardware, buttons
• Restored coin door

Circuitry Restoration

The latest release of the WPC series of circuit boards have become more reliable with less parts with one exception, the power driver boards.  Williams did away with separate bridge rectifiers and went with cost effective power diodes to do the same function.   However, these items do not disperse heat well at all.   Ironically, the diodes that drive the general illumination (that did all the damage to the play field) also caused a lot of heat damage on the driver board.    Anyone who says LEDs don’t save pinball machines are crazy because if this machine had been converted earlier, all of these repairs would not have been necessary.

Playfield Restoration

The play field was fully dismantled and cleaned.   All inserts were cut out, cleaned and leveled.  Multiple series of automotive clear coat and water slide graphics were necessary to get the play field flat and ready for paint work repair.   The burned natural wood area was re-colored and hole damage was repaired and painted.   Multiple airbrush layers were locked in with more automotive clear (I can’t even count how many)… and finally the whole play field was final wet sanded and buffed.

The following items were also upgraded

• Wareroom rail was epoxy coated white for a different look as was the skill shot
• Scimitar blade was plated in nickel for an unbelievable look
• New apron
• All new plastics
• All new ramps
• All LED conversion
• New pop bumper assemblies
• New rubber and balls

Before and After

Pretty much since the beginning of pinball time, women have been depicted on pinball machines to allure the typical patrons.  However, none were so popular as Bally Xenon from 1980. This machine was not only futuristic looking, but employed cutting edge technology that still surprises tech-heads today with what the Bally engineers could accomplish.

Xenon was based off the Bally’s recently designed microprocessor based pinball machines, but stepped it up with the following additions:

• Auxiliary processor controlled lamp driver board to accomplish a dramatic light show in the cabinet back-box.   This back-box also housed 2 custom back glasses that gave the game a 3D look and feel.  The animation inside the glass would change style and tempo during the game to give a sense of excitement and urgency.
• Actual sampled audio along with synthesized voice and music.  This machine was known for it’s sexy call-outs during the game and in attract mode.   This was leagues ahead of it’s time.
• 2-ball multi-ball via the acrylic clear tube suspended above the playfield.  This tube was also lit with chase-lights.

Restoration

We purchased this game at least 3 years ago and have been collecting parts for this particular restoration.  This has been a back-burner plan for a while, but finally got around to doing the job as originally intended.

Cabinet and backbox

• sanded down, repaired and sealed
• 4 stage automotive paint (base, 2 colors and clear coat) inside and out
• New stainless / chrome hardware including (coin door, side rails, legs, bolts)
• New speakers, flipper buttons.

Circuitry

• All boards pulled, reflowed and repaired.
• Plasma displays replaced with new LED displays for long life and less heat
• New MPU board for error free play and no battery issues – ever

Playfield Restoration

• Game completely stripped.  Play field sanded down and repaired.  Multiple stage repaint and re-graphics applied (sandwiched between layers of automotive clear)
• All new plastic parts (except original graphic pieces that were in excellent condition)
• Full LED transformation in play field and back box
• New acrylic multi-ball tube
• Blue LED multi-ball tube chase light conversion
• Williams WPC flipper conversion (to make this game play fast and reliable).   Way better design than the old Bally flipper mechanisms.
• New pop bumpers assemblies and caps
• Original glass!!! PERFECT condition.  This was a nice surprise.

Pictures BEFORE and AFTER

Sega purchased Data East a few years earlier and continued to make solid pinball machines.  They added proper menus and diagnostics and had the financial backing to continue to create great machines.   South Park is a well built machine but slightly rare.   Only 2200 machines were made world wide.

This particular machine was in good shape physically and cosmetically.   Sega machines suffer from cabinet wear around the buttons and this was no different.  However, their playfields are beefy.  The only wear on these machines come at the cut-outs… Kenny and Cartman holes where the ball bangs against the side grain of the hardwood and slowly wears it down.

The plastics are next to impossible to source for this machine because of the licensing issues on re-creating aftermarket parts.  So we were challenged with finding replacement and often making our own back to factory specs.

Lastly, we just couldn’t leave this machine alone and put it back to stock.  This machine craves modern technology updates and modifications.

Restoration

This machine received the following treatment to get it back to stock condition

• Circuit boards removed, cleaned and repaired back to original condition
• Fresh plasma display and rebuild driver
• New board firmware and video driver code to the pre-rev version to bring back the full original controversial game
• Backbox and cabinet repaired from dings.
• Backbox and cabinet sky repainted and forest areas touched up.  Entire surface protected with automotive clear
• New cabinet buttons
• Restored coin door
• Restored legs, lockdown and side rails
• New T-molding
• Playfield stripped, cleaned, buffed and waxed.  Rebuilt with new plastic posts and rubber
• New slingshot and Kenny plastics
• Custom toilet wrap around plastic replaces always broken original 2-piece set
• Custom Kenny plastic to replace missing and unavailable piece
• Full keychain accessory kit
• New translucent targets
• New target stickers OEM
• All figures cleaned and re-installed
• Toilet remolded back into correct shape
• Ramps removed, cleaned and flame polished to crystal clear
• Kenny opto sensors replaced

Custom Upgrades

The following items are Castle Classic Arcade original upgrades that cannot be purchased – to make this machine unique and better in every way!

• Playfield lamps all replaced with custom color LEDs
• Backbox flourescent lamp removed and replaced with coordinated LEDs which can be animated.  This gives the backbox great color and more life
• Under cabinet LED flash effects tied to the game for specific functions (Chef, Kenny Ramp etc)
• Custom South Park full size figure toppers!   Each character is lit internally with LED flashers that tie into the game when the character talks.

Here’s a generic video of the machine on diagnostic test to see the various flashing and animation effects:

PIC PLACEMENT HERE COMING SOON

This machine had many of the elements of the first machine (Comet), but expanded on this machine using better sound, lighting, subway tunnel, drop target, a second ramp, ferris wheel and an animated mystery wheel in the back box.

This machine is also known for it’s fantastic artwork on the play field as well as having Nancy and Ronald Reagan on the back box translite riding in the front seat of the roller coaster.

The Cyclone is a single ball pinball machine – which is odd for this generation as most all machines were created with multi-ball as it’s main attraction.  However, this machine stands on it’s own for it’s fantastic play and is thought of as one of the best single-ball pinball machines ever made.

Restoration

We decided to go all the way with this restoration, as it is such a classic machine.

The back box and cabinet were entirely stripped down to the wood, repaired and returned to perfect square.   The insides and out were primed, blocked, and painted with automotive flat black base coat many times.

The next step was a 2 stage custom orange and yellow automotive stencil paint process.  It was hand touched up and followed up with 2 coats of automotive clear coat.

The play field was pretty worn, so we opted for a NEW play field and then added 3 more coats of clear to give it a thick and lustrous finish.  The play field was repopulated with mostly all new parts and fully converted to LED lighting.

All circuit boards were removed, reflowed and repaired for perfect operation.   The machine was rounded out with new legs, protectors, refinished coin door and under cabinet LED flash lighting.

The result is a better than new classic Cyclone machine that will stand the test of time.

The pinball industry was one of the leaders in this new technology in the early 1980’s.  The Bally Company continued to design high tech machines for the gaming industry and soon released one of their most complicated and resulting best selling machines of the decade: Eight Ball Deluxe.

Eight Ball Deluxe was designed to continue the success of the popular Eight Ball pinball machine (with Fonzi on the back glass).  This time, Bally added many more rules, complicated shot combinations, and speech synthesis.   The result was a masterpiece and is still revered today as one of the best pinball machines ever designed.

Our Machine

We picked up a donor Eight Ball Machine about a 18 months ago and started collecting parts for the machine.  It was in reasonable original condition, but did not operate.  As well, much of the plastic parts were brittle and broken.   The playfield was worn a bit and the cabinet was pretty dinged up.  However, it was sound and all the components still existed, so it was an excellent candidate for restoration.  We just had no idea how long it really was going to take…

We started by gutting the entire machine and putting all the parts in various boxes.   We attacked the cabinet first and stripped it down to the wood.  The cabinet was repaired, and went through stenciling and a 4-stage paint process including automotive clear.

The playfield was also stripped, sanded down to the wood, repaired and received new reproduction graphics.  The playfield was also clear coated 4 times and cured over 2 months.   In the meanwhile, we bought all of the remaining Eight Ball Deluxe plastic pieces we could find in order to come up with a single complete set of new parts.

The circuit boards were repaired, including the unique combination sound and speech synth board.   A new MPU and auxiliary lamp driver board were sourced in order to drive all the LED lighting that replaced the old incandescent bulbs.

A new coin door, legs and hardware rounded out the package.

Before And After Pictures

This is the only pinball machine that shares the same circuitry as the legendary Williams Funhouse, and if you haven’t noticed, Funhouse has exploded in value by almost 2x in the last year.  We expect the unique nature of this game and lineage to follow the same value trend.

Bride of Pinbot shares much of it’s playfield similarities with Pinbot and Jackbot, where the right side contains the skill shot.  They also share the concept of a translucent mini pachinko style upper playfield on top of the 3 pop bumpers.  The rest is all unique to the BOP.

The main playfield toy takes up a good portion of the back of the game:  the 4 faces of the Bride of Pinbot. This object is a large spinning cube that also doubles as a mini playfield used to lock balls and show the state of metamorphosis.  The object of the game is to guide the Bride through her multiple stages in becoming human, to the dismay of her husband Pinbot.  Only videos can truly show what this is all about.  Add to this one excellent techno-inspired sound track and light show.   The special backglass is created to show lightshow animations as well as point values.

This game is fun and tough because of it’s quick ramps and short playfield area in front of the flippers .  Nothing like this game will ever be reproduced again.

Restoration

We’ve restored a few Bride of Pinbot machines in the past.  Here are a couple restoration photo montages:

Summer 2012

Video

Winter 2012/2013

What makes this game very unique is the fact that it uses chime boxes to generate sound (same as the electro-mechanical versions) – which makes this a bell-ringer solid-state pinball machine !

Bally was at the pinnacle of pinball at this time and made some beautiful machines with thought provoking themes.  The colors and artwork on the Mata Hari is robust and seductive and makes for a wonderful piece of functional art.

Restoration

This machine came to us by way of trade in.  It wasn’t really worth that much as it was worn to the wood all over and had many broken parts.  Because of the theme, it was bumped up to the top of the list for restorations as I just wanted to see how nice we can make it (within reason).

The results are much nicer than I had planned.  Not only is it stunning to look at, but it plays fantastic.  I had no idea these machines could play so fast…

This machine went through:

• Cabinet stripping, sanding, repair and 5 step automotive paint process with clear coat protection
• Playfield stripped and sanded.  All new artwork, custom paint under the plastics and multiple coats of automotive clear coat.
• New plastic posts and rubber
• New plastic artwork
• New drop targets
• New flippers and linkages
• New Pop bumper assemblies and caps
• All metal polished
• Wood rails sanded and painted gloss cherry
• Full LED installation
• New PCB
• Repaired driver, transformer  and lamp boards
• New coin door
• New legs and hardware
• Near mint backglass with the unique dagger inscription

Pictures

Before

After Cabinet

After Playfield

Video