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.

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

2nd Machine Restoration (Sept 2012)

We were awarded another restoration contract of this fine pinball machine.

This machine also had a full cabinet repaint, plus a little more work.  We also added a full LED treatment!

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.

Description

This legendary electro-mechanical pinball is the higher end commercial 4-player model. Built in 1976, this is the last production year before all pinball machines went to solid state electronics (first generation of the microprocessor). Only 16,155 were ever made, and not too many exist today in this condition.

Captain Fantastic was a “Tommy” inspired game picturing Elton John as pinball champ Captain Fantastic. David Christensen did the artwork for this Bally game, using a lot of bright reds and blues. Piano keyboards appeared throughout the game, which was one of the first featuring custom-designed bumper caps with drawings of Elton John’s face. The back glass pictured a crowd scene based on the movie Tommy. This game also features mirror lines worked into the back glass art for a dazzling reflective effect. The background crowd features some of the artists friends as well as other historical figures. Greg Kmiec created the playfield design, which has a pleasing, uncluttered arrangement of targets and bumpers, plus four flippers.

This machine also comes with a special bonus: matching framed album cover – Elton John and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (which incidentally also won album of the year in 1976).

Restoration

This machine started with a very low 30,000 plays in it’s lifetime – which shows in it’s all original and untouched playfield.  Hairline cracks exist in the paint (as would any play field of this age), but no wear marks.

• Top side playfield was entirely dismantled, cleaned, polished and waxed.
• All posts were replaced
• All rubbers replaced
• All bulbs replaced.
• Plastics cleaned and are crystal clear (no yellowing).
• Pop bumpers were replaced with custom Elton John tops.
• Drop targets were replaces with custom Elton John units.
• Every single wiper contact was cleaned, filed and re-aligned.  This took a long time but necessary for long term reliability.
• New fuse holders.
• New bridge rectifier for bumpers and thumpers
• New flippers (4)
• New flipper mechanisms (4), linkage, wipers etc
• New bell coil (the other 2 worked fine).
• Works exactly like it is supposed to.  All lights, modes, alternating circuits, score wheels, over-the-top buzzer, lockouts etc work perfect.
• coin door and trim polished.  Slight dent in coin door.
• Replaced legs with chrome models
• cabinet just touched up, but no damage and fade.
• Backbox touched up, slight wear on top that was touched up.
• New locks
• Coin mechs and lockout work

While there are plenty of websites and forums discussing the do’s and don’ts of EM machines, I figured I would summarize some of the key points here on our site.  Most of these are actually first-hand knowledge.

• Check your fuse blocks.  Most of these are going to be cracked and brittle by now (and barely hold fuses).  If you’re handy with a soldering iron (or just a beginner), this is an easy fix.  Buy some new fuse holders anywhere (Radio Shack, Home Depot) for cheap.
• Resist contact cleaner spray!  I repeat – do not use contact cleaner on any items below the playfield or in the backbox.  I too have ignored the advice of many forums as I thought – hey these look pretty dirty and this stuff works really well.   One, it leaves a residue that still needs to be filed off.  I’ve made a perfectly working (but dirty) EM machine go from working – to completely dead by using a cleaner.  I ended up having to remove each contact and hand cleaning with alcohol and filing.  Also, many contact cleaner sprays are flammable.   We have one report recently of a machine igniting the fumes trapped inside the cabinet.  That must have been scary.
• Use business cards as a low abrasive contact cleaner.  Cut a business card in 3 strips – lengthwise.  Dip them in alcohol (if your contacts are really dirty) and pinch the card between each contact and pull out.  It’s like flossing – and you’ll see a huge dirt/rust trail.  Repeat until clean on each contact.  Your machine will love you and you’ll probably notice a bunch more life and functionality out of your EM.
• Get a contact adjustment tool.   It is a simple item with a slit on each end used to properly bend/adjust contacts.   Contacts should always be straight (not wiggly looking) and aimed by bending at the base.  Adjustment for relays is a little trial and error.  You can also use a dry business card as a guide for normally-open contact gaps.
• Find the schematic for your machine.  Buy it if you have to.  It is imperative in understanding the wiring and diagnosing logic issues.
• Many issues come from poor wiring harness connections.  These long connectors are used in mating the wiring harness between backbox and cabinet, and with the fuse blocks.  These contacts often get loose or the spring metal loses it’s tension.
• Some machines use DC for pop bumpers and slingshots (and some other coils).  If yours are not working, check your fuse and replace the bridge rectifier.
• If you have a coil that is stuck on (buzzing, getting hot) – do not leave your machine running.  Power it off and find which relay or switch that is causing the problem.   IE:  I’ve seen chime relays burn out because of stuck rollover switches and for poorly adjusted  (10’s) &  (100’s) count up relays.