1967 was at the height of the space race and everyone wanted to share in celebrating the United States’ remarkable technical prowess.  The Williams Apollo pinball machine was created to capture and relive these moments for patrons in the back alley bars and bowling alleys.

About This Machine

This machine was produced in limited numbers (3100) and was made as a single player only machine so that more rules could be constructed from the limited number of relays and wheel logic circuits typically available in electro-mechanical machines.  The result was an instant classic, with a clear set of rules to achieve.  Also, this machine had quite a bit of depth, not usually found in machines of this era.

First and foremost was the rocket in the center of the playfield and the countdown rollovers.  The countdown would only decrease by rolling directly over the appropriate digit or hitting an ever changing lit target.  Once the count down reached 1, the launch feature would light, and you could start the count down again.  Each time the count down was achieved, the values of the targets would increase, until you reached the max values (special when lit credit).  Additionally, this machine also had an outlane gate diverter to save your ball and allow you to relaunch if drained on the right hand side.

If the launch was activated during a ball, and then you drained, the backbox feature would be enabled.  This feature is a mini pachinko style vertical pinball game that would reward anywhere from 50, 300 or CREDIT.

This game not only accomplished it’s main mission (to draw people in and want to replay), but captured one of America’s most proud moments in time – the space race and the Apollo missions.

Custom Request

We were contacted via a customer referral to find this special machine.  The request was quite simple, find an Apollo pinball machine and restore it.  After we determined what the availability of this machine was, we determined a value and set it restoration process in motion.  About the time the restoration was complete, we learned the true nature of where this machine was heading, and became very excited.  This was no normal pinball collector.  This was a NASA approved rocket restorer and this machine was going to reside in their main lobby among their other NASA awards and documented accomplishments.  How exciting!

Restoration

Again, we had to maintain a budget for restoration on this machine, but immediately it got a little out of hand as availability of the Apollo pinball machine was virtually nill.  We were lucky to find one within a couple hundred miles of our facility, and since then we haven’t seen another.  So this was it – regardless of it’s original condition – we were in.

The machine was actually in surprisingly good original condition – for it’s age.  The front of the cabinet was worn well past normal use, but the back glass was the feature of the machine.  The prior owner(s) must have known to be careful with this one as it had some clear tape on the back side.  Well, from our experience, whatever is on there – stays there.  We were able to clean it gently and seal the entire back of the glass to preserve the paint.   I’ve seen most mid-80’s back glasses with almost half the paint chipped off, but this one was almost new looking.

The head and cabinet were almost without damage from serious chips, but the paint was worn off and yellowed significantly.  The leg mounts were damaged of course.  The front of the machine had to be rebuilt entirely, which means, the entire cabinet and head had to therefore be sanded down, repaired and repainted by hand.

The playfield was another wonderful surprise.  Only one spot on the entire surface was worn to the wood.  It was a strange location as well and it repaired without much ado.   We skipped clear coating this machine to save on cost as well as it was going to probably be played just occasionally anyway.  Otherwise, it was entirely stripped, cleaned, and deep polished. Followed by multiple applications of wax.  The original plastics were pristine, but we went with new pop bumpers and repainted the upper apron in order to match the cabinet accurately.

At this time, we also decided to completely convert this machine over to LED lighting.  What a difference it made.  We color matched a couple inserts and put whites under all the plastics.  It was a perfect blend of old and new and only made this classic even better.  By just going with slightly more white light, this machine just looked cleaner and fresher without looking electronic at all.

Lastly, the electronics were addressed.  This machine was stated to be in perfect working order.  Of course, the truth be told, at least 5 relay coils were burned right out.  The bell ringer coil had melted in to a pile of goo and half of the rotating mechanisms were nearly frozen solid.  That’s ok.  We repaired them all back to perfect order.

Restoration Summary

• Repair and repaint cabinet and head
• Full tear down of playfield, repair, buff and wax
• New rubbers
• New ball
• LED conversion
• New pop bumpers
• Restore coin door
• New Williams chrome shooter (upgrade from original plastic unit)
• New Williams chrome legs and hardware (upgrade from flat metal)
• New coils, relays misc
• Every switch cleaned and adjusted
• Every mechanical part removed, cleaned and repaired

The whole process took about 4 weeks, with about 2 weeks for the painting and curing process.

In the end, we were very proud of this machine, and even more proud of where it resides.  The owner of this machine is a great individual, hard working entrepreneur and has a wonderful family history in restoring NASA rockets (among other vastly successful ventures) for our great country.

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