Playfield Finnished

About a month and a half ago we had a two week break between semesters at school, during this time I completely rebuilt the playfield. I knew that I would not have time within the semester to finish this job and get the curcuit board, and other electronics work done to. The first job was to completely disassemble the top and some of the bottom of the playfield. I put all of the metal parts in my tumbler to pollish them up and make them look new again. I stripped the playfield bare, touched up the paint, sanded, and clear coated the playfield in two weeks. After that job was finished the following procedures where completed. All drop targets, and springs where replaced, pop bumpers rebuilt, flippers rebuilt, all coil sleeves replaced. At this point it was time to put things back together, but before I did that I scanned all of the plastics into my computer, at some point I would like to try my hand at vectorization of artwork. Some of my plastics are broken so I will try to create new ones in the future, if I do a good enough job at vector art I hope to send the files to Classic Playfield Restorations. Putting the top side of the playfield together I replaced all of the rubber and all of the 555 light bulbs. This machine uses 555's exclusively there are no other bulbs on this machine. Well here are the pictures of the finished playfield. Also I would like to add that these pictures are only a small portion of the pictures I take during my restoration process. If anyone reading this blog needs other photos to help them do a restoration just let me know and I will send you more pictures. I also have lots of pictures of other machines that I have shopped out or restored and they are, Flash, Road Show, World Cup Soccer, and Target Alpha.

1981Bally Fireball II Restoration

Well I am off to the races with the Fireball project now. I am going to make a series of posts today to show my progress on this machine. In this first post I will show some of the pictures of the machine when I first got it. this machine was in relatively good shape except for the circuit boards, and the machine was filthy.

Busy, Busy, Busy

If anyone actually reads my posts on this blog I would like to say that I am sorry for the lack of updates. I am now in my last quarter at ITT Tech and will graduate at the beginning of September. The classes that I am taking now take up all of my time, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I have started working on my Fireball II pinball machine, and am using this machine as my final project for my capstone class. I have to document everything that I do with the machine, so when I get finished, I will have a big update on this blog. The circuit boards in this game are so corroded with battery damage that a normal person would just get some better boards of eBay and fix them. Since I am in electronics engineering, I am tackling these boards head on, and will fix them. The playfield is done; the cabinet is done, so I only have to get the electronics working to complete my project.

On a side note, I will not run out of projects when Fireball II is finished. I just picked up a 1979 Williams Flash pinball machine and a 1979 Atari Asteroids arcade game. Both games are non working, and neither game is in great shape, but that is the way I like to get them.

Backglass touch ups

I decided to do some touch up work to my Target Alpha backglass. I do not think that I did to bad of a job on the touch ups, but I did make a few mistakes. I was learning as I went along and found that the color green is almost impossible to match. All in all I am happy with the way this glass turned out and I know that I can do an even better job next time I get a glass to touch up.

Fireball II

I now have a new project pin to work on. I received a very nice 1980 Bally Fireball II over the weekend. This game will make me put the Target Alpha machine on the back burner, because I want to use Fireball II as a project for my ITT Tech classes. This machine is in good overall condition for it's age except for the electronics. Most of the circuit boards in this machine have major battery acid corrosion and will need a bunch of work. I am looking forward to this challenge, it should be fun.

Playfield Rebuilt and Finnished

Playfield Done

The playfield is now finished complete with clear coat, and here are some before and after pictures. Now as soon as I receive my shipment of parts from Pinball Recourse I can start the rebuild.