mplayfield
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Wow just superb work Ant
Lovely Ant so lovely mateI now have all the armour/bolts back from the platers and powder coaters. Fishy No1 & 2 are going full on chrome and Fishy No 3 is going with a gloss black power coat.
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First part to go are the start button rings that I make.
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Followed by the side rails, cabinet bolts and back box hinges.
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When it came to the fishing reel handles all 3 games had issues with the shooter buttons.
Either the button was replaced or the wiring had been hacked up.
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I’ve always thought the shooter button didn’t look right on the handle and bit of an after thought when it was designed due to a the handles being cast with a square opening and then a piece of plastic filling the hole
After reading a few posts online about this, it’s seems that they were originally designed for a larger button similar to other pins at the time that had shooter buttons instead of shooter rods, but for some reason, was cancelled before release.
The service manual even has a picture of what it was meant look like. Plus the game code/test menu and harness has the wiring installed for a bulb on all production games but was simply not used.
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So I thought I’d give it a go and make my own.
First job was to find a button that was the closest in regards to dimensions to the square opening when the 2 halves of the reel are put together.
The issue I had then was it was to big internally with the larger micro switch.
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So I marked out 2 points on both halves that needed removing and carefully machined them out.
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This gave me enough clearance so that the 2 halves could be fitted back together.
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As the games already came from the factory with the wiring for a light in the main cabinet harness, all I had to do was add 2 extra wires to the reel wiring and solder all 4 wires to the new switch.
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I’m not sure if the button was actually released if it would have had something on it, like “shoot” or “fire”. So I though I’d add my own using black vinyl.
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Once all 3 reels were back together, the last job was to fit some oak to the handles for Fishy No1 and No3.
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Then I could get them back on each game and see if they worked .
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The last job to do, was to rebuild the 2 coin doors for Fishy No1 & No2 after having them chromed.
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When reassembling I had to remove some of the plating on a couple of the parts as even though the plating is quite thin, as they were triple plated, it was enough to stop them slotting back in place.
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After that, everything went back together nicely
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Obviously, before they were plated any labels were removed, so I made some new ones to replace them.
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When it comes to fitting coin doors back on a cabinet with new decals, I like to score around the coin door frame to stop it creasing the decals.
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Im planning on leaving all 3 games on their trolleys for ease of movement and will install the legs last.
So basically apart from a few replacements stickers, the cabinets are done, so I can not start on the Playfield swaps/shop
When I get home mate I’ll have a check and let you knowOut of interest if you put a straight edge across the playfield (old) in front of the boat ish area are any warped?
Mine is and the ball can swerve sdtm from casters club, I levelled mine so it’s better. I have a CPR playfield to fit, one day lol.
Seen others that do the swerve thing coming down.
Nearly there
Thanks mate@Ant-H your work is absolutely top notch!
I started a Whirlwind restoration which I put on the back burner an embarrassingly long time ago, and I'm glad I've just discovered your thread for some tips for when I get my **** back into gear.
May I ask, did you spray the cabinets using a compressor and air-gun or rattle cans? I bought a load of Rustoleum cans for my WW in the correct blue colour as well as some primer, but it does get through a lot of cans and the spray pattern on the standard nozzles isn't the best.
I bought a spray paint gun to use with my compressor but not got round to trying it yet, but wondered if you have any recommendations of paint type and supplier that you have found works well, assuming you're using a gun?
I checked one of the old playfields and it definitely does dip in the middle when I put a straight edge just in front of the boat.Out of interest if you put a straight edge across the playfield (old) in front of the boat ish area are any warped?
Mine is and the ball can swerve sdtm from casters club, I levelled mine so it’s better. I have a CPR playfield to fit, one day lol.
Seen others that do the swerve thing coming down.
Nearly there
ThanksI checked one of the old playfields and it definitely does dip in the middle when I put a straight edge just in front of the boat.
When I moved the straight edge down the playfield it straightened out.
As for paint, I now use 1k car paint with paint thinners in a ratio of 50/50. I use a local place to me but if you search on eBay for 1k car paint, you will finds loads.
Before you go ahead a nd paint your cabinet, I’d recommend practicing a little just so you get the settings on the gun right and the air pressure as to much air will make it way to fine and not enough air will give you an orange peel finish.
Amazing.. work. Thanks for all the details and photos you put into these restorations sharing all the minor details also.Now that the lamp boards are all cleaned and dry, I re-flowed the solder on every board for all 3 games.
New stand up targets were also fitted on Fishy No1 and No2.
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Whilst waiting for the mechs to come back from the platers and powder coaters I did a bit more work on the top sides of the playfields.
Installing new star posts is next but I needed to open out a few more holes and seal them so that the threads would not crack the clear coat when I fit them.
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For all 3 games I went with a mixture of yellow, green and blue star posts.
For Fishy No1 I chose green and light blue Titan rubbers and for Fishy No2 and No3, green and dark blue.
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When it came to the ball guides, I discussed with owners, what route did they wanted to go, in regards to removing the 30 years of ball trails. Either polished or re-graining.
Mirror polished ball guides look cool but come with a little bit more work with the future upkeep, so a factory re-grain finish was chosen for all 3.
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Re-graining is actually a job I really enjoy doing as once they are finished, the ball guides look like new again
Before
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After
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After
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On Fish Tales, there are a couple of odd shaped ball guides that make it really difficult to either re-grain or polish, which usually means they get left.
In this case what I ended up doing was drawing around them on a piece of scrap wood so that I had the original shape.View attachment 254968
I then folded them flat so that I could re-grain them.
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Once finished, I manipulated/bent both ball guides back to the original shapes using the drawing I made as a guide.
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Once all 3 sets of ball guides were done, I refitted them back to each playfield.
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The final job on the list to complete before rebuilding the underside, was to fix a Mirco playfield issue.
On an original Fish tales playfield, there is a small metal post by the outlanes on both sides, just in front of the small wire guides.
It goes here:-
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However on a Mirco Playfield, this is what you have:-
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Nothing!
I’m not sure if this is also the case on CPR Fish Tales playfields, but both the Mircos that I have definitely are missing them.
Obviously drilling a new hole through new clear coat is not something you really want to be doing, but the posts need to be fitted.
So the first challenge was to make sure I positioned the hole in correct position.
To do this, I used a small piece of tracing paper to mark out the exact hole position on the original playfield. I used the holes for the wire guide as a way of getting it correct as they were on the new playfields so I could use them to line the template up.
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I then transferred that template to the new playfields and used a bradawl to lightly mark the position.
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I then used a sharpe grinding bit to make the hole. If I used a small drill bit, I’m pretty certain it would have chipped the clear coat.
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Last thing to do was to fit the posts and to check that the alignment for spot on
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No problem . Yeah what started out as me doing my own games has become a bit of a part time job.Looking amazing, thanks for continuing to post, pretty interesting. Especially as it looks to have become a side hustle. (In old man speak a second job )
It’s funny you say that, I’ve never once looked at my photos on a desk top browser myself as I always post them from my phoneAmazing.. work. Thanks for all the details and photos you put into these restorations sharing all the minor details also.
What I will say is that for others who look at Ants posts is, to truly appreciate the images and detail, ditch viewing these posts on the tiny mobile screens, use a desktop browser.
At least they marked out the holeThe hole is marked on my CPR but will need widening, not looked at it for a while but it’s been sitting there for 2 years now and all the inserts are pretty much flush still. It is in my pinroom with controlled temp/humidity though so maybe that has helped.
Wow great news for us down hereNo problem . Yeah what started out as me doing my own games has become a bit of a part time job.
We are looking to move to the West Country next year for more space and I’m actually considering jacking in my “real” job and doing this full time when we do
Yeah I’ll definitely be a lot closer to you mate than I am nowWow great news for us down here
Any thoughts on where in Devon?Yeah I’ll definitely be a lot closer to you mate than I am now
Might not be as far as Devon itself. More like the Somerset/Devon boardersAny thoughts on where in Devon?