playfld

By Alan Lewis

THE PLAYFIELD

This is the playfield after the first vacuuming and damp cloth cleaning.

Not pretty, but all the graphics are still there and just a little damage.

I stripped the playfield except for the bumpers and started to do some serious cleaning.

I tried just about every cleaner and solvent I could find; green, orange, goof off, alcohol, etc.. I got the playfield clean down to the original lacquer coating, which was a sickly brown/yellow.

The only thing that would remove that sickly lacquer was lacquer thinner of course!

So I went to town with lacquer thinner, first using a rag, then Magic Eraser. I took off so much old lacquer that the rag would be board stiff and brown the next day. It took many attempts at this before the rag started to come out clean, and just before paint started to be removed (a very fine line between these two I learned).

But the lacquer thinner did not harm the painted graphics as long as I paid attention.

What resulted was a playfield that looked like it had been used for 20 years. That makes it just about right I think.

The paint had suffered some damage from the poor storage conditions over all the years.

This is an example of the worst paint cracking. I'll just consider it a finely aged work of art.

The major damage was at the bonus inserts. The shrunken inserts allowed the ball to wear down the edge of the hole.

Coiled up plastic was expanded in the holes and pushed flush to give a perfect ID and top edge. Wood epoxy stick was used to fill in the worn area.

Not much sanding at all. The epoxy was already quite flat, just a little blending was needed.

A round stencil was made and applied.

The finished repair

Before and after playfield repair and insert repair

The repaired inserts (see INSERT page) are slipped in from the top side and held in place with dots of hot melt glue. This way I can remove them if necessary.

The other two inserts repaired and glued flush in place.

It was well worth all the repair to the inserts, they look great!

To do the final cleaning and coating on the playfield I removed the frame. It was sanded and lacquer coated.

The frame was originally nailed to the playfield. I removed all the nails and used wood screws in their place.

The playfield had a bow in the center.

I added a crossbar that pushes on the bow to flatten it out.

This is a mechanical timer that is set each time a game is started. It times out after about 10 minutes and cuts all the power. This is the equivalent to the Game Over function in modern machines.

This is what the timer looks like. The 120 volt contacts are on the right. It was really rusty and took a lot of soaking in PB Blaster, cleaner, and then lots of oil. I glued a nut on the top to reattach the bell housing.

This is the scene light that stays on all the time. It is a 7 watt bulb. It is the reason that all the old backglasses are destroyed in the middle.

I removed the scene light and put in a 120 volt receptacle. The old power wires to the (6) 6V bulbs were cut to separate the circuit. I used a 6V adapter to power the 6 backglass bulbs in the middle. It works much better than the original scene light.

This is the new scene light that is on all the time.

The playfield was coated with four coats of lacquer and then Carnuba wax.

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