Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by HPR Pinball »

Did you try the freeze method, that will remove only the plastic and leave the glue (and the artwork) on the playfield.
The video game i want to play is always the one i don't have :FP:
Les arcades, j'suis tombé d'dans quand j'tait pti !! :-)

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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by redketchup »

Here you go, some inspiration... I just finish my Quicksilver cab and putting back everything together!
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Bally Centaur, Fathom, Stern Big Game, Flight 2000, Quicksilver, Catacomb, Stargazer, Nineball, Metallica Pro, Iron Maiden Pro, Wurlitzer 41, 700, 750e, 1100, 1900, 1700, Rockola 1428, tempo 1, seeburg HF 100R, VL 200, Ami I
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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by Drano »

HPR Pinball wrote:Did you try the freeze method, that will remove only the plastic and leave the glue (and the artwork) on the playfield.
Cold or heat. Nothing works.
This is not mylar.... it's just simple clear vinyl. It comes off by hand super easy but I think it has softened the artwork underneath. There is no glue residue.
redketchup wrote:Here you go, some inspiration... I just finish my Quicksilver cab and putting back everything together!
That looks great Gino!
Well done.

Maybe I'll just start another cabinet this weekend while I wait for the playfield business to be sorted out. Time for Seawitch! I'll save QS for last. Still not sure if I need to re-paint it. It's pretty nice except for the black frame around the head and that's easy to fix.

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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by Drano »

New repro playfield has been purchased. Hopefully it arrives soon. It'll be nice to put one of these projects to bed.

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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by redketchup »

Greatwich repro look really good!
Bally Centaur, Fathom, Stern Big Game, Flight 2000, Quicksilver, Catacomb, Stargazer, Nineball, Metallica Pro, Iron Maiden Pro, Wurlitzer 41, 700, 750e, 1100, 1900, 1700, Rockola 1428, tempo 1, seeburg HF 100R, VL 200, Ami I
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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by Drano »

redketchup wrote:Greatwich repro look really good!
Yup, it looks pretty nice. I may even be tempted to put one in Seawitch if he finishes them in time.

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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by Drano »

121 days remaining

So I've decided to change gears for a little bit and started pulling apart Seawitch. With any luck and can start prepping the cab by the weekend.
20160829_230035.jpg
In other news, my SG playfield came from John Greatwich.
I'm super happy with the quality considering this is an inkjet printing process.
Here's a little teaser.
IMG-20160830-WA0008.jpeg

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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by HPR Pinball »

Classic Stern all the way !!! :-)
The video game i want to play is always the one i don't have :FP:
Les arcades, j'suis tombé d'dans quand j'tait pti !! :-)

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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by Drano »

108 days remaining

Ughhhhhh.... I'm almost down into double digits on my timeline and not one game complete :FP:

Summer has been hard (translate that to: I've been having too much fun to work on my projects). But, to be fair, I have been rebuilding a small extension on the back of our house and doing other things. But enough about my excuses. I've tried to get back into these projects as much as possible. Here are some photos to show you where I'm at.

So, firstly, I got the repro playfield from John Greatwich on the rotisserie. There's some good and bad to going this route.

Cons: Art was scanned, not redrawn in vector, so there is some pixelation; particularly around scoop text by the flippers. Also, the blue is not nearly as dark/rich as the original.
Pros: The clearcoat is top notch, inserts are correct and it's a helluva lot better than my crappy original!
IMG-20160906-WA0015.jpeg
I also took my Seawitch playfield out and, while doing that I tried swapping the aprons with SG. I think they actually look better reversed. I will probably put the Blue/Yellow one on Seawitch and Blue/Blue on SG.
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Last night I took all the solenoids off the back of SG in preparation for the parts swap. It's amazing how much fun a game with just 10 solenoids can be. Compared to Fathom, this machine is like working on a Model T Ford.
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Seawitch cabinet is now fully empty and I will be stripping and repairing that this weekend (fingers crossed).
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Lastly, I finally received my new repro glass for Quicksilver.
Colour is great. Masking is different but works the same from the front. The black detail is a little bit less than the original silkscreen... especially where there are a lot of dots. And, the only major difference, the "credit" text had to be done on a black strip instead of on a clear window. I will need to raise my displays by about 1/4" to compensate.

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Almost forgot!
I've been working with Bob Langelius for a few months on getting new targets made up for classic Stern.
He already made translucent ones for Bally games like Medusa (behind the Olympus drop targets). Once we confirmed that the Stern target faces were physically identical, he agreed to make up some opaque ones in yellow, white and red. Maybe more colours to come.

He kindly shipped me the first batch direct from China. I grabbed a bunch for some of the local collectors with classic Stern.
If you need any of these just google Bob. He's easy to find.
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Last edited by Drano on Tue Sep 13, 2016 3:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by redketchup »

I will have make the glass without the credit and put a reverse die-cut white decal inside...
Bally Centaur, Fathom, Stern Big Game, Flight 2000, Quicksilver, Catacomb, Stargazer, Nineball, Metallica Pro, Iron Maiden Pro, Wurlitzer 41, 700, 750e, 1100, 1900, 1700, Rockola 1428, tempo 1, seeburg HF 100R, VL 200, Ami I
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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by Drano »

redketchup wrote:I will have make the glass without the credit and put a reverse die-cut white decal inside...
I don't think the black bar looks bad. If the display is raised a little, the area around the numbers would be black anyway. At least that is how they should look if everything is properly aligned.
The way I have it now, the number is being cut off... which is obviously not the right way to do it ;) This is easy to adjust though.

To be honest, I think Stern made a bigger error in judgement by placing the "credit" text inside the window and the "Ball in Play" text under the window. Why not do both the same way?

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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by redketchup »

Does he have solid blue target?
Bally Centaur, Fathom, Stern Big Game, Flight 2000, Quicksilver, Catacomb, Stargazer, Nineball, Metallica Pro, Iron Maiden Pro, Wurlitzer 41, 700, 750e, 1100, 1900, 1700, Rockola 1428, tempo 1, seeburg HF 100R, VL 200, Ami I
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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by Drano »

redketchup wrote:Does he have solid blue target?

Not yet, but he said he is willing to make them if there is enough demand.

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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by Drano »

90 days remaining

Well, I think I have to accept the fact that I won't complete these projects in the timeframe I had hoped, especially not with the remaining 2 playfields requiring restoration and clearcoat.
Still, I'll continue to plug away and see how far I can get.

I've been putting in some hours almost every night. I'm feeling a bit under the weather so tonight is a good time to take a break and catch up on my posts.

With the SeaWitch cab totally stripped I needed to get working on the paint. I decided that I wanted to have an easier time of the prep this time around so I decided to try a chemical stripper first before moving to the sander. I've used this stuff on other projects and it works great. The end product was a very clean cab ready for a light sand, some filler and primer.

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The rest of the week was spent starting to re-assemble the Star Gazer playfield. Progress has been very slow. Normally a playfield such as this can be put together in 2-3 nights but I spent some time taking apart all of the mechs. The worst part however, has been that a ton of the posts and hardware were in the wrong place. Not sure if it was an OP or a previous owner, but several things were just not right. It would take me hours each night scouring for online pics of other SG and asking friends for shots of their games. Eventually I got to a pretty happy place where I was confident that it was at least 95% accurate. I also take a lot of time to adjust switches, ball guides and just make sure that things are as close to dialed in as I can. I used to rush through these swaps and then spend days fiddling around with tweaks. By taking more care on the front end I should get a lot closer to a plug-n-play playfield once I'm done.
Just the spinners alone too an hour to tweak. I adjust switches to just barely make contact and twist them so the connector arm doesn't come in contact with the hole in the playfield. All brackets are straightened and a little Teflon grease is added where the spinner wire meets the brackets. All of these things reduce friction and perfectly balance each spinner so they just go on forever.

I'm just about at the stage of being able to re-grain and polish up the metal rails and test fit my plastics. Hopefully this will be fairly complete by the weekend.
I had some brand new oak rails made by TaylorVA on Pinside so I'm expecting those soon too.

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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by Jays »

I am amazed! Continue the good work.....

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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by HPR Pinball »

Me like Stargazer ! Nice work :-)
The video game i want to play is always the one i don't have :FP:
Les arcades, j'suis tombé d'dans quand j'tait pti !! :-)

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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by cait001 »

That last photo is beautiful.
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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by Fifty »

Impressive as always Drano! Reading back a few posts I would have been completely heartbroken watching the paint come up with the vinyl. It's like the wind getting knocked out of you. No one ever said resto's were easy though. Getting through those types of setbacks is painful but can feel more rewarding in the very end.

Those last few pics are fantastic! I love how you caught the spinners! Where are the pics of this addition you are adding to the house? That reno is just as much a part of your summer as your resto's. Show it off! :)

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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by Drano »

66 days remaining

Ouch! Only 2 months left :(
I've been on a rather long (for me) vacation. Just got back from 2 weeks in Florida with the family; filling Mickey Mouse's pockets :FP:

It was a good holiday overall but I'm not one to sit around on a beach for too long and I was getting pretty antsy after the first week. I was happy to get back into my projects upon my return.
My son insisted on helping me strip Sea Witch before we left on Thanksgiving weekend. He did a pretty good job and managed to strip down the majority of it before we left. On Sunday I finished up my preliminary touch-ups to the spare Quicksilver playfield and prepped it for the first shot of clearcoat. It will get one or two more just to get everything level before I tackle the bigger job of masking and spraying down some new green tone before applying the pressure sensitive decals I had made a few months ago. For now this is what it looks like.
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As for Star Gazer... it's essentially done. The playfield swap is complete but I am waiting on one order before I can finish it.
Once the final parts show up it should be plug and play. Time to make more basement space :(

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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by Drano »

38 days remaining

It's been a long time since I sent an update. I think the plan now is simply to see how much I can get done by New Year's Eve.
I was off traveling again all of last week so progress is still slow. Seems that's how things have gone all year.

Good news is that I finally closed the books on Star Gazer and moved it into the basement. Only a couple of lamp issues after re-assembly. Aside form that it was almost plug and play.
No progress on Sea Witch cabinet in a while but I have gotten the Quicksilver playfield nice and level. I'm still in the process of airbrushing and repairing the art though.

Since QS doesn't really need a cabinet repaint, I might have a shot at completing the playfield work and getting a 2nd game under my belt before the year is out.

Here's a couple of shots of Star Gazer in her new home.


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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by redketchup »

And do you like the gameplay?

Really nice job on the first of the three... you will have an awesome stern line up whew finish!
Bally Centaur, Fathom, Stern Big Game, Flight 2000, Quicksilver, Catacomb, Stargazer, Nineball, Metallica Pro, Iron Maiden Pro, Wurlitzer 41, 700, 750e, 1100, 1900, 1700, Rockola 1428, tempo 1, seeburg HF 100R, VL 200, Ami I
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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by Drano »

redketchup wrote:And do you like the gameplay?

Really nice job on the first of the three... you will have an awesome stern line up whew finish!

Of course ;)
This game was set up and playing fine in my garage for almost a year so I'm no stranger to the game play.
I just waited until Summer to start tackling the cabinet restore.

The spinners are holding up really well so far!

My only regret (aside from my painting struggles with this one) is the lighter colour of the playfield blue. Once the plastics are lit up it's not very noticeable.
I just need to make some new instruction cards.

One side of my gameroom is now going to be 100% classic Stern and Bally. I love them :D

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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by Drano »

30 days remaining

One month left!!!
For the last few days (and weeks actually) I've been focusing on playfield work. I finished stripping down SeaWitch (it's pretty dirty) and then started work on the Quicksilver restoration.

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I already did a few layers of clear and base green paint just to cover up any exposed wood, repair any holes and level the inserts.
Now that the mechanical aspects are sorted out, I start repairing the actual artwork.

Step one is to apply frisket over the entire playfield and then airbrush a fresh layer of green. I found a really good match for the green so I wasn't worried about covering everything... but there was still a lot of fine detail trimming to do. It took me a couple of evenings at least.

Once that was done I mixed the paint to the right consistency and just covered up the rough parts. Next I will peel up the frisket, clearcoat this layer and then I can finally apply the rub-on decals I had made and apply some new black outlines to the inserts.


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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by Drano »

Peeled the frisket... laid down some clear to seal the acrylics.
Pretty happy so far.

I've re-ordered a new set of rub-on transfer decals for the text. I wasn't happy with the colour match on the first set. Hopefully I'll have that next week.
In the meantime I will repaint all of the black rings.

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Last edited by Drano on Fri Dec 02, 2016 1:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Dr.NO and the STERN 'sisters'

Post by shane »

Wow, just wow. nice work.

Lineup looks great already! meteor,stargazer and 8bd? sweeeeeeetness!
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