Sunday 11 October 2009

No 5 PREVIOUS WORK AND STARTING TO STRIP

It is obvious looking at the playfield that another has attempted repairs and have covered the board with Diamond Seal or similar.


This sealer as applied on top of "planked" paintwork which has 'fixed' the cracking.

To remove this and touch up the "planking" present would effectively means re-painting the entire playfield. If I were Mr. Constantino it would net bother me but as I am poor at painting I will only concentrate on the wear and associated works.


So I have commenced the strip down.


This is quite straight forward but one great tip for removing the light plastics from the field is to use a socket t as a punch or drift . Select the correct size and punch gently with a hammer. You can heat these plastics first with a hairdrier to ease the removal.
The 'MYLAR' protection came of easily with a little petroleum to dissolve the adhesive.
Once I have removed all the bits I will look at cleaning the playfield

No 4 LETS US ASSESS THE JOB AT HAND #1 Playfield















The table is in VERY poor condition. With playfield wear evident at the flippers, most lights and bumpers

















The plastic light inserts are badly dished which has been a contributing factor to the light position wear.
The flipper zone is also a prime wear area.














The ball run from the plunger is incredibly worn and back to bear wood all the way to the lanes at the top of the playfield
Where to start?

No 3 CREDITS AND LINKS

As I work through this any good ideas I find on the web I will credit the author with a mention and add a link in the links area

Saturday 10 October 2009

No 2 A WORKING EXAMPLE

This how it should work:



With Thanks to Gigacraft100 on Youtube

No 1 WELCOME TO MY BLOG


Hi welcome to this blog thanks for dropping by.
This will chronicle my renovation of a Williams Flash Pin table

My friend gave me a pinball table knowing that I have some already and I am interested in them.

It is a Williams Flash table from 1979 and was the first unit manufactured with the ability to play more than one sound simultaneously. This was ground breaking....honestly.

The background electronic sound gave a building hum depending on the score and this was exciting for the day.

This machine is VERY sad and I was going to dump this on EBAY for spares however, this table reminded me of my days as a boy playing FLASH machine and the excitement these electronic marvels gave pre XBOX.

I know I could buy one cheaper but I am going to renovate this table it is a big job as I am a renovation 'virgin' and this is a shabby example.

The driver board is missing there is signs of burning on the MPU it has damp signs on the cabinet the playfield is disgraceful with EXTREME ball wear everywhere. (Look at photo 1 and you can see wear from 8'away!!).

Winter is on its way and the clocks go back in two weeks meaning dark nights so I will give it ago and even if it goes terribly wrong I can still flog this on EBAY!

I will update will my progress with loads of pics and conclusions hopefully to give any one thinking of trying any project but nervous, confidence that steady careful works can achieve great goals.....or end in absolute diaster.