Over the weekend I picked up the cabinet which will probably be my last game acquisition for a while.  I need to start focusing on restoring the games I already have.  Fortunately, it’s been at the top of my “want list” since I picked up Donkey Kong.  I made the 2 hour drive (4 hours round trip) and promptly unloaded it into the garage.  Since it was in the garage, I decided that it would go to the head of the restoration list.  As is customary, here’s are the original marketing flyers for Galaga and a link to it’s entry in the Killer List of Video Games:

So, let’s start with the good news…it’s friggin’ GALAGA! It powers on and the monitor works. The not so good news…the PCB needs some work as it is throwing various bad RAM errors. Galaga boards are known for their problematic sockets and chips. I figure while I restore the exterior of the cabinet, I’ll let someone more capable fix the PCB. The monitor will also need a new cap kit so I’ll probably throw a new flyback in as well.

The cabinet is in decent shape but has severe chipping and wear along the outer edges which seems to be fairly common with most early Midway cabinets. The side art and kick plate art will need to be replaced as I am going to have to do significant work to the edges to get them sharp and crisp again. The control panel overlay is shot. Fortunately, the bezel and marquee are still in great condition.

If you look closely at the 5th picture, you’ll notice a red button in the cabinet front slightly to the left of the coin door. The cabinet had been wired for free play at some point and this is how you credited games. This button was no longer hooked up. Unfortunately, the coin mechs weren’t hooked up either so there doesn’t appear to be any way at the moment to credit a game. I’ll have to do some work on the wiring harness to rectify this. Also, just below the coin door there is black vinyl that has been applied to the cabinet. I couldn’t figure out why as I didn’t understand why anyone would cover the kickplate art with plain old black vinyl. As I started to peel the vinyl off it became readily apparent. Someone had attempted to break into the coin box and either kicked or pryed just below the coin door at the top of the black vinyl. This sent a nice sized crack about 8 inches long down the front of the cabinet. The vinyl was apparently the quickest way to hide the damaged cabinet.

That is going to be a tricky area to repair. It needs to be perfectly smooth as any imperfection will show clearly through the new kickplate art that will be applied. A Little Bondo and some patience will go a long way. I’m going to need plenty of Bondo to fix the rotting cabinet edges as well:

As you can see, the back door is going to need to be replaced or repaired. I think it might be easier to just cut a new one out of some plywood. Here are shots of the interior of the cabinet. In the 4th picture you get a pretty good idea what 30 years of dust looks like.

So at this point you’re thinking, “where the hell is the restoration?”.  Well, unlike all my other cabinets I actually accomplished some work on this one over the weekend.  The first step to any restoration is to strip the cabinet down to an empty shell.  Sometimes you can find some interesting stuff.  I found one quarter.  Yep, one measly quarter.

Since the cabinet edges are going to need considerable work, I decided to start stripping the artwork from the sides and sanding down the paint. I started with the left side, applied a coat of CitriStrip to the artwork and let it sit for about 2 hours. I actually put CitriStrip on the entire side to see if it would remove any of the paint. I did not. The artwork came right up with a putty knife. I then sanded the left side with the following grits in progression; 60, 100 then 150. The left side is now ready for Bondo work and then some primer.

While I was waiting for the CitriStrip to work its magic on the side art, I decided to tackle the control panel as well. I removed the wiring harness, buttons and joystick then applied a coat of CitriStrip to it. While the CitriStrip worked wonders on my Centipede control panel, this one was a bit tougher. In total, I applied 5 coats of CitriStrip scraping off what I could after each coat had set up for about an hour. Thank God for beer (see picture).  Fortunately, I was finally able to get down to bare metal. There may still be some adhesive left, I’ll have to check on the tonight.

The side art, kickplate art and control panel overlay are all readily available on line. A replacement marquee is also available but mine is in pretty good shape. When he has it available, I always buy my artwork from Phoenix Arcade. It should be on my doorstep when I arrive home tonight. It’s going to be quite a while before any of it gets applied.

Tonight, I hope to strip the artwork on the right side of the cabinet and get it sanded down a bit. Then the work begins on the edge repair. I will follow a similar process as the rebuild of the corner on Dig Dug.  Unfortunately, the rebuild will involve almost the entire outer edge of the cabinet  along with the damaged area on the front panel and not just a corner.  That’s all for now.  Stay tuned….

It’s about 90% working. The left side target bank has one switch that needs adustment. Because that switch doesn’t trigger, the bank doesn’t reset. A few of the rollover switches need adjustment. Several bulbs and sockets need to be cleaned or replaced.

It is missing the glass and lockdown bar. The top board on the header, above the backglass has come loose and will need to be re-attached. The backglass is not in the best of shape and can be seen in the pictures.

IT has a new Alltek Ultimate Soldenoid Driver board and several new coils.

I’m looking to get what I paid for it….$300. If interested, drop me a line.

As soon as I pulled in the sellers driveway, I knew I was at the right house. Sitting outside his garage door was the backbox to the World Series pinball machine, complete with the awesome backglass. As he opened up the overhead garage door, I saw about a dozen pinball machines in various stages of assembly/disassembly, a number of arcade cabinets and more parts than you could shake a stick at. Another guy that “got it”! We chatted briefly about our collections and he asked if there was anything I was looking for. Naturally, I put a bug in his ear for a Galaga machine. After the small talk, we loaded the machine, exchanged some cash and I was back on my way home.

So let’s talk about this “grail” of mine. I knew that it wasn’t working when I picked it up. The machine powers on just fine. When you press the credit button for a new game, the reset wheels start spinning like they are supposed to. One problem…they never stop spinning. At some point, the playfield componenets should all reset to start a new game, the wheels should quit spinning and the ball should eject into the shooting lane. It never happens. There is either a misaligned switch somewhere in the cabinet, a bad relay somewhere in the cabinet or a combination of the two. If you’ve got about 4 hours to kill and want to learn a little bit about EM pinball machines, give this document a read. Since I want this machine to be perfect, I’ve made the decision to call a local repair guy out to fix it. I’ll watch him and hopefully learn a few things but EM games are a different beast than solid state games or arcade games with circuit boards in them. To give you an idea, here are a couple of shots of the inside bottom panel of the machine:

The number of switches and relays is overwhelming and that doesn’t even include the ones in the backbox which control the scoring and runs. One thing you’ll learn in this hobby, everyone who has a broken game claims “it’s probably just a fuse”. Not the case here, I’ve checked them all…they’re good.

The cabinet is solid. It’s not coming apart anywhere and appears to be built like a tank. The paint on the cabinet, not so good. Fortunately, if done properly, that is one of the easiest things to repair. I’ll take precise measurements, make my own stencil set and repaint the whole thing. Color matching will be the hardest part.

No pictures of the right side of the cabinet. It looks about the same as the left side of the cabinet. Unfortunately, with the basement remodel ongoing, I don’t have a lot of room so I took the best pictures I could. The coin door is going to need a good polishing! The backglass has a few spots that will need touchup. Again, color matching will be the hardest part. I’ve considered creating a vector image of the backglass and having a translite made but I just don’t think it will look right. I may still experiment with this option later. By the way, if you’re confused about any of the terms I’m throwing around here, have a look at the pinball glossary.

So, what about the playfield? It’s actually in better shape than I could have hoped for. There are a couple of wear spots near the first and third base kick-out holes. This is present on almost every machine I’ve seen that hasn’t been completely restored. The biggest issue is in the upper left hand corner near the top, far left rollover switch. There is a bit of paint flaking in that area. It’s important to get this under control as it will just continue to flake away and grow if left untreated.

One other small problem. Above the roto-target you see two lightbulbs. Those lightbulbs should be capped with a metal cover. The metal cover is missing. I’m trying to locate one, but worst case scenario I will have to rely on another collector to take measurements for me and get one made.

I really want this machine to be the showcase piece in my collection. If I intend to repaint the cabinet and make it nice and shiny, I think I should do the same with the playfield. Unfortunatately, that’s totally out of my comfort level. I can hardly draw a stick figure, let alone touch up a playfield and make it look nice. Did I mention that I’m colorblind? Fortunately, there are others with far more talent than I. Several other collectors have directed me to HSA Pinball.  They are located close enought that I wouldn’t have to ship the playfield.  As an example, take a look at the before and after work on this 1971 Dimension / Galaxie or this 1974 Big Indian.  While I haven’t made a decision yet, I am currently talking with HSA Pinball and feel that I will probably opt for a playfield restoration.

Finally, here’s a few shots of the underside of the playfield.  Since the game won’t go into a playable state right now, I really can’t test any of the switches or solenoids.

Right now, the basement remodel is a priority. Other than a possible visit by the repairman, there won’t be much happening with this at the moment (or any other game for that matter). Other than stenciling and repainting the cabinet, most of the work on this one will not be done by me. Of course, I’ll continue to document any work being done, even if it’s by others. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some flooring to throw down this weekend:

If you’ve taken the time to read the About page on this site (and who wouldn’t want to learn as much as they can about a guy that collects arcade games as a hobby), you’ll know that there is one game I have been seeking for almost 15 years now. It’s not an arcade game…it’s a pinball machine. Stick with me, this will be one of the lengthiest posts I write….

In 1979, my sister and I received the best Christmas gift ever. Well, at least in my opinion. Her opinion is probably different. Santa brought us a slightly used Gottlieb Grand Slam pinball machine. Until I left for college some years later, the pinball machine probably saw more play than it would have on an operator’s route and more action than….well, nevermind. I absolutely loved the game and so did most of my friends.

When I got into the hobby, my first thought was back to that glorious pinball machine. I knew dad had given it away but I was certain he had given it to a family friend whose son with Down’s Syndrome was rather fond of playing it. I made some phone calls but the machine was nowhere to be found. Finally, dad recalled giving it away to some workers who were re-siding his house. Not only did he pay to have new siding on the house but he also gave them the machine for free as long as they hauled it out of the basement! Ever since, it’s has been my mission to find my own Gottlieb Grand Slam pinball machine.

Over the years, I have searched E-bay, Craigslist and Google repeatedly looking for one to call my own. I’ve located several but all were located too far away. Even most of those were not in a condition that would warrant the cost of shipping fees (these things are heavy!). I’ve placed my own ad on Craigslist, hoping whoever took the one out of dad’s basement would see the ad and return it. Hell, I would have paid them to return it.

I had pretty much given up hope. I regularly scour the craigslist ads of any city within a 200 mile radius of me for bargain arcade machines and pinball machines. That rarely works, as most are grossly overpriced or are old machines that someone cleaned up and dropped a xxx-1 board into.

And then it happened. I clicked on an ad for a reasonably priced Gottlieb World Series pinball. The machine I saw pictured was not a World Series pinball but rather that machine I so fondly recall from my youth, Grand Slam. I looked close. Yes, the backglass said “World Series” but that was the machine I was looking for. I knew every detail of the playfield. Knew the vertigo inducing background on the backglass. It wasn’t a World Series, it was a Grand Slam, damn it! So off to the Internet Pinball Database I went. Turns out, Grand Slam and World Series were clones of one another with one exception. Grand Slam rewarded free games if a certain score or run total was reached while World Series rewarded extra balls if a certain score or run total was reached. Why the difference you ask? Seems us pinball players and arcade addicts were “bad apples”.

Pinball machines were banned in numerous locations because they were seen as gambling devices. It started with what we call the “bingo” machines. Bingo machines offered free games as a reward for landing the ball in a certain pattern. Often, they rewarded multiple free games that could then be redeemed for cash. There were numerous laws written to ban these machines as gambling devices. In the early 70′s many of the mainstream pinball machines that didn’t award multiple free games but just a single free game still fell under the law as a gambling device. New York for example, would seize these machines and destroyed them. LA also had laws on the books. New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia believed the machines robbed children of their hard earned money (source: Wikipedia). In an effort to combat this thinking and legitimize the machines, some games were reintroduced with a reward of an additional ball as opposed to a free game.

So there it was, right in front of me. The machine I had been searching for! Different name, same damn game! The pictures sent to me are appealing. The backglass appears to be in great shape. There is some wear on the playfield but hell, it’s a 40 year old pinball machine. What do you expect? The cabinet looks solid. Here’s the Internet Pinball Database entry on Gottlieb’s World Series pinball machine. To make a long story short, with any luck, I’ll be picking this up tomorrow! I have no idea if it works and don’t really care. Fixing is half the fun! Stay tuned….

All the photos have been added to the Basement Remodel gallery and you can click on any of the above thumbnails for a larger view.

I’ve order the flooring and hopefully it will arrive before this weekend. If not, I’ll work on hooking up the electrical, cable and ethernet outlets. Stay tuned.

So onto some pictures of the basement remodel. The first series of pictures is the drywall hung, prior to taping and mudding. Click on each image for a larger version:

The plans for the bar area have changed slightly since the original design (I’ve included a picture of the original design below for reference). Instead of a full bar, which I felt would consume far too much floor space, I’m simply going to do a wall of cabinets and a 8′ countertop between the opening for the refrigerator and opening between the two rooms. What is depicted as the “bar back” in the image will be the only cabinets going in, but it will extend almost to the opening. The freezer will be going into the storage room once all my games are pulled out of it. Sorry these photos are a little lower quality, I took them with my phone, but here is the area taped, sanded and primed:

This last weekend we shot a knock-down texture on the ceiling. It’s not my favorite texture in the world, but it matches what is in the rest of the house. It was difficult to get pictures of it but you get the idea:

There are four 6 1/2″ ceiling speakers. One pair in the bar and TV area and the other pair in the game area. The speakers are hooked to my main stereo and each pair can be turned on or off independently. I also have an old Turtle Beach Audiotron that streams all of my mp3 files from a NAS drive through my receiver. The Audiotron can be controlled remotely via my iPad. I wish they still made the Audiotron, the thing is a tank! I opted not to do a surround sound setup. The TV upstairs has surround sound so that will have to suffice. I’m ready to get this project done. I haven’t played a game in months and am eager to restore the Centiped cabinet and then start on DK and DK Jr. I hope to have everything complete by mid-February. As always, you can view the entire gallery of pictures from my basement remodel here. Stay tuned….

I’ve been prepping the control panel for a few days. Obviously, the first step was to remove the old control panel overlay. Surprisingly, I was able to peel it off without much trouble. Unfortunately, all of the adhesive was still on the control panel. I did quite a bit of research to determine the best way to remove the adhesive. Since I was working in the basement I needed something that was relatively odor free. I saw several suggestions for a product called Citristrip which I found in a quart sized container at my local WalMart. The Citristrip was brushed onto the adhesive and I let it set for about 6 hours. You can apparently let it sit for up to 24 hours. Using a putty knife to scrape, the old adhesive slid right off. I rinsed the control panel off with water and dried it with a hair dryer then sanded both the front and back sides down to bare metal. I had to do a lot of hand sanding on the back side as my sander wouldn’t fit. I used 100 grit paper until the panel was bare, then hit it with 150 grit paper. Just for good measure, I sanded one more time with 220 grit paper (click on each image for a larger version):

I then decided to hit the control panel with a couple layers of Rustoleum paint. There’s debate about the necessity of this step but since my panel had some rust prior to sanding, I opted for it as the Rustoleum should prohibit rust in the future. I applied one layer of Rustoleum semi-gloss black spray paint to the control panel and waited. 8 hours later, I was still waiting as the paint was tacky and had not set up yet. I had to wait two days for the paint to dry. I decided to look for another alternative and found the Rustoleum “Professional” line of paints. It is advertised as having better spray coverage and a much faster drying time. I can attest to both and it’s only about $1 more than the regular Rustoleum paint. I’ll be using this on all of my projects from here on out:

Now the nerve wracking part… installation of the new overlay. As I said, you only get one shot at doing this right. Here was my plan of attack: I took the tube from a roll of paper towels and cut it in 3 inch sections. I made a cut lengthwise in each section which allowed me to vary the width of the tube. I put a tube in the player 1 start hole, the player 2 start hole and the fire button hole. The overlay sat down over the tubes and was aligned perfectly. I then placed the trackball bolts into their holes to align the right side of the overlay. I then put masking tape on both sides of the control panel overlay just above the bend to the front. This held everything in place. I peeled back the backing paper down to the masking tape and applied the middle section of the overlay first working out to each side. Once the top was in place, I removed the masking tape, took off the rest of the backing paper and finished the job. A couple of passes with a j-roller assured good adhesion. I installed the new trackball, the player 1 and 2 start buttons and the fire button. I didn’t take any pictures of the process as I was too worried about screwing up! I also forgot to buy a new white button but will do so in the near future.

That’s it. I made it! No bubbles and no misalignment. I probably spent 1/2 hour stripped the old control panel overlay and removing the adhesive, 45 minutes sanding, 1/2 hour painting (excluding wait times for drying) and an hour installing the new overlay and putting the panel back together. I’m not sure I’ll be any less nervous the next time but as Mr. Rogers used to sing, just “take your time and do it right”.

The monitor that came with the cabinet had a serious case of burn in. So bad, one would probably think they could play without even turning the machine on. I decided to use my last spare monitor to replace it. The spare monitor had a little burn but I don’t think it will be noticeable while playing the game. I hooked up the spare monitor, powered it on and immediately blew a fuse on the monitor chassis. That’s a hell of a start. I found a replacement fuse and powered on the monitor only to find that the screen was reversed side to side, as looking at it in a mirror. I knew that I had to flip the vertical yoke wires to get the image correct. Bob Roberts does a better job of explaining this than I ever could.  Once I had the image oriented correctly and adjusted, I installed the monitor into the cabinet (click on each image for a larger version):

I think everyone will agree that the new monitor is a huge improvement. I did learn a lesson last night that I can’t believe hasn’t occurred to me before. It’s much easier to adjust a monitor outside of the cabinet than it is inside the cabinet! That’s all of the work I accomplished last night. I did get my parts ready to begin working on the control panel:

I’ve got a few vacation days coming up so hopefully I can get the control panel knocked out. If it gets above freezing, I might even start on some of the cosmetic repairs to the cabinet.

There are two things pretty common amongst Ms. Pac-Man cabinets that saw a lot of play on location. Flaking / destroyed paint and burn on the monitor. Mine has both. Fortunately, the monitor burn is only noticeable when the game is off. You really can’t see it when the game is powered on.

Someone tried to repaint a portion of the cabinet but did a poor job of matching the paint. If I decide to do a total restoration on this cabinet, there are really only two options. Option one is to obtain vinyl side art. This is usually sold in a 3 piece set. One piece to cover the entire left side, one piece to cover the entire right side and one piece that covers the front of the cabinet by the coin door. There are a few spots on the cabinet that would not be covered in vinyl and I’d imagine that getting a blue paint to exactly match the vinyl would be difficult.

Option two is to obtain a set of stencils and re-stencil all of the artwork on the cabinet. While it’s not really anymore costly than option one (provided you already have the needed tools) it is a hell of a lot more time consuming (estimated to be between 40 and 60 hours).  I won’t go into the details of re-stenciling a cabinet, but theres a great tutorial over at Jeff Rothe’s site.  Give it a read if your interested.  Here’s what my cabinet looks like (click on each image for a larger version):

It’s not too difficult to see the badly executed paint touch-up attempts. I’m not sure what happened that caused the cabinet to lose that much paint but I’ll eventually have to deal with it or sandwich it between two games so it can’t be seen. Unfortunately, the front artwork has a number of touch-up attempts as well but not near as much as the sides. The marquee is in very good condition.  For some reason, the back door doesn’t look right to me.  I’m not sure if it’s original or someone simply made a replacement.  Unfortunately, all tags and serial numbers are missing from the cabinet.

The control panel is in pretty good shape and probably just needs a good cleaning. You can see your first glimpse of the monitor burn in the control panel picture. The second pictures shows a full on shot of the monitor burn. You’ll also notice that it just has a generic bezel and not the proper Ms. Pac-Man bezel. This will be replaced if I can find one. I won’t pay the price for an “official” licensed reproduction so hopefully I can find a used original in nice condition. As you can see in the last picture, the monitor burn isn’t really noticeable when the game is running. It will work for now. Hopefully I can find a nice replacement monitor in the future.

I mentioned in my post yesterday that all of the original wiring had been removed and a Jamma wiring harness installed. In the board picture below, you can clearly see the Jamma to Ms. Pac-Man adapter. Finding original wiring is low on my priority list. You’ll also notice that the original power transformer has been replaced with a switching power supply. No big deal and probably more reliable. Since nobody knows what is on the inside, it’s really not important. The only time all of that may come in to play is if I decide to sell the game to another collector. I’d prefer all original, but I can live with it. At least it works!

I’m going to have to do a lot of thinking about the path I want to take with this one. Right now, I’m just going to enjoy playing it!