In Progress Fishtales

[Dave the Taxman]

I bought a Fishtales in in pretty awful condition the cabinet was especially shot having been subject to severe water damage. strange thing the play field was in above average condition and with a couple of hours of fettling the machine worked perfectly. I tried to source a second hand cabinet but no luck Then I heard about this guy Matty in Stratford upon Avon who builds cabinets from scratch. You take the old one over to him and he reverse engineers a new one. So 3 weeks later he delivered the new one and what a good job he made of it. Now I haven't yet done anything with it so I can't say if the holes etc are all drilled in the right place but on first sight it looks right. No MDF either in the main cabinet or the back box just solid ply wood. Its fully jointed and must be the heaviest Bally Williams cabinet ever made, all it needs is a good sanding, primer and its ready for painting and the decals. I'm very very impressed especially as the total cost was only £420.

I don't do shop logs but I will update everyone on how well the Cab + B/B work in putting everything back together for I'm sure as a new supplier to pinball there might be some further interest

Cheers
Dave the Taxman

 

[Dave the Taxman]

Well the first update and I can say I have learnt an awful lot
First thing is that Matty who made the new cabinet + back box is a top bloke who does a top job so please don't see this in any way as criticism. Starting with a new cab + back box is entirely different from refurbishing an existing cabinet + back box. Its a lot more work, to ensure the woodwork is right you have to assemble all the major components before you can paint and decal etc. I made the mistake of thinking everything would be OK so painted the back box first but found that one or two of the holes were slightly misplaced (no big deal) and the back runners on either side of the back box were slightly larger than the original which fouled the inner door hinges so a fair amount of fettling was necessary to get everything to fit right (again no big deal). However the biggest problem came when I tried to fit the translate because the box itself was 1/8" to small !!!! (width ways) which really had no simple solution. Matty was brilliant he immediately made a new box and delivered it down to Aylesbury a couple of days later without charge. This time instead of reaching for the sander and paint I did what I should have done in the first place and assembled all the major items in both the back box and main cabinet. I also fitted the two items together to ensure they were compatible. Back box was pretty much spot on although the main cabinet which I had hitherto not paid much attention to needed sorting. The front leg bolt holes had been drilled the same as the back leg bolt holes which is not right. I therefore dowelled the front legs holes and re-drilled in the correct position. Also one of the main cabinet runners which the play field rests on when removing was positioned incorrectly so will need to be sorted which should be fairly straightforward That's about as far as I have got. Hoping this week to disassemble the back box and sand paint and decal.

Let me say again Matty work was first class and I'm sure if he could work from proper dimensional drawings instead of having to reverse engineer everything such problems would not exist. As it is I'm happy.

Cheers Dave the Taxman