In Progress The Wiggler - A story from the scrag end of pinball

[JWG9999]

I love these forums. I read of superb collections and dream of winning the lottery. I look in awe at some of the brilliant restoration work (yes, really) - and feel rather intimidated by it. And I’ve also wondered “Could I restore a pin?” I had to try.

So my fourth pinball cost £144, which was way too much for a non-working, 46 year old pin with a battered playfield, peeling backglass, and hand-painted cabinet in red, white and blue household gloss paint (yuk).

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But now my son and I have got it working and have tweaked it and it plays pretty well and we really enjoy playing it - probably only because it was us who breathed the life back into it. Amazing how even our modest efforts have brought us a huge sense of achievement.

But it’s still an ugly mess (and I can’t seem to get the ruddy flippers to quite line up either). So soon it’s coming apart again and we’re going to have to try to tackle the cosmetics, and before we dismantle it I made a quick movie to show my friends in case it never worked again.

Then I thought: could I actually post this to Pinball Info?

Yeah, of course I could. Enough of the glittering, super-shopped, trophy machines - this is a pin from the other end of town:

 

[alchy]

WoW nice work! Looks like its playing great. Who needs a modern pinball when you have a 3 ball multi-ball, captures and wiggly bits sounds a lot of fun!

Enjoy!

 

[Special When Lit]

Love it.

 

[Calimori]

Personally, and I think I speak the same as many other people here, any machine that is brought back to life and enjoyed by it's owner, deserves to be paraded on this forum.
It is not all about the top end restores, it is about the project and the journey, the pitfalls and the rescues, the issues and the resolutions.
The shop logs are about documenting it as one day it may help you remember how you did something or help someone else with their project.

Enjoy the journey.

I will move this to shop logs so we don't loose it in the general section.

 

[Sgt GrizZ]

Love it ! Thanks for posting dude . Just the name 'The Wiggler' makes me smile every time I see it.

Its great bringing an oldie back to life. I bought a moldy battered old WiliamsTravel Time EM some years ago for £40 off ebay. 2 months later it, some elbow grease and tinkering ...it was up and running and being enjoyed at the UK Pinball Show Enjoyed that as much as any modern shop job.

 

[RudeDogg1]

That's quite a cool em, well done with the resurrection

 

[ronsplooter]

Great work Always good to see a game brought back to life, especially the old and unusual ones.

 

[cooldan]

that was great fun. i think i may have played one of those, or one very like it with a blue and a yellow mushroom that made the flippers open up or close up like that, but i can't remember where. did Matt V have something at his place about a year or so ago? or am i imagining again?

good to see an olden golden ding ding special. you had a nasty lean to the left on there though!

 

[JWG9999]

Thank you all for the kind and encouraging comments.

you had a nasty lean to the left on there though!

Ah... Well spotted. It's sitting on a home-made trolley on a not-very-even garage floor at the moment so it isn't really level.

 

[Matt Vince]

that was great fun. i think i may have played one of those, or one very like it with a blue and a yellow mushroom that made the flippers open up or close up like that, but i can't remember where. did Matt V have something at his place about a year or so ago? or am i imagining again?

good to see an olden golden ding ding special. you had a nasty lean to the left on there though!

You are thinking of Fireball from one of the league meets, great game!

 

[Wiredworm]

Great to see.

It doens't matter what the Pin there will always be someone who loves to play it or has fond memories of it. The only Pin in my collection (so far) is a DE Rocky & Bullwinkle but I love playing it and fully intend on it being a keeper, 'Wrong Hat' or not. ;-)

 

[deathrow]

Great to see.

It doens't matter what the Pin there will always be someone who loves to play it or has fond memories of it. The only Pin in my collection (so far) is a DE Rocky & Bullwinkle but I love playing it and fully intend on it being a keeper, 'Wrong Hat' or not. ;-)

second that.

Great stuff mate

 

[JWG9999]

Another step into the unknown: Repainting the cabinet.

And apologies to purist, collector-type people but we're not trying for an exact re-creation. The stencilling on this is too fiddly for us nervous first-timers. We, my son and I, are just trying for a simple but smart cab in keeping with the era. Actually whatever we do to it, we could hardly make it any worse:



Emptying the cabinet was far easier than expected. It took us about an hour, best to have two of you though.

We chose not to remove the mounting bolts for playfield support (nor the bolts in the sides of the backbox), but paint over them. A bad decision? Perhaps, but they were firmly embedded. We figured they'd been holding it together for nearly 50 years and we didn't want to bash them out with a hammer – just let sleeping dogs lie.

So... lots of filling (Isopon P38 Easy Sand) and rubbing down with an ordinary orbital sander.

Everything made easier by having it on a trolley. Here we've wheeled it out of the garage to blow dust off with my garden leaf blower – that works a treat.



I originally made the trolley for moving my other 2 pins whenever I need to:- just prop up the front end of the pin, slide the trolley underneath - with packing if necessary, let the front down and pin rocks onto trolley with all legs off ground. Easy. Of course it's not as good as a hydraulic lift but it was cheap as chips: I made it from scrap wood with castors bought from here:

75mm Twin Wheel Unbraked Castor Grey Rubber Tyre: Amazon.co.uk: DIY & Tools

After priming I chose to spray a base colour of Plastikote Antique White (close to the yellowing paint on my Hi-Deal) and then apply a dark blue spatter.

I bought an artist's speckling brush and a pot of Plastikote enamel.



It works by taking a small brush and dabbing paint onto the bristles of the speckling brush, then using that to splat the cab.

And boy does it work well.

Here's the real thing on my 1976 Hi-Deal next to our (me and my son took turns) spatter paint:



OK maybe I photographed one of the best bits but even so... Yessss! So now we just have to stencil it - nothing too ambitious and certainly no attempt at the fiddly original pattern, but whatever we do, it *must* have fuzzy edges so it fits the era. Just hoping we don't mess up what we've already done.

 

[Steve]

Love it!

Great idea keeping it 'period', looking forward to updates.