In Progress Bally Xenon

[Slamtilt]

I picked this up on Sunday, it was only 260 miles away in North Devon! No problem for a 20 year old Renault Scenic(!), I made it there and back by 7!

Yes I was pretty pumped to get it, well that was until I took off my rose tinted glasses!



It was left in a damp unventilated place for about 6 years, ok but looks okay...
Missing the backglass, (i'm thinking - are you sure you're not keeping it?!!), well hopefully I can find one...
some of loom has been cut, well damm, but I can fix that...
It has the dreaded woodworm, just a few holes not too bad...er wait there's more holes...Kill it with FIRE!! (only joking!?)

So I started stripping this down. The first thing I noticed was the white mould and the fact that it was really dirty.


So I cleaned that off with some very mild bleach solution.

Inside the cab, I found the part of the loom that was cut. The wires were soldered straight onto the lamp driver board, apperently it was always like that!


So the cabinet mostly stripped, I went at it with plenty of woodworm killer


The backbox lamp board was the worst for wood worm:

Looks like the little blighters got in and had a party. It has 2 sessions of woodworm treatment, I am going to inject the holes as well, before filling them.
If there any any signs of life after that , then I will think about remaking this piece.
I was worried about the woodworm treatment lifting the paint, well mostly it has been ok. The paint has started to lift on one side of the backbox, but I figure I am going to have to paint anyway because of the dreaded worm.


So I scanned the cabinet and backbox and bought some stencil material.


The playfield is not too bad


So far I have stripped it and started to clean it. some of the bulbs are missing from the light bar, but the tube is fine.


I has some really worn out bumpers and a broken flipper, so it has had a hammering.

I might be able to get away with some touching up and a few decals, if only I had a decent scan of the missing parts!
Then again cpr playfields...
Think I will get it working first.




So at the end of day 2, I have stripped, cleaned and treated this pin.
I am going to let it completely dry out before doing any work again. In the meantime I am going to work on the stencils, I have not tried making them before so I will paint a test piece first.

I am missing the translite, head bolts were wrong so need other ones, the legs were wrong, but apart from that it is pretty complete.

 

[Slamtilt]

I just found this video about Suzanne Ciani making the audio for Xenon.

 

[stevebm1]

nice project if you have patience to restore it,was it and ebay/gumtree purchase or did you just stumble across it?

 

[Slamtilt]

nice project if you have patience to restore it,was it and ebay/gumtree purchase or did you just stumble across it?

he advertised the boards and the dislays for sale, I asked him if he was parting a Xenon out. He replied with yes and I asked him if he would consider selling it all and he said if I bought the boards and the displays, the rest was free. He was going to dump/burn it and keep the playfield as wall art. He had already done that to a space Invaders, but I don't know what condition that was in. A few years ago he had a massive heart attack, he couldn't fix the pinball and I think he just didn't know what to do with it, it was just too much for him.

 

[Slamtilt]

Not much going on with this project, well apart from more cleaning and sorting out all the parts that came with it



I found a few things wrong with the playfield;
This flipper has a nice strong spring!:

And a few cut wires on the gi:


I bought some stencil material, so I made a test piece on a scrap piece of plywood. What did I learn? don't rush things and use several light coats instead on one thicker one. Of course I didn't! I also picked out the colours from online colour charts. The red looks very close, but the blue is way wrong. The stencil material will stretch when applying it, if you are not careful and watch out for lifting. I will take my time when it comes to the real thing, but so far I have only got a small part of the stencil drawn.




You can see where the stencil has lifted and the ridge of the thick paint, but if I take my time, I think it should be ok. Looks a lot sharper than the original.

 

[Kman]

Impressive start and there are a lot of tips online around stencilling technique so seems you are on to a winner with that restoration.