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Complete Space Station

ronsplooter

ronsplooter

Site Supporter
10 Years
Joined
Jul 21, 2011
Messages
6,598
Location
Nottingham
My newly acquired Space Station needs work before I can play it properly so I've started on the shop out/restoration straight away. I haven't put anything up on Youtube for ages so am going to try and do a set of videos to cover the work in getting this game nice :)

First job is to tear down the top side of the playfield to see what I'm working with and the first video is up now :thumbs:

 
This looks a cracker Chris. Great video and looking forward to this resurrection.

Love the scalextric brush mod!
 
That is the most mental overengineered light mod ever. Ffs!

Pretty much every Station I have seen has had full mylar, so yeah someone has pulled it.

Pretty sure I have seen NOS playfields knocking about fairly cheap.?? Though I may have imagined that.

Sent from my C6603 using Tapatalk
 
Question for SS owners @Sgt GrizZ @Matt Adams @lukewells what colour star posts do your machines have? This one seems to have a mixture of clear and blue.

On the hunt for another part as well so if anyone has a system 11 start button (the white plastic type) they'd be willing to sell then please give me a shout. This game currently has a modern Stern green one on it.
 
ronsplooter said:
Question for SS owners @Sgt GrizZ @Matt Adams @lukewells what colour star posts do your machines have? This one seems to have a mixture of clear and blue.

On the hunt for another part as well so if anyone has a system 11 start button (the white plastic type) they'd be willing to sell then please give me a shout. This game currently has a modern Stern green one on it.
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I *think* mine is mostly light blue starposts. Will get my bro to check as it lives elsewhere :-D
 
Nice one gents :thumbs: Guess some must have been changed in the past and they just went with clear....that would fit with the haphazard nature of some of the work done on this game previously :D
 
ronsplooter said:
Nice one gents :thumbs: Guess some must have been changed in the past and they just went with clear....that would fit with the haphazard nature of some of the work done on this game previously :D
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I just found pics of when I got mine about 10 years ago. I think it might trump yours on the 'filthy dog' front. Though yours wins on the 'shagged inserts' Lets call it a draw :thumbs:
 
Have you ever tried this for removing stickers and labels Chris ?
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I've not tried that one mate but I have got something similar that I found in Lakeland as well as a couple of bottles of Goo Gone. To get the knackered insert decals off I think I've going to scrape them with a chisel :) I was originally thinking of removing all the inserts and then sanding them but after doing some research the advice seems to be only remove inserts as a last resort so I'll level the ones that have raised and then work on them in the playfield. I've got a playfield protector coming from Germany so it should look pretty sweet if my Fireball 2 was anything to go by :thumbs:
 
Mate, I've got a deep throated g clamp you can borrow to flatten them :oops:

And I used a Stanley blade in one of those scraper things to get the old insert print off. Just need to watch the length of it on the rest of the playfield though, it's easy to nick it
 
Mate, I've got a deep throated g clamp you can borrow to flatten them
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Nice one mate, I was going to pop out to B&Q today anyway so will have a look for a suitable g clamp and scraper :thumbs: Is the g clamp a specific size to work on playfields?
 
You may have more success than me but I couldn't find a deep throated one anywhere. In the end I imported one from the states. They do twist and buckle under pressure but I'll happily post it to you to borrow mate
 
Spent some time this evening scraping old insert decals off with a sharp chisel :eek: Scary stuff as the potential for a minor slip to end up gouging chunks out of the playfield is very high :) Slow and steady wins the race on this one :thumbs:
 
Enjoyed your videos, thanks for the effort - what's with the writing under the playfield?
 
Chris

To remove the printing above your inserts, just take the game to a show. Usually does the trick
 
Looking forward to seeing this one Chris. So many system 11 games have this insert issue
 
Nice one @ronsplooter! So nice to see these older games gettting the FULL LOVE treatment ;)

Just a couple of questions:

  1. How did you remove the old insert artwork? I think in the video you said "chisel it off". I assume it was a case of taking a nice sharp chisel and slowly scraping off the artwork by hand?
  2. Where did you get the new insert decals from and how did you fit them?
  3. Are you going to do any touch-ups elsewhere on the playfield?
 
Just a couple of questions:
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Thanks mate :)
  1. That's exactly it :thumbs: I very, very slowly scraped the old insert art off with a sharp chisel. Very easy to gouge up the inserts doing this so it was a tense process :)
  2. Insert decals came from Pinball Heaven. I think Phil gets them from PPS in the States and I suspect they're the ones made by Classic Arcades. Normally I would't touch their stuff as it's mostly crap quality but in this case I had no other alternatives and they turned out to be reasonably ok.
  3. No mate :) The rest of the playfield is really good with only a couple of areas that could be touched up but it's just not worth the extra hassle at this stage. If in the future I decide to get the playfield cleared then I'll have it all done but for now it should look pretty sweet as it is.
 
Thanks, @ronsplooter.

Interesting to hear your take on Classic Arcades. When I got my first pin (PARAGON) and I was as green as a new shoot I ordered some stuff from them: bumper caps, drop-targets and an apron decal. The bumper caps are ok, I'd give them 6/10. The drop-targets are also ok, but not as good, maybe 5 out of 10. I recently got some others which are much better and show how pedestrian the ones from CA are. The plastic is nicer, better colour, smoother and an exact duplicate of the originals in every detail.

But the real shocker was the apron decal. The longer I have it and the more I learn about pinball restoration the more I realise just how bad it is. I should have got a refund but as it was from the US after the cost of returning it I'd have been no better off.

I won't clutter up your shop log with the details but if anyone wants to have a look at what to expect from Classic Arcades them I have a flickr album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/peterduerden/albums/72157638855237853
 
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