Devil's Dare

So I've restored a few machines that I think I will try to post about a little later, But for now I thought I'd start by journalling my latest project as I work on it.

Recently I picked up a Devil's Dare project machine. I am not the biggest fan of Gottlieb machines, and from what I've heard they are a nightmare to work on, however I really dig the art on this particular machine and this one appears to be a good candidate for a restore.

So I started with the breakdown and that is where my story begins....

It appears that most of the parts are here. The back box is missing some boards, however there is a box of spare boards. I have no idea what condition they are in electronically but they look good. There is a CPU board, a sound board, a sound power board, 2 power supply boards (which will need rebuild I'm sure), 2 driver boards (one is badly hacked, it was definitely on fire as there is a huge hole under a transistor that someone repaired with epoxy, photos to come when I get to the boards), pop bumper power board and a reset board. Good start.

Leg's were missing but thanks to the previous owner Matt S. as he hooked me up with a set of legs( and the all important manual! Yay!) that he found later. That's the kind of person you want to deal with when you buy a machine. Very stand up guy.

Now it is missing a lockdown bar which seems impossible to come by. Of course Gottlieb widebody machines are a unique 'mid body' size, which it seems there are no lockdown bars around at any distributors. So my plan is to get two standard bars and have a metal fabricator weld me up the right bar size. I'll let you know how this comes out.

This machine came with two playfields. One in the machine is completely trashed. i'd say water damage in the culprit but I don't know for sure. there is a second playfield however that is mylared and has only a small amount of wear around the back of a pop bumper and a couple of raised inserts. this should be the easiest playfield restoration I've ever done (grand Lizard and Time fantasy where a nightmare).

the Cabinet on this machine is trashed. Again I am assuming water damage at some point as the plywood is starting to delaminate it's layers. the most noticable is the flaking of the top layer off the sides. Lot's of sanding, epoxy work on the wood (I restore boats so I'm used to repairing plywood that is delaminating) and finally a new stencil and paintwork. Should be good as new.

The displays are all there, look to be in great shape and the green plasic covers look almost perfect. Good news there.

Most of the metal in this thing is showing signs of rust (again, water damage assumed) so there will be some tumbling and cleaning involved.

So here are the pics that I have so far, more to come as work commences.

Here is a link to all the photo's on flikr: Pics here

Pinball Projects

I thought it would be good to share my experiences with whoever might be interested in reading this. Not that I am any expert or that I have anything particularily interesting to say but if this blog can help other folks in the pinball community then it will be a worthwhile use of my time :-) Generally learning from my mistakes and what not to do will probably be the biggest takeaway!