My First EM: Gottlieb 'Royal Flush'

Vongoosewink

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A few weeks ago I got my first EM pin from a fellow collector here in Indianapolis -- a 1976 Gottlieb 'Royal Flush'. I'm honestly not very familiar with EMs, the only other 2 pins I've owned have both been mid-eighties solid state pins, and man, the interior mechanics of this thing are pretty bewildering to me! But the good news is, the previous owner was a bit of a Wiz with EMs and it is currently working 100%. The bad news is, the machine has a lot of cosmetic issues: very dirty, some playfield wear especially around the inset lights, lots of cabinet wear and yellowing, flaky backglass, and rusty legs and shooter. So there is a lot to do before playtime!

I'm going to try to document the restoration on this machine here. Please keep in mind, I'm not an expert on EMs, I'm just trying to get this machine looking nice again. Right now I'd put it at a 4 out of 10, and I'll be really happy if I can get it up to a 7, without spending a lot of money.

I currently have the legs and backbox removed to make the game a little easier to work on, but here are some pictures of the machine as it began:

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Here's a picture of the left side... the art is pretty nice, but the paint is very yellowed, it should be a bright ivory white:
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A pic of the lights on the lower playfield, you can see the wear on the paint around each of them:
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Another shot of some of the wear on the playfield:
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So the first thing I decided to do was clean the playfield. I'm not an expert on this, but I did a bit of research and decided to try the Magic Eraser/alcohol/novus technique.

It took a while, the Magic Erasers & alcohol really did a great job cleaning up the dirt from the stubborn spots on the playfield. However, they left a lot of white smudges behind, I don't know if they were residue from the erasers or leftover wax from earlier (before me) cleanups, but these smudges were really persistent. I finally got rid of them with alcohol and fine paper towels, and a lot of elbow grease.

I'm on the fence about this novus stuff. Maybe it works better for light 'touch up' routine cleaning, but to take off 35 years of grime it pretty much was a lost cause.

Here is a pic at of the cleaning underway -- left side after magic erasers/alcohol, right side just a bare wipedown.

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Once the playfield was all cleaned, it was time for the fun stuff -- touching up the damaged areas with paint.

We had great weather today, so I convinced my wife to come down and help out with the touch-ups. We used Craftsmart gloss acrylic craftpaints, and carefully color-matched them before getting started. I was surprised how easy it was to do the touchups, it only took us a couple hours and we had done all the damaged areas on the playfield. I don't know how well the touched-up areas will wear once the ball starts rolling again, but my plan is to add a protective varnish over the repainted areas, and then wax the whole playfield once all that is done. I picked up a bottle of acrylic clearcoat with the craft paints, but we may actually try using some of my wife's clear nail polish on the repainted areas. My guess is that not much is going to be harder wearing than nail-polish! We'll see, and I'll post a report on how it goes.

So on with the pictures -- below are a couple before/after shots of our repaired paint:

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And here's a shot of the whole cleaned & touched-up playfield:

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Nice looking game, the classic Gottliebs definitely didn't skimp on drop targets!

I agree with your comment on Novus. Novus 2 is great for doing a polish and shine on EM playfield after its been cleaned. I'd never use Novus alone as a cleaner like some guys seem to swear by.

I've found that Simple Green and a toothbrush are the best combination for surface crud. A magic eraser wetted in alcohol is required for ball swirls and dirt imbedded in the paint. The downside the magic eraser is that it is effectively sanding off the top layer of paint and can destroy the art if overused.
 
Nice looking game, the classic Gottliebs definitely didn't skimp on drop targets!

I agree with your comment on Novus. Novus 2 is great for doing a polish and shine on EM playfield after its been cleaned. I'd never use Novus alone as a cleaner like some guys seem to swear by.

I've found that Simple Green and a toothbrush are the best combination for surface crud. A magic eraser wetted in alcohol is required for ball swirls and dirt imbedded in the paint. The downside the magic eraser is that it is effectively sanding off the top layer of paint and can destroy the art if overused.

I'll have to try the Simple Green and a toothbrush on the next one. The tiny ball swirls were the most stubborn part, they had microscopic dirt imbedded in them, but they finally cleaned up. This playfield surface is really great, the Magic Eraser didn't do any noticeable wear.

We're going to go over all of the retouched areas today with a paint-on sealant of some sort. Fingers crossed...
 
OK, the playfield touchups are all done, and I coated the repainted section with a gloss nail-polish acrylic. This actually worked really well, as the areas that were damaged were the 1/8" around most of the insert lights. The coating is really hard, fingers are crossed that it will wear well.

I've also now cleaned and retouched the stenciled side art. The 'white' never quite got back to white, despite 6 magic erasers -- the paint is just too discolored, but it did clean up to a nice cream color. No photos at this step, as I still have the backbox off. Now I'm just waiting for a set of new rubbers and some playfield wax to arrive, and I'll be nearly there... I'm really wanting to play the game, but I'm not going to until I have it properly waxed. The wax is on the way, but the waiting is the hard part!
 
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Looking good.

Nice choice, too. Royal Flush is definately on the short list of EMs I'd consider owning.
 
Ok, so now the cabinet has been thoroughly cleaned, using up 8 magic erasers and a lot of elbow grease.

The backglass has been touched up, still need to seal it all with triple-thick, but it is looking 100% better now. It is never going to be perfect, but now it looks respectable.

New rubbers and lights are installed on the playfield, and it has been waxed 3 times with Mothers Pure Carnauba Wax.

Still to do: Get a new set of legs, as these are very rusty. And a couple of plastics need replaced, but it looks much better.

Here are a couple pictures:

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With the game lights on:

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One step forward, two steps back... now that the cleanup is done and the playfield is in good enough shape to play on, a mechanical error has cropped up! Arrgh!

It is probably easier to just show this with a video, so I'll post it here:

http://youtu.be/BE48FjT2Szk

Any advice would be a big help...
 
Lot's to check...

Hey and welcome to the world of EMs -

I am by no means an expert but do have a 1977 Jungle Queen so I am a little familiar with the mid-70s Gottlieb Multiplayer setup.

Sound like your issue is with one of two things...either the one of the score reels in the backbox is not registering that it is at 'zero', which will stop the score motor from spinning, but more than likely, the score motor is not stopping at its home position.

Go to Pinwiki and read all of the sections on EMs. Lots of great info there. Also, invest in a leaf switch adjusting tool...you will probably need it. The two relays across from the game over (AX and BX), are notoriously difficult to adjust, and this COULD be your issue as well, but generally those relays are not energized until the 'S' relay energizes them after you push the credit button.

There could be any number of other issues as well, but I would start by checking the score reels' zero position switches and the home switch on the score motor.

Keep us posted - looks like a fantastic machine you have!

-scott
 
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