Arcade Collecting > Pinball
Xenon - partial restore
Le Chuck:
This site needs more pinball.
I recently landed a pin project I'm excited about, Bally Xenon! I encountered these in the wild as a kid and always loved the lure of electric sex this machine billows forth like a doucher at a vape convention. Not much subtlety here, but no shame either! I had the choice to pick up this or a Pinbot a few weekends back and made the call to try some tubeshot. If it had been a BOP or Jackbot I probably wouldn't have pulled the trigger on Xenon, but the regular Pinbot was an easy enough sacrifice and I'm glad I made the call I did. It's definitely been on my "want to own one" list for a while. Not quite a grail but a fun addition. I felt the same way towards my Paragon as I do this pin, I held onto that for almost five years. We'll see how long Xenon lasts in the lineup. We kept it up and running for the past two weeks so we could get some good play out of it but now I've started in on the restore.
This post is worthless without pictures.
There she be. She's rough. I'll get her smooth and repainted in the near future.
Playfield on pickup. Lot of lights were out but all the mechs worked. Still had day 1 mylar installed tho it was in rough shape. Some bad wear in non-mylar'd areas.
Plastics weren't so hot either...
Stripped the playfield, pulled off all the funky-butt mylar and started the finger destroying ritual of removing all the adhesive residue. I'm using 90% isopropyl and flour.
Here she is gum free. This is before I did a deep cleaning with the old magic eraser. The paint is crazed pretty well but no planking or anything funky - other than the giant bare spots at the top and bottom. Right now I'm working on making sure get all the grime out and we're truly down to bare paint and wood all over. Tedious but necessary.
Close-up of the damage to the upper playfield. This will be more artistically difficult to fix than the lower bit, but because it's covered by the tubeshot and surrounded by the bumpers I have more room for error.
Baked the plastics flat, the two largest ones will be taking another trip in the oven to get them flat with the rest. New sets are available but the paint and finish on these is great and the yellow isn't horrible so I'm happy with using the originals.
I've rolled it over to LED, need to go through and solder on a dozen or so resistors to get rid of flicker - but that's a project for when we're towards the end. Also replaced the drop targets with new and am doing bumper rebuilds while they're off. I'm working some fun ideas to dress up the tube but will have to see if they pan out. I'll be doing an auto-clear finish over the entire PF before I'm done so the art will be protected. This will be a bit of a slow moving project as I imagine the air brushing is going to take me a while to get done so it matches. The last thing I want is to lock a bad art job under thirty layers of clearcoat.
By the time I'm done I want this baby to shine like a new car and play just as fast.
jennifer:
That a nice find.... Pinbot has always given me nightmares, Id be working all quietly on it then it goes off I...C...U...OMG! right.... Jen has one of those xenons someplace in this mess, almost the same issues If memory serves, I bought a Iwata to do the A/B, but changed to a plot cutter for scan/stencils and a Badger, (although it has a giant trigger knob on it) that's kind of big for little hands, but puts out color faster with the bigger needle, need to get that done one of these fine days. Saw a overlay somewhere on the webs too you might want to search for before you go that route... Cant wait to see it all shiny man, do keep us updated 8).
pbj:
Looking forward to a good pinball thread.
:cheers:
pixel:
The yellowing is really only noticilble in the 100% Translucent "Window" areas...
What I would probably do... would be to cut the window areas out... and then glue that plastic, on top of a brand new piece of plexiglass.
(Or slightly oversized Lexan... making it a bit less likely to crack on impact / airballs.
So long as you have the bolts / screws long enough... for the extra thickness. Otherwise, you may need to either order some different longer hardware,
or find something equilvilant. (Or have something custom machined)
Sadly... most Repos out there are very expensive... and the person doing the color work... appears to lack the eyes capable of seeing / discerning the full color spectrum... and so... we get a pile of overprices garbage, that doesnt match either the existing parts / playfield... nor the original games color scheme in grand total.
Hope you are at least temporarily planning to put down at least a new piece of mylar... otherwise that ball will Destroy any / all work you put into this... in a mere month of play. All those fine crevices, will be soot black and stained even worse than before.. and the ball will start tearing that paint off the field in no time flat.. despite any wax put down.
For missing paint areas... I once saw a video of a guy whom used scans / photos... cleaned them up in photoshop, and then printed them on Water-Slide decal paper... using his inkjet printer. (The stuff they use on those plastic model kits) Because they are thin, they are often semi-translucent... so he had to stack a few layers worth... to get certain areas fully opaque. However... if the area could be pre-painted white as an undercoat... that might reduce the amount of layers needed.
Also, if you do use them, you will Need to clearcoat the field.
Finally... when all back together... before you try putting wax down... see if you can find F-21 (By the company turtle wax). Its WAY better than wax. Slick as all hell. Glossy. Has Ultraviolet protection in it... to help reduce sun-fade, covered over small pits and scratches, and the game will play like Factory new. Which for most peoples older machines... means anywhere from a 15 to 25% ballspeed increase.
No dirty wax being pushed into every nook and cranny anymore either... which is the Ultimate clincher.
Re-Apply every month or so... depending on use. In the busy arcade... I was wiping all easy to get areas down every 2 to 3 weeks. 2 weeks ... still looked like new. 3 weeks... started to see signs of some cloudy carbon sooting. That was of course... being played from like 9am to 9pm... 7 days a week. With wax (before my discovery) ... Those machines only lasted a week before there was crud on the field... and in 2 weeks... the soot and dirt was at times, covering over details on the PF... and that was After a completely full shop job - with all ramps and sub-ways cleaned.
After switching to F21... I didnt have to do any full shop cleanings... but maybe once every 6 months to a year... and not much was actually pulled up. It was mostly just to check for mechanical issues, and to verify the results. Two Pins in the store... were using F21 for like 2 years straight... and not a single issue. Sales were totally boosted, due to the games looking spectacular... and playing smooth as glass... and lightning Fast. :)
No more black soot on white rubbers. And no more crud stuck in between crevices on clear star-posts. What a godsend that was! =]
Congrats on the Pin. Nice to see some Pinball news again. I really miss the hobby! :[
pixel:
A few more bits...
If you dare... you may want to try to seal some of those pit areas where the magic eraser removed the gunk Asap. I made the mistake of not doing so...
and when I was doing some work... managed to get the same areas stained again... but this time... they would not Un-Stain. The old eraser... just wouldnt suck it up anymore. :(
Maybe some clear super glue to the area to fill in. One of my other collector friend uses that method, to restore PF wear issues.
He uses an accelerator spray to instantly harden it.
At one time, I picked up some Dura-Lar in a roll. Stuff was really nice. Super Tough and Crystal Clear. I cant remember all the Specs.. but I think it incredibly heat resistant... which is good when dealing with heat from lamps / flashers. I never got to try it out though... and also.. there is no Glue-Backing... so if you want permanent... you may wish to see of an existing seller has the glue based mylar... and or the laser cut version for your machine. (Also, have no idea how hard it may be to cut / put precision holes into it. Probably would need to use a Dremmel with a spiral cutter bit, or mini router bit)
http://www.jerrysartarama.com/grafix-dura-lar-pads-and-rolls
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