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Rebuilding 1967 Aristocrat slot machine


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Hi all, where do I start hmmm how about at the beginning. More than 20 years ago I married a young lady from Asia and of course she soon found that the local pubs had an abundance of slot machines. She would head down to the local pub and spend $20 to $30 a day. This was beginning to cause me some serious problems an I had to think of doing something before I was bankrupted. I had the idea of buying an old slot machine and putting it in the house for her to play. We I managed to find a 1960's machine with a 4 ft stand. The machine was an old Aristocrat 5 cent totally mechanical 3 reel unit and cost me $250. Well I filled it up with 5 cent pieces and gave my wife about $20 worth of 5 cent pieces. When she finished them I would open it and give her another $20 worth. Well she played it for hours every day and finally after 2 weeks she got board and the best part is she had no impulse to go and play the ones at the pub either so she was cured...fantastic. Now hmmm what to I do with the slot machine. Well I loved the fact that it was totally mechanical and thought I should restore it. Ok fast forward to about 5 years ago and I started to disassemble it. Below is the machine as I got it

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I bought my missus an ex Las Vegas IGT triple diamond pokie she played it for awhile and same thing got bored with it pretty quick, it's the thrill of winning a big jackpot out in a club that keeps them going, winning your own money back just isn't the same

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Well I have a lot of mahogany furniture and I also like the colours black and gold. So I have decided to replace all the timber with solid mahogany and where possible brass plate the chrome bits. So that is the direction I was headed. Ok first is to I had to dismantle it to have the parts plated

 

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Now I did do a deal with a friend to get the parts plated but that was a total disaster so I got them back and had them done myself. This actually took me a year to get the parts back and find someone who could brass plate. Also my mate lost a few pieces so I will need to manufacture those...I'll cover that when I get to it.

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@ Rich

Yes the restoration is on going and I'm about 90% done

 

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So I sent the parts are off to the plates and some were too big to fit in the plating bath so I had them done in black baked enamel. Like I said I like black and gold and I think it will go well with the mahogany.

 

My next step was to find some nice mahogany planks I needed 4ft high 19inch wide and 3/4 thick. And guess what you can't get it. I did however managed to find some planks of African Mahogany 1.6in thick but only half as wide as what I wanted. So I bought the planks had them machined down and joined. All up the timber alone cost me over $1000AUD (don't tell the wife)

 

I finally got my plating back $600 AUD lighter (again don't tell the wife)

 

As you can see the large front panel had to be baked enamel as did the top section

 

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So where next to start hmmmm. I didn't like the perspex panels very much, arr the perspex panels. I have always been a fan of the etched glass of the 1860's so hey, why not I will replace all the perspex panels with etched glass that I will do myself, it cant be that hard, right. After a number of broken glass panels and ugly attempts I finally did it by taping the glass with masking tape cutting out the areas I wanted etched and then sand blasting the glass.

I etched clubs, spades, diamonds and hearts in both the glass of the coil rotation viewer and the reel viewer and included an edging. Now I didn't like the 27ways perspex panel and though I might replace it with some etched glass, hmm what to etch into it? Finally decided to etch our last name Cherry and this fits into the poker machine theme (three cherries). On the large panel I did like the sunken ship and treasure scene so I cleaned that up and added a 1/16 inch sheet of glass in front with an etched outline around it and included the clubs, spades, diamonds and hearts logos in the boarder

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The black looks good but its a shame you couldnt get it Nickle plated. it would have looked amazing.

 

that machine would look absolutely amazing with new nickle

your mate really stung you hard for the plating. $600 and couldnt do your faceplate.

and $1000 for the wood wow.

 

the rolling coins is cool. a bit of a 60's take of the old rolatops

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mate Im sure it will look awesome.

 

But im a big fan of nickle plating lol

 

But what about the irony of this story, you bought the machine to save you from bankruptcy and now the same machine is sending you to the cleaners ahaha

 

just remind the missus if she complains how much money you saved when you got it lol

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Wow, very interesting and also very odd :) Looking forward to seeing the end result.

 

Just an observation, but you broke a design rule with the "Cherry" etching. Script or calligraphic fonts shouldn't be all caps :cool:

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Well I had the panels back from the platers and finished the etching so what else was I going to do but put them together and see what they look like of course. Well I did break a couple of the glass panels and needed to remake them during this stage. Rather than clamp them down as the perspex was it is better just to clamp finger tight and a couple blobs of silicon finishes the job.

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Yes Jason just getting to that now hehehehe.........

Ok now it's time to start on the timber but I didn't want it to be exactly the same so I added rounded corners and routered the edges. I even decided to make all the internal support blocks that were attached to the side panels out of Mahogany as well as the internal shelving. These were originally 5ply painted black. The foot stand hmmm not much of this is seen and the top is covered by a rubber foot mat so do I go for it or what??? Yeah what the hell. The original one was very crudely made so I redesigned it slightly having mitred corners and the top board inset where you can see it. I will do away with the foot mat and do something with a big WOW factor that has a brass and mahogany flavour.

 

Now of course all there were measured and cut and routered without a single mistake...yeah right. I made heaps of mistakes but luckily they were all recoverable.

 

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Then it was time to decide on the stain and finish.

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Also I wasn't happy with the stain as it was too light so I went back to the paint shop and they added some black to it ...perfect. I also chose a satin finish polyurethane to coat it all. Now I'm almost to the point where I am actually at and I will be posting updates as I move along over the next month or so...lets hope not much longer than that. I'm happy to answer any questions so let them fly.

 

I have also stained and varnished both sides of all timbers.

 

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I have more photos to post but reached my limit and don't know how to remove the pics in my folder to add more

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Also I wasn't happy with the stain as it was too light so I went back to the paint shop and they added some black to it ...perfect. I also chose a satin finish polyurethane to coat it all. Now I'm almost to the point where I am actually at and I will be posting updates as I move along over the next month or so...lets hope not much longer than that. I'm happy to answer any questions so let them fly.

 

I have also stained and varnished both sides of all timbers.

 

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I have more photos to post but reached my limit and don't know how to remove the pics in my folder to add more

 

Stain looks awesome!

 

Better to upload pics to a site like imgur.com and link them from there directly into your post.

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that color and style will certainly make your slot look more vintage than it actually is.

its a nice 40's look to it now which is a nice improvement over the tacky 60's.

Just wait until I am able to post more photos the outside is already finished and it looks fantastic.

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I originally wanted to plate everything brass that was chrome but the main front panel/door was too big for the plating bath so I had it done in black baked enamel. I have a lot more photos to post but I reached my 5m limit here
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These are the rest of the photos of when I stained and varnished the panels.

 

http://i.imgur.com/31HMcqx.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/4WURrK7.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/T5OS5Ob.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/NUI8AI0.jpg

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Well I had put the final coat of varnish on all the inner timbers and so soon it was time to start putting all the cabinetry together. After some deep thought, who knew I was capable of that, I have worked out that all the positions of the internal shelving and brackets must measured from the top edge of the side panels. The reason for this is that the top machine section is set to the top of the side panels and therefore all the mechanics have to line up with the pull handle and glass windows in the front of the machine which are a set distance from the top section. I have taken photos as I went through this step and make the relevant postings. I hope what I am doing is enjoyed by everyone. I really wanted this restoration to have that all important WOW factor and as such I still have some magic touches I haven't told you about yet and I'll reveal those as I go.
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