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Gottlieb High Hand Restore - Covid project


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Back in 2016 I bought a project High Hand for Xmas and it's been sitting in the garage ever since. I can't believe it's been over 4 years.

I finished the Count-Down cabinet restore a few months ago, so I'm in the mood to get back into it again.

 

My original purchase post has gone, here's a few pics.

 

The playfield has seen better days.

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The coin door is pretty rusted but I now have a good second hand one to replace it.

 

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The front of the head box has de-laminated

 

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Both the male and female Jones for two of the connector are broken but I have source replacements.

 

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More to come

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I started off this morning and though that I would just replace the broken female Jones plug in the head box.

 

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All done. Just note that the male side is plugged into the female plug so I don't loose it before I get to the cabinet repair.

 

I then did some stencils for the front of the head box. I then removed the top layer of laminate. It came off really easily.

 

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There are a few de-lamination repairs needed before I can start working on putting on the new front.

 

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I also started on the head board as it too required some repair work, mainly the particle board breaking up.

 

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I'll let that dry over night and see if anything else need to be glued.

 

I'm also going to give the back board and few coats of white paint as there is hardly any paint on it and it looks crap.

 

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With this part restoration, I'm only going to do the front of the head box, the rest will remain as it is.

 

The inside is really clean, just the playfield needs to be cleaned up. Again, I'm just going to do minimal repairs, just a touch up here and there.

 

I had previously purchased all of the parts I need for the restore quite awhile ago, just before the dollar fell, so hopefully it won't take too long.

Edited by thejudge
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Looks like a fun project Trev. I bought a project High Hand some years ago but ended up flipping it for a small profit a couple of years later without ever doing anything to it except stripping the PF . While I had it I was thinking about a mod to get the drops to reset . Look forward to your progress pics
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Looks like a fun project Trev. I bought a project High Hand some years ago but ended up flipping it for a small profit a couple of years later without ever doing anything to it except stripping the PF . While I had it I was thinking about a mod to get the drops to reset . Look forward to your progress pics

 

I also thought about flipping it after having it sitting in the garage for so long, but covid has me sitting at home so I thought I might as well get it going.

 

I also have the schematics for the target reset which I'll certainly look at doing.

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Looks like a fun project Trev. I bought a project High Hand some years ago but ended up flipping it for a small profit a couple of years later without ever doing anything to it except stripping the PF . While I had it I was thinking about a mod to get the drops to reset . Look forward to your progress pics

 

Shit a mod to reset the targets....I found it hard enough on 5 a ball setting to get them down let alone get a credit from managing to get the ball in the hole.........unless you were going with more targets to hit hence more bonus for a score replay?

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Quick update.

I finished gluing the broken bits of particle board and gave the board and few coats of paint.

I'll set this aside now and work on the front of the back box.

 

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I also went to Bunnings today and tried to match the paint from the front of the back box.

 

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It doesn't look too bad in the picture, but to the eye it's not a very good match. I know it doesn't have to be perfect but i want it a bit closer.

It's not really an off-white or heritage white, more of a cream color. I guess after almost 50 years the color has mutated somewhat.

 

 

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if you already have paint, to save buying more you can ask for a tint.

 

maybe explain the colour you are trying to achieve and they will give/sell you a small container of the appropriate tint, but don't add too much to a small amount of paint as tint doesn't dry so to speak.

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Finished putting on the new front, just have to tidy up around the edges a bit more. I normally get a few wood chips coming off when cutting across the grain, not too many this time as I seem to be getting a bit better at it, luckily easily fixed

 

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Still haven't worked out the paint yet, trying the get antique white USA in an aerosol that's in a shop close to me.

Edited by thejudge
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I also did some work on repairing the male Jones plug today.

 

Both the 20 pin and the 10 pin plugs were broken.

 

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I had previously sourced the 20 pin replacement from cardini, and here it is installed, just need to clean it up a bit.

 

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For the 10 pin, I managed to fashion half of the broken 20 pin plug into a respectable 10 pin plug.

 

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I haven't installed yet, that's a job for tomorrow.

Edited by thejudge
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Finished installing the 10 pin plug this morning.

 

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Next I then started to work on the cabinet.

First problem was that I couldn't get the lockdown bar off. I mucked around with that thing for bloody ages and finally managed to get it off. The receiver in quite rusted and hardly moves, it will be going into a rust remover bath.

 

Second problem was that I couldn't take the glass off. It would wiggle a little bit from side to side but I couldn't slide it out. Once again I finally managed to get it off. It looks like the rubber glass stop at the top of the glass had fused with the glass and it just wouldn't let go.

 

I have now removed the front door, receiver and all the associated parts which will all have to be de-rusted.

 

I also removed everything from the playfield and now it looks like this.

 

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Very dirty with obvious wear marks around the pop bumper and kick out hole and more in the centre of the PF. It also has a raised ridge down the left side just above the flipper.

I might do some small touch ups but will have to see how it goes.

 

Thats all for today, took ages to pull this things apart.

Edited by thejudge
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I cleaned the playfield this morning with some Novus 2 and some magic eraser for some of the ball swirl on the yellow bits and it hasn't come up too bad.

I don't think it has been cleaned in a very long time.

 

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There are the obvious worn sections as mentioned before, but overall i'm happy with it. It's not going to be a show piece, just a players machine.

 

Next I'll just give it a wax and that should do it.

 

 

 

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A bit of progress today.

 

I couldn't resist doing a bit more work on the playfield, just a few tweaks here and there.

 

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I have a paint color that is very close to the maroon, so I just finger painted some in to hide the bare wood. Looks a lot better in person. I then went over some of the black line and letters etc to make it look a bit better.

 

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I then added a white ring around the pop bump area and covered that with a mylar ring. I then used the middle off cut from the mylar ring and covered the area where the ball hits from the hole eject. I have now waxed the playfield and will start putting things back on.

 

Also finished putting on the replacement door. This door was from my Lawman and I found a better one for it and swapped it out.

 

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More progress on the back box with undercoat and first color coat done.

 

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I found that the Antique White was too white and I was lucky enough to have a paint on the shelf which was a better match. I ended up using Rustoleum Ivory Silk which was a lot closer to the mutated color on the rest of the head box.

 

I found that the ball eject ramp under the apron is broken. I have created a new post to try and find one.

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I love the Gottlieb single players. Wasn't a fan of the Gottlieb two piece door design but they changed that. Problem was the tag on the door lock does bend over time nad if the door had movement on the tag, the coins would go in the chute but not line up with the coin mechs in the door. Coins would all gather in the chute and if someone pushed on the door and the coin mech now lined up, all the gathered coins would all try and go through the coin mech one after the other and jam up the coin mech.

 

Doesn't sound like much of a problem but when the door was being opened and closed a couple of times a week through normal coin jams, coin collects etc, this problem was costing money.

 

The one piece Gottlieb door was indeed a major improvement.

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In the last few days I have been doing some work in the cabinet.

 

I thought that the power switch had just been bypassed as I've seen in the past, but when I went to connect it back up, it was stuffed as both the contacts were gone. I'm looking for a replacement at the moment.

 

I re-grained the side rails and they have come up real nice.

 

I repaired and repaint the head pedestal. It was painted cream, but when I sanded of the paint it was red underneath. I then looked up the net and found that the corrected color is black. So that has been done.

 

A redid the chime unit, it was probably the worst that I have seen. The plungers were stuck to the rubber seal, needless to say the chime unit had been disconnected.

 

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Next I worked on the underneath of the playfield, and I had a few hassles.

 

For the pop bumper, I found that the replacement plunger in the rebuild kit was too long (I probably ordered the wrong one), but luckily the old one cleaned up OK.

 

I rebuilt the flippers, put in new coils, EOS switches etc as the old ones were stuffed. I noticed that pretty much all of the coils have no writing on them, so just going to leave them for now as they seem to test ok. I also cleaned and replaced all the targets. An annoying thing I found was that most of the screws for the mechs have had glue put into the screw slots making it pain in the arse when trying to remove the screws. Not sure if this was a common thing as I've not seen this before.

 

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I also tried to replace the star rollover in the middle of the playfield. The old one came out easily enough but after I put the new one in, it was too high. I took it out and compared and the new one is bigger in height. I know this is because when they put them in when doing the playfield they sand them down, but i've replaced them before without them sticking up. Anyway, I didn't want to start mucking around with it so I cleaned up the old one and put it back in.

 

I have started to populate the playfield as well up to a point. I don't want to put the rubbers in yet as I can't easily put the glass back on at the moment. It's starting to look good.

 

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The apron has cleaned up OK but just waiting on a part before I put in on (Thanks @kimbleseven)

 

I have also cleanup up the based board, but just have to clean one of the stepper units before I put it back into the cabinet.

 

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Finished painting the head today as well.

 

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The color matching wasn't too bad, very close in some areas and a bit light in others, but overall I am happy with it. I also did some lite webbing to try and match the original.

I was tempted to go over the scratched and flaked areas of black etc, but where do you stop and will it look any good. I decided to leave it as original.

 

Been a few busy days but getting close to the end.

Edited by thejudge
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Finally caught up with this thread again . Looks so much better than what you started with Trev.:cool: Always amazes me what a bit of time and TLC can achieve . Looking forward to getting back into restos myself again once current higher priorities are out of the way . Been a long time since I have done any resto work
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