A Game with Personality

Happy-Go-Lucky (Gottlieb 1951)

In the past, I have written antique arcade game articles detailing the full restoration of an antique coin operated game. The articles included a list of every activity, how each step was accomplished, and showcased the completed game. They quickly became long and boring to read. I wrote a similar restoration article for Happy-Go-Lucky and trashed it.

I want to try something different this time. I want to only talk about the exciting and challenging aspects of this restoration, the personality of the restoration. I will try not to bore you with the mundane details of cleaning parts or waxing a playfield. You can read one of my previous articles or visit my website if you are really curious.

Happy-Go-Lucky was made by Gottlieb and released in 1951. It is a wood rail with an ice skating theme. It has two pop bumpers, a bunch of roll overs, and a gate that rises up between the flippers. I obtained this game long ago, early in my collecting years, in a package deal with two other games. I was not particularly interested in it and wood rail games were not special yet. When I first started collecting games, about 20 years ago, most games would sell for $175-$300. As us ol’ timers like to say, “Them were the good ol’ days.”

Happy-Go-Lucky languished in my collection for many years. I did not know it was rare or desirable. Eventually people discovered that I had the game and I started getting generous offers. However I hate to sell games that I have not played! I intended to fix up each game in my collection, play it for a while, let the “new” wear off, and then sell it. I declined all offers for Happy-Go-Lucky in anticipation of playing it one day.

Recently I was hosting one of my favorite clients during a visit at the Sands Mechanical Museum and he happened to notice Happy-Go-Lucky sitting in a corner. He has a special appreciation for the older woodrails and expressed an interest in it. I think I finally realized I was not going to have time to restore it. He persisted and made a fair offer and Happy-Go-Lucky became part of the Eric Levinson Collection.

Choosing a Restoration Person

The client’s expectations need to match the style of work performed by the restoration person. Restoration specialists differ and as a result their restorations differ. Eric picked me because he knows I enjoy doing the type of restorations he wants. Some collectors just want the game to work. They want the game shopped and then they play it happily. Other collectors want the game to be better than new. They want new, painted cabinets, new-old-stock playfields and plastics, new backglasses, and new chrome. The game needs to look better than new, a real showcase.

Here at the Museum we do restorations that many will consider obsessive, and rightfully so. Our goal is to make the game look like it has been on location for six months. It has been played and enjoyed and as a result, it will experience some wear. We try and preserve the original patina and the original look and we actually want the game to look its age. We do protect the original graphics from any additional wear but we try to make our repairs match the original patina. We completely disassemble all mechanisms, clean them completely, and assemble them in order to insure they work as originally designed. Our games are to be played and enjoyed for many more years but they look their age, and look like people have enjoyed them.

I remember an episode of Antiques Roadshow, where the unhappy owner was just informed that the old writing desk was worth $5,000. Had he not refinished it and retained the original, nicked, and worn finish, the desk would have been worth $50,000! I do not think pinball machines are fine furniture, but I think the day will come when people will value an original finish.

This game was going to be a challenge. It has some worn spots, it is old, and most important of all, Eric wants it to be perfect. We will clean the game and restore missing paint, but do so in a way that matches the original patina of the game. Read on!

Condition

Mechanically the game was complete. Rather than bore you with our standard mechanical restoration procedures, where we take absolutely every metal piece off the game, bead blast or ultrasonically clean it, and assemble the game so it all plays perfectly, I will just say we did it to this game. I just passed over half the time we spent restoring the game!

The real challenge was going to be the cosmetic restoration of the game because the playfield, cabinet, and backglass all needed some attention. I am good with certain kinds of cosmetic restorations but the best restoration is where the cosmetics are already in great condition. This game needed more than just a cleaning. It needed some tender, loving care. Speaking about tender, loving care, here comes my wife! For the first bit of personality, my wife and I shared the effort on this restoration.

My Wife

Please indulge me for a minute while I explain about my wonderful, patient wife. I met her when she was working on her mechanical engineering degree, over twenty years ago. She knew I was a bit different even then but later married me anyway. Our careers were opposites with her working on real mechanical things and me spending over 30 years in computer software. Seven years ago, I left the high tech world to work on restorations full time and Lynne left her mechanical engineering job to focus on creating websites, a software endeavor. Basically we traded places!

Occasionally I ask her for help. I figured since she was trained as a mechanical engineer, she should be good at understanding and fixing the mechanical things found in our games. She cleaned parts quickly and carefully and was an expert when using the bead blaster. But that is not where her real skill is. One day, when I was having difficulty matching colors while touching up a cabinet, I asked her for help. Not only did she match the color exactly, but she also painted it on perfectly, flat and smooth! I literally could not tell where the original paint ended and her paint started. I am good but she is better!

Not only that, but she likes doing this kind of work! What a find! She is responsible for touching up the cosmetics and I am responsible mechanical stuff and new techniques. I love working side-by-side with her! And now she understands why we have games awaiting restoration, filling our dining room and entryway!

Cabinet

Lynne started on the cabinet. The wear around the flipper buttons was extreme, not only wearing away the paint and staining the wood with sweat, but even wearing away the underlying wood. The cabinet was nicked and scratched all over. First she cleaned the cabinet using a cleanser. Comet has a slight abrasive quality and quickly removes any oxidized paint. The original paint colors shine through but care must be taken to not scrub too hard, resulting in removing some of the good paint. The cleanser must be removed completely to prevent bleaching. Cleaning first makes touching up the missing paint easier. There is nothing worse than touching up paint on a faded cabinet, matching the faded color, only to wax the cabinet later and bring out the original color. Now the touch up looks faded! Ask us how we know! After cleaning, she started matching and painting.

The front of the cabinet had gotten wet and raised the grain on the wood. Paint was flaking off. Just like with a backglass, I stabilized the existing paint with a thin coat of clear polyurethane. Lynne could then work her magic on the front as well.

On one side of the head, someone had painted a stripe of green paint. It looked like house paint, was poorly done, and the color did not match. I always try to remove the extra paint using one of my many solvents. I try them in a specific order, from least effective to most, in the hopes of preserving the original paint underneath. I start with water, which hardly ever works. Who paints with watercolors? Then I try, in succession, dish soap and water, alcohol, mineral spirits, and naptha. I hate going on to MEK (Methyl Ethyl Ketone or Acetone as they will take off original paint easily. Just before trying mineral spirits, I tried some Goof Off because the paint looked like it was Latex house paint. What a miracle! The paint came right off and left the original unaffected. I took a look at the original paint and wondered what the previous owner was thinking? The paint under the touchup was perfect. Perhaps they wanted to test their color matching skills!

The wood rails were worn down to the wood and stained at the front with sweat and oil from the players’ hands. Was this game really that difficult to play that it caused the players to work up a sweat? Since we had to refinish the rails near the front of the game, and wanting to keep a balanced restoration, we refinished all the rails and the frame around the backglass. The legs suffered the same indignity.

Playfield

At first look, the playfield looked acceptable with some wear in the expected places. There was wear in front of the capture hole, where the ball bounce when ejected, and there was wear around the pop bumpers. The worst wear was in front of the numbered targets. However upon closer examination there were some even worse problems!

You want some more personality? The operator had inverted the rebound rubber bracket. At first you might think there will not be any difference in the direction of the ball rebound but you would be wrong. Instead of the ball rebounding back along the top of the arch like expected, the ball takes off straight across the open area of the arch, straight at the ball gate! Unfortunately the bracket was upside down for some time and the ball had worn a track into the playfield. The ball track wear was through the clear layer and into the wood. What a disaster!

Repairing the ball track is very difficult. If I sand the ball track alone, that part of the playfield will be lower than the rest and the ball tends to stick up near the arch. I have the additional problem of the ball track straight from the rebound rubber to the gate. Getting rid of the ball tracking creates additional problems. Sanding affects the level of the playfield. There is nothing worse than delicately shooting a ball and hoping it will drop down from the arch in the desired area, only to have the ball stay close to the arch and not drop until it gets to the sides. Sanding the arch and getting rid of the ball track needs to be done carefully, merging and fading the sanded area with the rest of the playfield. While sanding, you have to avoid any art work. Worse, not only had the ball worn through the clear wood finish but the game had been waxed. Normally this is good, but on an unprotected wood, the wax soaks into the wood causing additional discoloration!

I carefully sanded the surface level, removing the clear finish right up to the painted area of the playfield. The amount removed was faded into the top area to make sure there was no trough affect. There was still some dirt and wax in the wood so I applied a small amount of diluted bleach. I continued to apply the bleach until the stain was no longer noticeable.

The plastic inserts in the whole game had shrunk as the plasticizer evaporated over the years. Every single insert needed to be reattached. Some restoration people recommend using Cyanoacrylate or Krazy Glue. This does not work well when there is a significant gap to be filled and if you want more working time. I like to have a bit more time in order to make sure the insert is level with the rest of the playfield. I tape blocks of wood on the ball side of the playfield and then work from the backside. I use a clear adhesive calk, as it remains flexible when dry. It allows the plastic to flex and prevents it from cracking due to the stress or further shinkage.

You want even more personality? Here is the first of several cute anecdotes. One of the number inserts at the top of the playfield was missing. The client and I were searching all our sources for a replacement. He even found one that was close at a show but the center hole of the roll over was a different diameter. When I finally started work on the game, I removed the bottom board to facilitate cleaning the bottom of the cabinet and restoring the mechanisms and relays on the board. Guess what I found wedged between the board and the bottom of the cabinet? Yep, the missing insert!

Lynne stated working on the painted areas. The face of the bull was missing and we worried about reproducing it accurately. We found a low-resolution picture of a Happy-Go-Lucky playfield on Clay’s website. I asked if he had a high-resolution image but he did not. So we settled for a close approximation based on the low-resolution image.

The real challenge was the white areas in front of the targets. The area was significantly worn and much paint was missing. Same for the area where the ball lands after it is kicked out of the capture holes.

Personality shows up again! The kitchen supply stores have a flat plastic piece with several different sized holes in it. Each hole measures a specific amount of uncooked pasta and determines how many people that amount will serve. One of the holes was the perfect size for the circular areas in front of each target. After many hours of careful work, Lynne was finally finished.

It was time for another difficult decision. We wanted to clear-coat the playfield, not only to protect the touched up areas, but to also preserve the original graphics. A clear coat will protect the graphics for many years, no matter how much the game gets played. However in order to insure good adhesion of the clear-coat, all dirt, wax, and other contaminants need to be removed. The best way to do this is by using sand paper!

All posts, targets and roll over buttons were removed. The surface of the playfield along with all the inserts was level. It was time to block sand the surface with 1000 grit sandpaper. Personality again as I do not feel comfortable sanding rare artwork with sandpaper as sanding too far will remove paint! Any graphic that is not level will be sanded excessively. I was careful when I leveled all the inserts but one small mistake and original paint disappears.

After sanding, the surface is dull but completely clean. All oxidized paint is removed and the surface is clean. We clear-coat the playfield using five thin coats of polyurethane and a final thick coat. We prefer to use a semi-gloss finish and then protect the surface further with Johnson’s Paste Wax. Gloss is too shiny and does not look right with the rest of the restoration. This completes the fine finish on the playfield.

I will never be able to look at a Happy-Go-Lucky without thinking about a dentist. I do not know about you but I am not feeling Happy-Go-Lucky after I visit the dentist! Is this about more personality? You bet. There are supposed to be a couple of thin, blue posts at the top end of the rows of numbered targets. One of the posts was still on the original game and the other was missing. In its place was broken off screw! I hate getting these out as they invariable take out a bunch of playfield at the same time. The goal is to minimize the damage to the playfield while still removing the remaining metal. I four marks around the outside of the hole, pointing toward the center.

Enter the dentist’s drill! The next time you visit your dentist for a check up, ask if he has thrown out his worn drills lately. Often they have a large collection and will happily let you take them away, especially if you tell him or her what it is for. The drill bits are slightly smaller than the normal rotary tool (Dremel) accessories. Make a smaller collet by filing a small amount from between the fingers on your smallest collet. Now even you can make that dreaded drilling sound. I drilled out the offending screw segment using three drill bits. The bits do not drill metal easily and tend to get hot. Make sure you take several breaks while drilling so you do not set your playfield on fire. The resulting hole will be too large for a normal sized screw so I fill it with bamboo skewers and a bit of wood glue to hold them in.

I scoured the local electronic surplus store for some blue insulated wire. I found some coaxial wire and cut off a six-inch segment. The cashier laughed me out of the place, refusing to take any money. I spent the next two hours trying to remove the wire mesh shielding, the internal insulation, and the primary wire, all without damaging the outside insulation! You have to be dedicated and patient when you restore a game with personality.

I repopulated the playfield and added a new ring set from Pinball Resource. I told Steve the sizes were correct so upon request, he can supply a ring set for this rare game. I assembled the rest of the game by installing the bottom board, the board behind the backglass, and the playfield.

Backglass and Instruction Card

Finding a balance when restoring a game is sometimes difficult. I am often surprised when I assemble the restored game and see all the parts together for the first time. Some parts might look too new and clash with some parts that are still old. This game was turning out surprisingly well, especially with all my wife’s hard work. The patina was there but the game was starting to look like fine furniture! I originally thought the backglass was in better than average condition and for a rare game, entirely acceptable. However when placed back on this game, the small problems it had now looked out of place. The instruction card also needed some attention.

The original card was very dirty, almost illegible, and had writing all over it because the operator changed the adjustments. Printing out a new card on white paper was not going to look right either. The card needed to have some artificial patina added.

I scanned the original into the computer and then duplicated the font. I was able to get the letters within pixels of the original. I purchased a bunch of card and paper material from the craft store, paper that looked “old”. There are a bunch of new materials used to make scrapbooks and some is perfect for printing instruction cards. Alternatively you can scan in the original and use the original’s dirt to make the card look old when printed. You can modify the image using Photoshop or other picture editing software. Add brightness, patch torn areas, replace operator scribbling, and generally fix up the image. Printing the card then makes it look old and close to the original, just a bit cleaner. Putting in a brand new, all white, instruction card makes the game look odd. The original patina of the cabinet and playfield contrasts dramatically with the pure white and red print of the instruction card. It looks much better to have an older looking card even if the patina is copied from the old card.

During consultation with the owner, we decided the backglass needed some attention to balance out the restoration. The original backglass had a few flaws in it. There was some missing paint, mostly in non-lighted areas. Nothing big or dramatic. Suddenly, because the rest of the restoration looked great, the backglass needed attention.

I have reproduced glasses using the computer before and it is labor intensive. The glass is scanned in segments using a flatbed scanner and a wood guide. The segments are stitched together, the missing paint repaired, and colors restored to their original brilliance. You then have a couple of choices on how to reproduce the glass. You can output the artwork using ink or dye. Some of the new dyes are UV (ultraviolet light) resistant and will not fade as much as inks will. Regular style inks will start to fade after a couple of years. You avoid some of the problem by laminating the artwork with UV resistance plastic. However using regular inks was not an option for this restoration. What else is possible?

You can print the artwork on a transparency with some of the new UV resistant solvents and treat it like a translite in a modern pinball machine. In discussing this process with Bill Erdley, another person involved in pinball backglass reproduction, you can reverse the image and print it on self-adhesive vinyl. Then the material can be attached to the inside of a plain piece of glass.

A final alternative is to use the capabilities of the image editing software to create a color mask for each color. These masks can then be used to process silk screens and the screens used to print on the glass just like the original process. The advantage of scanning over tracing the images is accuracy. Scanning in the images at 300 dots per inch or better results in the artwork being true to within 1/300th of an inch.

To complete the reproduction we scan in the black or silver mask on the backside of the original glass. The mask is also reproduced and applied to the backside of the new backglass.

Now comes some personality where there is no good solution. This is a real character flaw. Special care must be taken with the color reproduction. One thing computers are terrible at is seeing the same color as we do. The scanner sees colors slightly differently than we do, as does our monitor and printer. At each step, there is some error. I can get technical if you like, as I was the engineering manger responsible for ColorSync at Apple, their solution to the color prepress problem. It gave me a new appreciation for how difficult it really is to do color right. The good news is that our eyes and brains adjust to color differences rapidly and unless you see the original and the reproduction side by side, you will not notice the problems unless they are dramatic. However, for our work we need better than close.

We scanned in the artwork of Happy-Go-Lucky for posterity but decided that since Lynne is so expert at color matching, we will touch up the original backglass. This went well until it came time to work on the magenta and blue. She was having difficulty finding a close match at the art store and needed an object with a similar color to take with her. Then she could hold it up to the many paint colors and find the closest one. I just love it when we get a personality that sparkles. Lynne wandered around the house and ended up with a coaster and a book on web colors.

For those of you wanting to get serious about matching colors, I encourage you to look at an article my stepfather wrote for the National Association of Clock and Watch Collectors. It covers the creation of a color wheel and even includes an example color wheel. It can be found on the Sands Mechanical Museum website under miscellaneous: http://www.sandsmuseum.com.

Time for the Smoke Test

The smoke test is when you turn on an electrical device and look for smoke. When you see smoke in computers, it means some of the magic is escaping, same for British cars with Lucas electronics, and pinball machines.

When you have disassembled an entire game, rebuilt every relay, switch stack, motor and stepper, you wonder how many bugs you will have when you finally turn it on. Reset, when you start a game, is almost invariably a problem. This game was no exception but I was certainly surprised at the source! I added a bell clapper on the 10,000 stepper. The ringing of the bell prevented the step from completing reliably. During initialization, the 100,000 unit is reset to a minus one position and it happily waits for the 10,000 stepper to go all the way around. It waited a long time and was not happy!

My punch list was six items long, not bad as restorations go. This machine did not turn out to be evil like some of them.

My punch list, the list of things to do, looked like this:

number eight light does not go out even though the relay trips
left pop bumper light is too bright
right kick out shoots the ball past the flippers (Leave it as it is original.)
install back door and front door locks
set features to match score card
ball lift hits the shoot gauge

I was proud! Only two electrical problems existed. Now I get to play!

One of the areas I need to work on when performing a restoration is the tuning. Too often I would rather play than work on a “new” game. By tuning I mean setting up the game so it plays well. For example, the contact kickers, or sling shots, or thingies that kick the rubber ring when the ball pushes, need to be carefully adjusted. The kicker is activated multiple times, almost vibrating, if the switch gap is too small. Conversely the kicker will not activate at all if the ball hits the rubber ring softly because the switch gap is too large. A game is fun to play when all these switch gaps are set correctly.

Another example of “fun to play” is when the ball lift has a solid feel to it and does not go clunk when lifting the ball. You can create rubber limit bumpers by cutting short segments of rubber fuel line hose.

I spent another hour tuning things up and then got down to some serious play. I called the Museum’s official game tester in for some consultation. I even had my father-in-law play. The game was finally deemed finished.

In the end, I did get to play this game. All those years of refusing to sell it until it worked and I got to play it were rewarded with a fun project and the joy of playing a fun game. What is it like to play? Raise the bonus to 500 and put the ball into the left capture hole. Remember to avoid the right one! The five fast bangs on the score and the accompanying knocker sound are very satisfying.

This game had a great personality. She turned out better than expected and was a fun date.

I thank the following people:

Eric Levinson for letting me restore his rare game. He is also an exceptional restoration resource.
Thanks to Pinall Resource and Steve Young for parts, imagine how difficult it would be if he were not around.
Bill Erdley for backglass reproduction consultation.
Clay Harrel for pictures, his fabulous website, and thoughts on restoration.

I want to thank my lovely wife for joining me in this new career. I could not do it without her.