Today I took the cabinet to be measured for replacement glass. They said about 8 to 10 days, which is way longer than I was expecting and wish I had gone a week ago but it's OK I have other stuff still in need of attention. I could have gone with 1/4" glass but the cabinet has a twist where the back left corner raises and the front right corner raises as well so to be sure there was a little wiggle room we went with 3/16".
I have completed the cleaning of all the metal parts and have started putting all the parts back where they belong. All of the now rust free pins have been put back in the playfield as well as the rails that run around the gates. I have also reassembled the plunger after cleaning. I won't put it back in the cabinet until after I pick up the glass so that I can take it with me again to make sure the fit is correct. I don't want to risk something happening where it gets damaged.
I had mentioned in a previous post about a way I read about and tried for removing rust. Even though I had read about it and watched a few videos of results I was still was really amazed after I tried it. I did this first with the outside plunger spring. It was very rusty and I tried polishing it in a tumbler but after 24 hours it still looked the same. So I looked into getting a new spring and could not find one and so started looking at ways to remove the rust. I found two good options and went with the one that I thought was less risky and if it did not work I would try the other.
The process is simple. I took the rusty spring and I put it in a mason jar and covered it with white vinegar and sealed the jar and let it sit. Not much happened at first but a few hours later you could see bubbles forming on the spring. After 24 hours there was rust on the bottom of the jar and the vinegar was very dirty and murky and I removed the spring. The vinegar stunk terribly when I opened it and the spring had a black film all over it. I rinsed it off and dumped and rinsed the jar. I then put the spring in water and a few heaping tablespoons of baking soda which neutralizes the affect of the vinegar and let it sit for about 5 min. Then took it out again and rinsed and dried and through in the tumbler and it came out nice and silver and rust free again. It worked so well I did the same the playfield pins. With a larger item you could just polish by hand after. Pictures of the before and after are below.
I also still need a set of legs or fix the ones I have. I found a website where you can ask local people who make custom furniture to bid on your job. I am hoping even though it would be a much cheaper project than they are used to that it would be a quick one so they would take it on. We shall see...
Lastly I still need to paint the artwork on the sides of the cabinet.
The home stretch will be long but I at least can see the finish line. :)
 |
| Rusty plunger spring |
 |
| Plunger spring after a soak in vinegar and some polishing |
 |
| Oxidized shooter assembly |
 | |
| Shiny shooter assembly after polishing |
I was wondering if you had any advice for removing the plunger tip and ball lift tip for cleaning the shooter assembly?
ReplyDelete