The Creature from the Black Lago

The Creature from the Black Lagoon

First Pictures...

Playfield pictures here.

Here's the backboard decal

And another version, scanned and repaired, from my machine. My decal had curled up top and bottom, had several holes in it, had been stapled and sticky taped in several places and was generally dirty. Here's a photo of it.

I got it out with naphtha on the back and gentle pulling, then stuck it on paper for scanning. I am pleased with the final result. I have to work on the colors, then it should reproduce OK on photo paper. The only problem, the green is fluorescent.

A few "before and after" photos.

	Novus on the coil, and the tumbler for the metal did this one.
	The ball trough had a fair amount of corrosion, and is mostly too big for the tumbler. So several grades of wet and dry paper, followed by Scotchbrite. Didn't get it all.
Here's the under playfiedl before shot. Note the filth in the ramp, and all the dirt embedded in the wood around the hologram window.	Never done flame polishing before - but it turns out to be really easy. 2000 grit to get the marks out, then a blowtorch brings the shine right back! Magic eraser and naptha pulls most of the dirt out of the wood. The hologram's in the cupboard for a while.
The boards installed in the refinished backbox. All cleaned with hot water and degreaser, pulled off lots of nasty brown dirt.	The underside of the reassembled and mostly cleaned machine. Every bit of blue tape is a piece of work remaining. Mostly dirty inserts, but a few stripped screws and a couple of adjustments. Almost every piece of metal has been polished in the tumbler.
I decided to paint the entire cab black, and rebraid it in the newer style. The side braid is intended to avoid the rails ripping the braid, which had happened before. The speaker does catch the bottom corner of the light path, but it doesn't matter.	A view into the back of the cab. Note the new leg mounts. I had to move the switch on the power box to accommodate them.
The new coin door and cleaned wiring. Look at the gleam on the antislam switch and flipper springs. Got to find that plumb bob...	The top of the playfield. New mostly counterfeit plastics; new rubbers; new bumpers; new posts; T-nutted the weak posts; new lagoon plastic. No creature decal, yet.
A view up the playfield. Boy, this got dirty fast. I must have missed something... maybe in the ball trough?
The retouched cabinet. I wanted to highlight the Pinball Universe black paint, which is a perfect glossy match for the existing black. Other blacks just look fuzzy, of which you see a lot here from previous retouchings. Can't see the PU black.	And the refinished rear of the machine. Masked the warnings and serial, spray painted with Rustoleum Satin Black and then overcoated with a heavy coat of Polycrylic Satin, which is very nice stuff.