RESTORE GAME
RESTORE GAME
Completely rebuilding The Shadow was a must. After many, many hours and a few hundred bucks, The Shadow definitely shined. Here is a "brief" description and photos of what was done to the game.
If I'm going to completely rebuilt parts of the game, I might as well do a full tear-down and shop-job. Below are a few photos as I disassembled the entire playfield.
Next, we clean. Every single part including plastics and metal parts are wiped down. Then, the buffing and waxing of the playfield. This one cleaned up near-perfectly and has a beautiful gloss. The caked on dirt from years of neglect definitely preserved the diamond-plate playfield. Below are a few pics after waxing and totally cleaning the playfield.
The Shadow is notorious for having magnet-burn at this top area of the playfield. This specimen has a little, but still needs work. We filled in the missing wood and tried to "color-match" the playfield gray. It came out pretty good. Up-close, you can tell it's a slight bit off shade-wise. But, from the player's perspective, it looks perfect. A small slab of mylar was placed in that area to preserve. Below are pics of the progress.
The Shadow needs some items rebuilt on most games to get them working 100%. In this case, the brick wall target worked perfectly (what luck). So, I was able to leave that alone. I rebuilt the Purba assemblies with new diverter parts, springs etc. The mini-battlefield was disassembled, cleaned and polished (I also had to re-wire the kicker and replace some gears). A couple ring LEDs were missing off the game, luckily all the rings were intact. Everything came out great.
The Shadow games are notorious for having "torn" backbox decals. Unlike some games, the heads were not silkscreened like the cabinet bottom. Therefore, they're prone to wear. Luckily, Pinball Heaven in the UK has produced almost spot-on recreation decals and they can easily been replaced. Wahoo!
Time to add the finishing touches. Bolts are painted and replaced. Coindoor is painted and replaced. A new gun-shooter is purchased and installed. Plus, a few other goodies.
Now the game is finished. After a little
adjusting and putting in some new balls, the game is fired up and played.
Check out the gamepics on the Shadow index to see the finished game.
