Restoration of a Fish Tales II (Shopping out a Game)

by Chris · February 21, 2005

Restoration of FishTales Part II

Well, I continue to work on the Fish Tales pinball machine that I got from the Op in Rhode Island. This Pin was in sad, sad shape. It had an ok playfield (with lots and lots of mylar on it), but as I watched the Delivery guys take it out of the NAVL Semi, I was shocked to see that the back box was extremly water damaged.

The sides were pretty faded as well.

So I proceeded to finish up any playfield work I could do. I added a decal that I purchased from Treasure Cove

After the decal was placed on the playfield, I let the pin sit in the game room until I found out that a coworker liked to do woodworking for his hobby. After talking/buttering him up, we took the Fish Tales to his house. Below you can see some of the damage to the cabinet. The wood where the legs were, was pretty badly ripped into. The cabinet itself had been glued, then he used long wood screws to attempt to hold the cab together. Needless to say, I tiewrapped the cab because I was afraid it would just fall apart.

Next came the task of taking it all apart. This meant taking a *LOT* of Digital Photos, so that I can hopefully put this jigsaw back together again.

First off, my coworker decided that it would be wise just to recreate the backbox (goodbye yellow stenciling on the back!). So I started the process of pulling out the circuitboards.

Now it was time to start tracking where all the ground braid was, so that I knew where to place it in the new head.

It was then time to take the Fish off of the Topper. I then spotted the damage to the fish’s tail. If any of you know how to fix the damage, or have a good condition fish, please, let me know ;) (anyone notice all the rust on this game?)

Then off went the lights out of the backbox.

Then we took off to Home Depot for some parts and some wood. Then it was time to dismantle the old backbox.

My coworker was measuring the parts, and started on the work to recreate the backbox.

Well, the work was done, and the new backbox was spraypainted. We then started to put the pieces back together to see if it would fit!

I’d like to give a big thanks to Bryan Kelly for letting me “borrow” some new ground strip, alas one day I hope to be a CARGPB someday :)
Anyways, we then put all the ground brad back into the backbox, all the electronics, and got it all looking nice and pretty for the eventually decal application (that will be part three of the restoration)

It was now time to work on the cabinet. Once again, you can *never* take to few pictures. I just spent most of the time taking the wiring/boards out. (notice how dirty it is in this cabinet.)

Now it’s time to repair the cabinet itself, rip off the old decal, and put on the new. (oh, and if you are wondering what we are taking out of the bottom of the cabinet, somehow (I’m not surprised) a wood screw got stuck inbetween the side of the cabinet and the bottom panel.