Re-assembling The Lower Door

While waiting for the lower trim piece to return from Morales Plating I finished all the painting and glass cleaning to be done. When I went to pick this piece up I was amazed. This is a circular piece of aluminum that was scratched and gouged, the thin rim that contains the glass bent in many places…the best I had hoped for was a shiny piece that most of the smaller scratches would be buffed out. What I got back was a like-new piece. I cannot express how stunning the effect was. I have no idea how they got the deeper gouges out without thinning the piece down. Just grateful. Had I known this piece would end up so frickin’ awesome I would have taken the other two pieces as well. The lower door is basically the two side orange column pieces with three circular trim pieces holding them together with glass and a screen mounted in between.

I started by re-attaching the lower screen. It had been rusty with faded paint but none of the screening was bent so once painted it looked like new again. The now fabulous trim goes below it. With all the assembly screws being the same size and with “witness marks” showing where they went it is an exercise in patience just needing to get things lines up and re-attached. Next was the newly painted upper piece that the spot lights mount to. After this was the plastic circular tub that the lamp holder assembly mounts to. Then the new reproduction lower glass from Victory Glass. It is gorgeous. It is an exact reproduction, so well done it could pass for new old stock. What I like to do with jukebox restorations is make them “shiny new” looking like it just rolled out the factory door. What with all the repainting, polishing, and new glass I was able to achieve this. The rear glass went on; then the ball and spotlights up top with its wiring. Now the lower door was back in one piece. I stood it upright next to the jukebox and wired the lights into a new plug and then plugged it into its jukebox mounted mate and turned the jukebox on. Lights and a spinning ball!

Just looking at the left and right orange columns I could tell the color looked pretty good. I didn’t know how good until I cleaned them. I used a cloth jammed in between each rib running it up and down with a good general cleaner. I finished with cotton swabs getting out the last little bit of dirt and cleaner. It is this attention to detail that really pays dividends. It’s a little extra work but not leaving dirt in the corners and crevices makes anything look much cleaner and sharper in detail. Attention to detail is what separates a good job and an excellent job. After this detailing the orange color was noticeably brighter lending to the overall effect of a very nice jukebox indeed.

I’m down to fine tuning the SMC2. I knew I had set the limit switches a little haphazardly. There is a roller blade that comes up a ramp at each end of mech travel. It is supposed to just make with another blade when it is about half way up the ramp. Mine were more like 3/4 of the way and the mech was off one record number at times. I wanted to tighten them up and to that end I adjusted both 100 and 179 limit switches at half way up the ramps with them just making at that point with a small clearance on the blade that broke. I have a set of switch adjusters from my pinball days and they are superb when it comes to blade adjustment.

The juke started back to not picking up the B side as it was travelling from left to right. I knew that switch 1M5 has to do with reversing to play the B side so I sat down with the manual and went through the switches on the vertical stack a lot more carefully than I did the first time around. I paid particular attention to proper blade spacing. Of course then the mech started tripping as soon as it picked up a record. I had adjusted 1M4 too tight. Once I loosened it up a bit the mech stopped tripping when going into Play. So far the jukebox has played everything correctly. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for now that I have that problem fixed.

I’m down to the last thing on the wallbox that will go with this juke-coins. The pricing label is a 2-5-10 or two plays for a quarter, five for fifty cents and ten for a dollar. I want to include a pricing board with the wallbox as another option for the prospective buyer. I have about 30 of these dang pricing boards and not one was the correct one. So I sat down with three boards! One that has the numbers stamped on it for reference, one for parts diodes to rob from, and the “target” board. I very carefully built the board according to a diagram in the DEC manual. Of course when I tested it it came out 1-2-4. I tried a 1-3-6 known good board and it didn’t do well. Nor did any others. I’ll try these boards in the STD4 tomorrow and see what happens. For the heck of it this evening I’ll look into my notes and try to re-decipher the patterns for various coinage. I usually ignore the coin label and just stick a 1-3-6 in whenever a pricing board is included. Not this time. I’m determined to get a 2-5-10.