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Although the two pink allwins came to BP and me as a joint venture through our www.penny-arcade.info website, this is the first time I've heard the history and I will for sure laminate it up and mount inside the finished machine.

I've now removed the paint from the door - turns out it's first coat of paint was white, then deep purple before it acquired its green and pink livery.

The backflash was completely covered in a rough white corrosion. To my surprise, this rubbed off to expose a very bright and clean backflash. Unfortunately, long splits and very bad buckling mean it's not salvageable, so it's going to be replaced. The mechanics are all there and working. It does have a makeshift internal coin drop from the coin entry to the coin chute, so I'll need to find one of those.

john t peterson wrote: ↑Wed Jan 16, 2019 1:09 pm It's the humanity behind these machines that ultimately binds us together. A nice story, BP, complete with charitable work all around.
Well done.

J Peterson
Allwins 4 all, USA

Thanks for all the comments guys. It's good, every now and again to give back a bit to this hobby of ours.

BP

Well the interesting bit is finished, paint removed, new backflash, top flash, replacement lock, and a couple of springs, plus a good polish up for the chrome... Now for the case

You don't hang around Paul! Looks really good.

Lovely job.

What did strike me as odd is all seven spaces on the ball gallery are set as winners. I'm no expert on allwins, but I seem to see all others with a lose at each end? The gallery and internal ball hopper are definitely original and have no way of delivering a loser. Was this common? With the ball return set to free play on a win it seems to make the machine a poor earner for sure.
As you can see the ball gallery was one of those areas that needed a bit of work

These sweets allwins normally keep the ball if it misses the gallery "win" slots and drops down to the out hole at the bottom of the interior rail. Most that I've seen even have a small metal piece that swings from a nail right over the out hole which stops the ball as it careens around the bottom of the rail. If your game just drops the ball back into play, you should be able to make an interior adjustment to prevent this and make the punter put in another penny for another go.

J Peterson
Swinging free in America

No, you misunderstand me, the machine has the usual internal switch to allow the operator to switch from free ball on a win to dead ball on a win. I've intentionally got it on free ball as I'm not trying to make a profit. It the ball misses the gallery it does fall into the drain and is a loser, but even with the free ball on a win switched off the machine is a poor earner with seven winning tubes on the gallery.

There is either a 'lost' hole, or one or more 'lost' tubes in the gallery.
I can't say I've noticed both, although I imagine itinerant operators have created some.

Not all allwins have a lose hole at either end of the gallery.
If they do then they have the metal shoulders at each end which deadens the energy and makes the ball drop into the lose holes.

Without the shoulders it's much more difficult to power the ball into the centre of the gallery without it hitting a pin and bouncing off and into the lose gulley.

I'd bet a bottle of Scotch you could easily lose the vast majority of games with that set up.
I'd also have a tenner on the Dalai Lama …… if I were a Tibetan Man.

BP

Yes, the normal scheme on OW sweetie allwins is winners for all 7 positions of the gallery.

brigham wrote: ↑Wed Jan 23, 2019 8:52 am There is either a 'lost' hole, or one or more 'lost' tubes in the gallery.
I can't say I've noticed both

I don't think that's right. Search for images on the net, pretty much every one has a drain hole. This Spangles machine has never had any parts changed and was made as seven winners as they always did (as Mr P. has pointed out). I myself don't think I've seen a standard allwin with no lose hole. If there was no lose hole it would need to have been made with the lower track nearest to the gallery removed or cut into two to allow the ball to return to the hammer. I've only ever owned 5 allwins so I'm no expert. Perhaps I've just never seen one with the different track config.

I imagine that some of the more shady operators have, at some time, modified a machine with a 'lost' hole so that it has one or more 'lost' tubes on the gallery, as well.
I've never seen one personally. All the ones I've seen have had either one or the other, but not both.
I'm wondering how you are going to replicate the Spangles. They were square, weren't they?

Adding "lose" holes to the gallery I can see, that's commonplace (although it's not as easy as you make it sound). An internal path for the losers back to the ball release would need to be added to any machine not built with one. But adding a drain lose hole to a machine with losers on the gallery I can't see.

Spangles were indeed square. I've been told there are square shaped sweets (but not like Spangles) available in shops like The Range.

brigham wrote: ↑Wed Jan 23, 2019 1:13 pm I imagine that some of the more shady operators have, at some time, modified a machine with a 'lost' hole so that it has one or more 'lost' tubes on the gallery, as well.
I've never seen one personally. All the ones I've seen have had either one or the other, but not both.

Attached pics (before and after tidied up a bit) of one I got a while back which had both ends of the gallery as "lose" and also a "lose" hole. It is though still surprisingly easy to win, as there are no metal shoulders to help the balls into the lose slots, so has presumably been cannibalised in the past. (Incidentally, like with the Spangles, I couldn't find packs of Spearmint Chews to fit but managed to source mini plastic packs of Mint Tic Tacs which fit prefectly, so honour satisfied. )

Further research appears to prove me wrong.
It turns out the 'Spangles' machine may not be modified after all. The example on the Pennymachines site ALSO has two 'LOSE' tubes on the gallery, as well as a 'LOST' hole.
If so, I've certainly seen (and played) one.
Strange thing, memory. Not to be relied on.

Lovely machine.
Did Ruffler's build it, or simply distribute it for Whales?

brigham wrote:Did Ruffler's build it, or simply distribute it for Whales?

Hi brigham, Ruffler & Walker did not build allwins they were made by a company called Corteen in London and distributed by R & W.

Although R&W didn't manufacture machines as such, they appear to have been very good at buying out companies that did; this was certainly the case with Corteen. Another example was Modern Enterprises (makers of the Laughing Sailors and other puppet machines) whose most prolific output was under R&W ownership.