Silver Jubilee - strange payout?

[brigham]

We in the slot-machine fancy are the guardians of British culture, as far as our traditional money is concerned.
The stamp-collectors believe that they fulfil that role; they do not.
I recently heard one pronounce "Three Ha'pence" as "One and a Half Old Pee".
I kid you not!

[brianjc]

Brilliant!

[brianjc]

Hi Guys,

Ok, I’m going to finally plunge into restoring this bandit, love it bits!

To date I’ve left the mech alone but only maintained it with just the odd oiling using 3 in 1 and sewing machine oil to the clock mechanism, plus adjusting the double jackpot mechanism to fill up both columns (fascinating!).

The mech I believe really needs to be stripped down as it still has old thick black grease but will leave it for now.

The main restoration will be on the front door aesthetics and cash box access door, I’ve ordered a bench polishing wheel kit on eBay as well as paint stripper, also, QUIXX Xerapol Acrylic Plastic Polish for the awards, jackpot and reel apertures.

I may try and polish out the aluminium front door or spay it keeping it fire engine red? Pictures from start to finish will be uploaded in the next week or so.

I spoke to Henry Powell a while back, lovely guy, and asked to have the machine converted from 6d to 20p coins which will cost around £90, which sounds appealing.

Any tips and tricks please let me know.

Ta, Brian.

[treefrog]

Does not seem unreasonable from Henry for the conversion as it involves a number of parts including Tub, slides, posts, coin acceptor etc..I suspect a shilling machine is closer to 20p and some parts could be reused like coin tube.

I have tried polishing myself with limited success and bought a decent bench grinder motor, huge mop and polish kit....almost lost my arm, made a mess of the walls and put it all away I frustration . After two years went back to the various mops and polishes/soaps and found they had all gone hard.....so have stuck to elbow grease, fine wire wool and metal polish

[aristomatic]

I'd suggest, if paint is original, to think again before stripping any paint off. Option would be to do best job possible, polishing paintwork & brightwork. Then you'll have actually seen the bandit in its best possible state, without it being stripped and repainted. If at that point, you still want to repaint it, then you can still repaint. It would be more work, but at least you have seen what it could have looked like before making the decision.

Just a suggestion

[brianjc]

Thanks guys,

I'll sent you some pics in a mo. The paint needs in my view needs stripping, as to the the aluminium, polishing I think just needs good brute force!

[brianjc]

Pictures as promised.

[badpenny]

Here's mine.

My Inspection label is signed by Kevin Nutt (one of the sons in Nutt, Muddle & Sons) He was relinquished to the quality department after his Father described him as "Couldn't sell a Turkey on Thanksgiving Day"

The paint on mine was in an atrocious state, so I stripped it back with the view to polishing it.
By the time I got all of the paint off I realised why you never see them burnished. The casting was a mixture of different coloured metals. Further investigation suggested the darker patches were more lead based than anything. They obviously came out of the moulds with the surface of a ploughed field. The major irregularities being blobbed with solder or similar, mere gouges and pock marks filled with a blob of paint.

Still not so bad as a Sega casting I once took back to metal, that had some sort of Industrial Filler holding it together. At least The Jub has metal under the paint.
When it comes to the mech, stripping it down just to clean it could be risky. You don't need to go that far. Stripping it down because of a significant issue or even because you want to find out everything that makes it work is cool. However I bet there's very few amongst us who can honestly deny having bought a working machine only to mend it until we broke it.

BP

[brianjc]

Thanks, yours looks fantastic. Signed by Mr Nutt Jr surely is history even though he was a knob!

Prefer red as the reel unit strip edges are red, I assume original?

And, you have the same coin inspection window! are these rare?

Also, some idiot decided to remove one of the diamond fruit emblems from the door, been trying to find one. Henry Powell said he would try and help but probably too busy!

[brigham]

I spoke to Henry Powell a while back, lovely guy, and asked to have the machine converted from 6d to 20p coins which will cost around £90, which sounds appealing.

It sounds APPALLING!

You have a collector's item here; in my opinion it needs conserving, not modernising.

It is on the original denomination, even confirmed by the delivery label. There cannot be many as good as this still in existence.

[brianjc]

Thanks, I think you're right keeping in line with originality, so keeping it on 6d.

[special when lit]

I had one in the same colour scheme as yours. The person I sold it to stripped the paint off and polished it. Looked OK, but it looked better painted.

[brianjc]

Thanks

[brianjc]

Hi Guys, (with pics).

Just starting to strip down and restore this bandit, but I have a few questions if I may ask. The inside of the main door has what looks like fixings for some sort of extrusion (middle of the door). What was this for? It leads up to the coin inspection aperture, so maybe for a lighting harness of some sort?

Also, the jackpot assembly has a chrome plate fitted between each jackpot to the top which unfortunately looks like it’s be butchered by someone. What should it look like?

[malcymal]

Nice find of 6p coins!

As the owner of this exact machine (my first bandit i ever bought)
I can tell you that your payouts are completely normal; the mystery payout are the combinations already stated. I also think orange melon bar also pays. The lemons, yep, to prevent a win as is the same with many bandits; my little Aristocrat has many of them on the last reel only.
Finding the hoard of six pences under the cash tray is also normal. In my case many were pre 1945 silver ones, stacked up of which i bundled up and flogged to a silver dealer; they were too thin or old to be reliable in the machine. I got £105 at the time for One old pounds worth of coinage, the machine only cost me £145 in perfect working order.

Its a lovely machine, never lets me down, other than having to occassionally take the pump apart to clean out, grease so the handle doesnt slam back.
To convert it to 20p would be very sad and i doubt you will achieve this due to the following. You will struggle with the coin tube overspill leading to the jackpot. Coins run down a thin chute, every 2 pulls of handle actuates a post that feeds the coins into the left jackpot then the right jackpot. This has a very small slot that will take a 6d coin and new 5p (just) depending on the new 5p's date, some are slightly thicker.

If you want to play with the new 5p it does not involve any permanant physical modifications to the machine. You could try 1p's but they tend to get stuck in the coin tube.

In the coin acceptor you will notice an oval shape cut out. If a coin/slug is smaller than a 6d, it falls through this cut out and returns to the player's cash bowl. If you cut a piece of vinyl (as in floor vinyl) to this shape, you can wedge it in the cut out and place tape behind it to hold in place. You can slightly adjust the cover that goes over this (its the thing that opens up when coin reject button pushed) with the adjustment screw to allow the 5p coin through. When the 5p travels down the overspill chute to the jackpots, you will carefully have to bend the metal under the slots (over the jackpot pots) with some long nose pliers (dont be hard or you can snap them). Payouts will be reduced on the higher amounts, so a ten pay will pay 9. When you get to the 18 payouts, you get about 15/16.

So a conversion that does not damage your machine leaving its true to its originality. Be careful fiddling with the jackpot mech. Its an intricate thing, you will notice on a jackpot payout the gubbins on the side is actated when handle pulled switching next jackpot payout to the second. I have never dared touch my machine and prefer to have the patina of its 57 year history as it was made in 1963.

Will dig mine out the loft eave and get my serial number and service engineer name too, interesting to see if its similar.

malc

[malcymal]

I've just seen your photos and the slots under the coin to jackpot chute looks like it's already been modified? I suspect to allow 1p coin at some point in its life.