Can anyone make complete vendors for sweet allwins?

[tammy]

Hi, I have a number of the Oliver Whales Win A Sweet type allwins but would love a complete vender I could install to vend the penguin chocolate biscuits instead.
Looking at the Oliver Whales vendors surely someone could make a lot of money making and then selling the different up to date vendors for these machines.
If anyone out there has the original vendor parts for a penguin chocolate biscuit to sell me please get in touch, or maybe someone could make these parts... You all seem very clever on what I have seen on this site...

Thank you in anticipation, Tammy

[badpenny]

An interesting question.
As you point out contemporary versions of yesteryear confectionary is often a different size so original machines can't cater for what's available today.
From my point of view I'd be facing the question "Would I want to remove part of the mechanism from my 1940 - 1960s machine and replace it with a non original part?" It wouldn't take me very long to decide against doing that.
I know it would make the machine more effective today, but how many car enthusiasts would add ABS or reversing sensors to a Ford Model T for basically the same reason?
Somebody well known to us tooled up to manufacture modern allwins in China and imported them 20 odd years ago. Modern coinage and in the case of a vendor, modern mints. There was a short flurry of interest but not enough to keep it going.

BP

[tammy]

Hi goodpenny!! It's only 4 small screws that hold the complete vendor part. I have switched odd ones over before from other variety sweets especially when doing an odd charity fund raising day in the past with the machines. As you will know yourself they are only made out of like tin and soldered (you could even use aluminium for the vender column part). The simple metal slide does slide on 2 bits like what are used for inward penny fall parts in many of the 1960s electro-mechanical machines and could easily be sourced... The hardest bit is someone doing some flame torch soldering all the bits assembled together!
As for changing an old machine? All you would be doing is adding an extra variety to what it can dispense... as you would still keep all your original vender parts loose inside!

[badpenny]

Wasn't she James Bond's secretary?

[gameswat]

Not as simple as it might seem Tammy. I've restored and made a number of these sweet payout mechs over the years and almost every Whales machine has differing configurations of various kinds. And even matching machines differ slightly or greatly as these were all handmade games, done in batches I'm sure. So I've always found a lot of jiggery pokery needed to mate even original parts to another machine. (Some old man will post a Benny Hill entendre attempt at humour now..... ) The payout cups differ in size and I've had just slightly different shape modern packages that have jammed in numerous places. So someone would need to make multiple differing variations to suit a very small potential customer base, they would not be cheap as a lot of time and hand work needed to make small runs like this. I honestly can't see many people willing to pay what they would cost, let alone any profit to the maker? And modern packaging just doesn't have the lifespan of anything like the old days as I've had this issue myself with having to reconvert former conversions!

[pennymachines]

If you were to remake a hopper on an OW sweetie allwin it would make sense to follow the example of R&W, and make it adjustable.

[brianh]

Sometimes I've found it can be easier to adapt the contents rather than the hardware. An example is the Oliver Whales Win a Spearmint Chew - couldn't find any packs of spearmint gum the right size to fit the chute but did find some mini packs of mint tic-tacs in little plastic cases that fitted exactly.

[tammy]

I have a six-sider all different sweet Oliver Whales and all the vendors interchange easily except the Win a Chew where the pull bar has less travel and indeed the payout cup area is a little smaller. I bought a vender inside from one that advertises the new Neapolitan choc payout allwins. He sold me it as a one off with some other bits. It works on pushing (the restaurant end of meal type Neapolitan choc bars) out rather than a slide they fall into. I had to bend the lever that runs to the pushout slide to get it to work really well, however it runs really well on payouts now.

I can't understand how it would be difficult to make a selection of some sweet ones like penguin biscuit as the hoppers are practically the same except for size. If I had the tin and was good at soldering I would do it myself.

Bet someone out there isn't put off... surely!

[brigham]

I'm not entirely sure what the OP is aiming at, but surely the backflash determines what an allwin pays out as a prize?
It's useful to remember how quickly marketing forces moved in the 'sixties. By the time Oliver Whales had got the machines into the arcades, the artwork was already out of date!

[gameswat]

I have a six-sider all different sweet Oliver Whales and all the vendors interchange easily

While I've never worked on a multi sided allwin I bet the reason you've been so lucky is because all those doors were manufactured at exactly the same time using the current parts in stock, and most likely all put together by the same worker! So in fact what you have is one machine, just with 6 x doors. As I said my machines have been all over the place, because they were made as needed over years with small or major changes made over that time. When I've copied my own surviving vending mechs exactly or slightly modified and tried to fit them I've always had to spend many hours fine tuning to get them to work 100%.

[brigham]

WOW!
I've never seen a six-sided Whales allwin. It was only this year that I first met a four-sider; the Whales version of a 'Four Square'.
Which six does it have? Are the backflashes good?

[tammy]

I have found personally the very opposite over the years. I have had many Oliver Whales sweet allwins in distressed states... some even with no vendor as they have been robbed for parts. Have interchanged Fruit Gum vender to a Win a Gift even. I can only speak for what I have had and the dimensions of the Whales vendors have caused me no problems. The only bit I have had to alter is the length of the bar that pushes the slide!
About the playfield, you just put a note on that this machine now pays out whatever it does. Six-sider: Fruit Polo, Chocolate, KitKat, Crunch, Chew, Spangles.

[brigham]

Ah, now I understand. The machine is still in service.
There aren't many left now. I toured the Bridlington arcades during the summer, and counted only four Allwins of any description, two of which were 'amusement only', with payout cups blanked-off.
Is it time for a special thread, listing what can be found where? It might stop something interesting going into the skip, when the last 'keyman-mechanic' finally retires.

[tammy]

No not in commercial use. Enjoyed when the grandkids come down and odd times at a number of fund raising charity like school events. Backflashes range from brilliant to good acceptable...still sad a lot of you are pulling the old off to replace with a paper copy. I know there is a time for this but some of them I look at on the site I wouldn't have done it. In the days of the '50s and '60s a lot of them looked just like the ones being ripped off!!! Especially the Oliver Whales ones that were often even cranky even to flip the ball.
Still everyone to their own ay!!

[badpenny]

Ah, now I understand. The machine is still in service.
There aren't many left now. I toured the Bridlington arcades during the summer, and counted only four Allwins of any description, two of which were 'amusement only', with payout cups blanked-off.
Is it time for a special thread, listing what can be found where? It might stop something interesting going into the skip, when the last 'keyman-mechanic' finally retires.

Away you go then, start a new thread and kick it off with your findings and photos of Bridlington.

BP