1940's Hi Top restoration questions??

[gameswat]

Hey guys, I need your help please! Hopefully this should be easily sorted by you knowlegable UK collectors. I'm currently restoring this One Penny Mills Hi-Top, not sure what this model is called - Owl?? It's a former English machine that a friend exported in the late 1970's and sold to me a few years ago, the mech other than the gooseneck appears to be original US as it's plated throughout, though I can't find a serial anywhere. I guess the casting are UK though as not all the holes have been tapped for a coin esculator etc. I need to know the following please:
1) Should there be a handle attached to the two holes in the middle of the back door?
2) I found traces of dark grey paint (not sure if it's wrinkle grey or some other paint) underneath a few layers of shiny red, what colours did these come in and should it be wrinkle?
3) I'm missing the award plate, tried Henry Powell with no luck. Payouts are as follows: 2-4-4-8-8-10-10-10-10-12 Anybody able to send me a good photo of the correct plate?
4) No Jackpot so I also need an award card that fits there too. A photo or scan would be ace.

Any help you guys can offer would be bloody fantastic. Love this site!!

[treefrog]

1) Should there be a handle attached to the two holes in the middle of the back door?
2) I found traces of dark grey paint (not sure if it's wrinkle grey or some other paint) underneath a few layers of shiny red, what colours did these come in and should it be wrinkle?
3) I'm missing the award plate, tried Henry Powell with no luck. Payouts are as follows: 2-4-4-8-8-10-10-10-10-12 Anybody able to send me a good photo of the correct plate?
4) No Jackpot so I also need an award card that fits there too. A photo or scan would be ace

1) The door does not look original Mills, but there would not normally be a handle on the back. Not sure what the holes are for.
2 ) The paint I suspect is your choice, I do have a Hi Top with original wrinkle paint, but given the problems applying wrinkle paint (and getting hold of it) you maybe better just choosing an enamal or car paint of your choice.
3) I have rarely seen these award plates come up for sale, although I am sure someone on here must have one buried in the back of the greenhouse. I only have 10 coin payout and 20, which are more common. The 12 coin payout awards I believe were only used on penny machines.
4) This would just be a blank plate or if you fancy a false jackpot. There were aftermarket false jackpots around, I have recenty seen them for sale in the states at not too much money or just a blank plate, again these are easily available from the US, either full covers or half.

I have attached a few pictures of 1D Hi Tops, including one which has a 10 stop mechanism, but this one looked like a bit of a bodge. Most of them I have seen used 20 stop mech's. They did appear to do a variant called the Copper Star, which also appeared on the Sega variants.

A nice dagger handle would finish it off

[gameswat]

Hey T-frog thanks for the info and pics. The reason for asking about the handle for the back door is that i think there was actually one on it when i bought it, but on spending time with it again i seem to remember taking it off as it looked goofy. But now I'm thinking that maybe it was an operator add-on, to help in moving the machine out of view quickly! I rarely throw anything out so if i look in my handles box I should find the one if there was one, or maybe I'm just getting old?!?!.

I don't have any problem getting hold of wrinkle paint in Perth, most auto stores sell it to use on valve covers. But it only comes in Black here, while in the US you can get any one of about 10 colours. So i just paint over the top in acrylic laquer with whatever colour I need to match, works perfectly. I think the wrinkle finish adds a lot to the look of the Hi Tops.

I have a cast bracket than blanks off the jackpot and covers the payout hole, when i got the machine it had a piece of painted laminex in there under the glass.

Sadly I can't find any before photos - it was pretty damn hideous, bright red everything, sides and all! This is a 20 stop mech by the way.

gameswat

[gameswat]

Not that I'm trying to make you UK collectors jealous or anything (hehe) but I just painted the castings in wrinkle paint outside at 8.30pm. It's now 10.51 pm and the temp is still 30 Degrees Celsius outside!! But forget that, I'm just really happy with how awesome the paint came out! Always a mystery how evenly you've sprayed until it eventually wrinkles.

[bryans fan]

I too have been spraying machine parts, only over here my workshop is about +3 Degrees celsius ! I`ve been warming it up with a calor gas fire for an hour or so, turning the fire off, then spraying a thin coat and leaving overnight. It was still wet this morning from last nights coat. I`m not jealous. but I am

[treefrog]

I am more jealous of your steady hand than the temperature, although that would be appreciated here in the UK at the moment. The last time I tried spraying with wrinkle paint (last summer) I waited for a warm evening and tried as per the instructions to evenly spray across the surface with a constant thick finish with a steady stroke as it apparently is not the same as normal spray paint with the even sweeping back and forth and bugger what a mess. It wrinkled in wonderful different patterns, more like the Himalayas than a even paint job.....

[gameswat]

I actually bothered to read the instuctions on the can this time and it made a lot of sense which helped my outcome no end. Three thick coats - one vertically, then wait 5 mins - one horizontally, then wait 5 mins and finally one at 45 degrees to the other two. The idea being to keep the paint as even as possible. I have had issues painting larger areas before as you can easily overspary the same spots with too much paint and 15 mins later find out the wrinkle pattern is all over the place! The instructions worked perfectly for me as you can see.

[pennymachines]

Is this the sort of finish you're trying for? - typical British Hi-Top red crackle.

Don't think this is a Mills - anyone know what the star and shield logo stand for? Berkeley?

I don't have any problem getting hold of wrinkle paint in Perth, most auto stores sell it to use on valve covers. But it only comes in Black here, while in the US you can get any one of about 10 colours. So I just paint over the top in acrylic lacquer with whatever colour I need to match, works perfectly.

Yeah, I wondered how well that might work. Black crackle is the easiest to find here too. A few professional powder coaters do a black crinkle which is used primarily on sports car dashboards I believe. Looks like an excellent spray job you've done there.

[malcymal]

Nice job there; crackle paint hides a multitude of sins too. Can I ask you who the manufacturer of the paint was please? Was it Hammerite? I need crackle aerosol paint in the gun metal colour for the cabinet of a sega windsor (I can see this was the original paint underneath somebodys hand painted green hammerite,) and if anybody knows a decent make i will set out to order some as the warmer months are ahead and time the poor bandit had a makeover.

[treefrog]

The brand I have used is VHT, an American paint, but only comes in Red and Black. Easily available one bay and other vendors. I got an instruction sheet from the seller I used, as you see above it is not the same as normal paint and needs to be applied in a warm environment. Also you need to apply an even strokes with out sweeping back and forwards like normal car paints. The bit above about using diagonal strokes as well may well have helped my poor efforts, but, you're right, it will hide stuff and you do not need as much preparation like stripping back all old paint.

I have not found another supplier doing a range of colours. Pastikote, PJ1 and Hycote do them, but they all seem only to do black. Gameswat's idea around the colour issue sounds a useful way to address this...

[bryans fan]

As tree-frog says WRINKLE, ( not Crackle ) finish was available from car parts shops. I have, in the past, bought Hycote black wrinkle finish paint. I don`t know if they are still in business. Address is HYCOTE Salmon Fields, Rotyton, Oldham. OL2 6HZ.

B T W it says minimum operating temp is 25 o C

[gameswat]

Hi - castings have been painted for a few weeks but only just bought a new digi cam as the old one died. Still need to figure the new cam out as it's a lot more modern than the last. As I said before I just spray acrylic laquer over the wrinkle for whatever colour i want. Since the undercoat is black it took about 5-6 thin coats to get full coverage. The brand available over here is VHT from the US. I've been doing this for over 10 years and the results are very hardwearing. In fact the wrinkle is one of the hardest finishes I've come across once it fully sets.

I've mocked up my own award plate art and just need to finish cleaning up the symbols for printing. I've ordered some special film from the usa that's used for making prototype PCBs. I plan to acid etch my own replacement award plate from scratch. The film is printed and then ironed on to be used as a resist to the acid. I got a quote from an engraver to do the same but the price was crazy. See how to here - http://www.instructables.com/id/How_to_ ... _with_a_r/

[willborl]

Cracking job mate, looks great

[gameswat]

Hey there - finally got around to finishing this project off. I had no luck even finding a photo of the correct award plate so I downloaded the best pic i could from a hitop on the net. Though rather small and average quality at best. But enought to allow me to make up the correct payouts with some detailed digital reworking. I was planning to etch the plate in brass and then plate it, but the night I finished the artwork all I had laying around was some alloy sheet the right gauge. So decided to experiment with that and had great results! In fact good enough that i decided to leave it at that. I used a special film that you print the artwork onto using a laser printer, and then iron the film to the metal to act as a resist. The real bugger was bending the sheet to the right convex shape without a roller. I ended up making a concave mold in wood with my table saw blade as the curve which was slightly smaller than the finished size. Then clamped it to the pedestal pole of my metal mill which was slightly smaller in dia. Once I removed the plate it sprang back slightly to the correct shape. Phew.
I also made up the Jackpot card using the artwork shown in a US catalogue i have. Scanned in ok but again needed to be reworked to look nice. Just replaced the $5.00 US amount with 1/2 pound UK. Machine is playing nicely once I ironed a few bugs out. Mech is a little sloppy but hey, after all the plays this thing has had I'm amazed it still works at all!

[slotalot]

Well done gameswat you have done a great job etching the award card, it looks very professional. was this your first try at etching? or have you done some before?

[gameswat]

First time etcher but long time wanter. I had a few probs that i managed to deal with, first one was using my parents laser printer that didn't print properly. So when i etched some lines cut through. I was able to sand back the surface to remove them all though. Luckily I'd over etched the alloy anyway so had room to spare. Next time It'll be so much better. But I was really happy with how detailed you can get the tiny lettering like in the bars, and they looked better before I sanded the crap out of them! Actaully looks a lot nicer in person, flash shows up stuff you don't normally see. I have a lot of machines missing tags and plates that i can now make myself -hooray.

[treefrog]

That looks fantastic......another thing I need to try out as I keep buying in plates from the states and they are rarely in good condition