Mills Poinsettia Before/After

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Re: Mills Poinsettia Before/After

Postby RameGoom » Sat Apr 18, 2015 8:14 pm

That. Is a great addition. Big thanks, Dave. Now, let the experts jump in and post away. I am certainly no expert, but I may have a contribution or two to fire it up.
Slowly building a knowledge base on E2000 series Bally machines and J400 Jennings. Started with the antique Mills and Jennings. Getting there...
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Re: Mills Poinsettia Before/After

Postby watlingboy » Sat Apr 18, 2015 8:55 pm

Nice of Dave to do that but all you guys had to do was ask your questions before restoring instead of after.

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Re: Mills Poinsettia Before/After

Postby SLOT DYNASTY » Sun Apr 19, 2015 3:07 am

RameGoom wrote:
SLOT DYNASTY wrote:. So, all you serious collectors in this hobby, let's keep the plating 'period-correct'. 8)


That's good advice and I intend to live by it. But I have a question. What about the Award Card bezel? Did they originally chrome those, or nickel plate? And, seems like the aftermarket parts are either chrome or polished stainless steel.

My question is, regarding trim pieces, what is acceptable, and what is collector-desirable? I recently had a few of these on different machines where I replaced them with aftermarket parts, then decided to take the original mostly-badly-pitted pieces and send them out for chrome plating. I had two trim pieces on a Bell Boy trade stimulator, both badly pitted, and put the originals back on, albeit freshly plated. Made the machine look much better, but it's not "as-found" anymore. Still, the bad pitting cast a bad light on the otherwise nice machine.


It's a bit late now, to nickle plate something that you had chrome plated. Unless you have unlimited funds to do everything over.
Like I mentioned before, "all early machines had polished nickle parts, Not Chrome". Also, there is more than one type nickle. All
of the early machines were plated in Watts Nickle, which many shops do not do any longer. I have even found a couple in the past,
that didn't even know what it was. 'Go figure'! If you have a plater near you that does Watts, (also called Cold Nickle), that is the
way to go. This type holds up well with age, and cleaning with a dry cloth, usually suffices. The newer nickle, (also called Hot Nickle),
tends to tarnish quicker, if you don't keep after it with polish occasionally.
And yes, the parts on your "Bell Boy" should be nickle as well.

While we are on the plating subject, another thing that I should mention, are the castings that have pitting, or more commonly
referred to as Gas Holes. This is the case with many Jennings machines. Many of their castings weren't the best quality, compared
to other mfrs. They looked good when they were new, because the factory knew how to plate the castings, to hide all the sins.
After these machines age, and take a lot of abuse, and the plating starts to look shabby, many collectors will just bring the parts
to the plater, and say "plate it". It's not that simple. You have to find a plater that knows how to do these castings right. It is a bit
longer process than normal, as they have to float more than one coat of copper, (polishing in between), to fill in all the pits, before
putting on the final plating coat. This process can be done with both nickle and chrome. It is also a bit more costly, because of the
extra time involved, but it is well worth the effort.
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Re: Mills Poinsettia Before/After

Postby JPCass » Sun Apr 19, 2015 5:56 am

I'm with the original nickel crowd - it's a beautiful, warm old finish. And it's simply the right thing to do, from a restoration perspective.

The other problem I've run across, is places nowadays that plate a "nickel-chrome" finish that I guess is in-between - and still not quite right.

I'm going to post this question to the new Restoration forum, if it hasn't been already - where is a good place to ship nickel plating work, that really does it right, for those of us who haven't found a reliable local plater?

Also, in the past I've used some home dip tank (1 gallon) and brush plating kits for various from a company called Caswell, that worked well for me. They make a nickel brush plating kit, and I'm planning on trying it on the machines I'm restoring right now, at least for small parts and places like the coin entry on an escalator, and to try to touch up slightly pitted original award card frames rather than send them out for a heavy re-doing.




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Restored Mills 5c Extraordinary "barn find", long gone - now restoring 1934 5c Extraordinary Gold Award with original World's Fair reel strips
Restoring early Mills 5c Firebird (large coin view window)
About to take on a Mills 5c Vest Pocket
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Re: Mills Poinsettia Before/After

Postby RameGoom » Sun Apr 19, 2015 7:18 am

I would attempt the home-brew plating, but those chemicals are highly toxic, and me thinks are best left to the people who specialize in it. I have been playing with toxic stuff since I was a kid (brings back memories of when I was 12 years old, scavenging mercury from Maytag washing machines) so eventually I'll pay the piper - no sense in rushing it.

However, there are very few platers out there now. Seems the EPA is hammering hard on the few who still exist. I can see it becoming a past-art very soon. Just like the brake shoe re-liner companies who used asbestos exclusively.

And you guys in California must be really frustrated - seems the state claims everything made is carcinogenic, including rain water!

Back to the thread content. Now we have a perfect place to put any of the previous comments and suggestions regarding the correct way to restore a machine. This will come in very handy for other forum members.
Slowly building a knowledge base on E2000 series Bally machines and J400 Jennings. Started with the antique Mills and Jennings. Getting there...
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Re: Mills Poinsettia Before/After

Postby SLOT DYNASTY » Sun Apr 19, 2015 12:30 pm

RameGoom wrote: And you guys in California must be really frustrated - seems the state claims everything made is carcinogenic, including rain water!


Yes, Weez Guys in California have a ton of new EPA regulations to put up with, which started several years ago.
Most of which is supposed to be for our own good. The one that burns me the most, is the fact that I can not get
the good paint, that I used for many years, mainly in the wrinkle & hammertone finishes, from Illinois Bronze. We
have to settle for the water-base examples from the likes of Rustolium, which is no-wheres near the same quality.
They have also now, discontinued a few of the key colors from their inventory. I just ran into this problem, when I
was in the middle of a job for a customer, and had to change the color scheme. Rather frustrating, to say the least. :roll:
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