Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Show us what you found. Make us jealous!
pennymachines
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Re: Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Post by pennymachines »

Yes, they were reproductions (without top signs), as described in the Arena Reproduction British Slot Machines article. A couple of original Bolland wall machines, complete with marquees are also pictured there for comparison. Here's a different shaped marquee seen on some of their games, with dimensions. 3/4" oak, joints are tongue and groove (tongue 1/3 thickness of timber, 1/2" deep). Rear oval inset for glass is 3/8" from edge and 1/4" deep.
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gameswat
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Re: Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Post by gameswat »

Thanks PM. I'll mock one up to fit in cardboard and see how it looks. Any chance of a reverse image please? And same thickness as a side panel I imagine.

And interesting to re-read the history in Arcades book about Bolland partnering up to help BMCo from folding in the late 30's, newly named BMC Ltd. Makes a lot of sense to me now about the two companies products overlapping. This "Lifeline" belonged to Jon Gresham and from memory the marquee and sign was original. But in his museum guide he stated it was by Bolland, but that marquee letting looked just like BMCo to me, so I'd always presumed it was a case of Bolland adding his name to an older machine when he operated or sold it. But there's the name Lifeline listed under Bollands machines list. Jon had at least one or two other similar Penny tap machines that aren't listed by Bolland.
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lifeline bolland.jpg
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Re: Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Post by pennymachines »

Rear view with ugly modern brackets. Thickness is 3/4".

You can see, in the first image I posted, an unfinished curved area on top of the frame. I assume there was a wooden arched moulding applied to that surface originally.
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Close up tongue & groove
Close up tongue & groove
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gameswat
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Re: Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Post by gameswat »

Hey, those brackets aren't ugly, they're just the way god made them that day.
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Re: Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Post by pennymachines »

Ha ha - I did wonder about deleting the word 'ugly'. I'm not completely wed to the past, and can appreciate good modern design too. Those ('70s?) brackets are just fine, only not with that marquee.
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Re: Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Post by gameswat »

Looks like your marquee is missing a piece of trim on the top edge PM?
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Re: Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Post by pennymachines »

Yes, I mentioned this in my post above (probably edited after you read it).

I just looked up those old shelf brackets - apparently they're called London Brackets, and they're:
Very popular
Low cost pressed metal brackets
Medium load ratings
Unattractive
:lol:
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gameswat
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Re: Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Post by gameswat »

Good photo of the marquee on this site in the museum! Though on measuring my game it's smaller than whatever your marquee belongs to PM, my case is only 19.5" wide ( the case sides that is which is normally where the marquee matches to). I wonder if the different style marquees were originally each suited to a particular size cabinet? !PUZZLED!
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Re: Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Post by gameswat »

Well damn PM, it's almost as if you know what you're talking about! Early days, but if you stick with this hobby you might just get somewhere. ;-) I found this great photo of the BMCo "Wineasy" which is almost identical to my cabinet style with the curved wood pieces top left and right of the centre glass. Like mine it also has simple curved vertical side edges, not the usual moulded edges. Though my case does have the same simple curved top and bottom edges while the other has the usual moulded edges. Anyway on making the Win Easy image the same width as my game the height is identical to mine! So as PM guesstulated earlier this is more than likely the original marquee style!! Yet again this site has filled in the missing info for me and made my life and work a lot more interesting, cheers everyone!
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Re: Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Post by gameswat »

One thing I've noticed recently is that as this site is filling up with great information it's getting harder and harder to find it when you want or need it. Because some great stuff is hidden under totally unrelated headings that you'd never find without already knowing or being told. So maybe with things like images of marquees we could make some new postings and lump each maker all together? Like BMCo machine images showing marquees etc? Otherwise it might be hard for people to find this under my goofy heading, Bang! Zoom! ...........
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Re: Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Post by pennymachines »

Gameswat wrote:Good photo of the marquee on this site in the museum! Though on measuring my game it's smaller...
If memory serves, the present owner of 'Beat the Goalie' had that top made, so may have scaled it to fit.
Gameswat wrote:I wonder if the different style marquees were originally each suited to a particular size cabinet?
I wonder too. !PUZZLED! Maybe one day we'll know... :D
Anyway, looks like you've found your top. !THUMBS! Now what to call the game? :!?!:
Gameswat wrote:...we could make some new postings and lump each maker all together?
It's an issue I've thought about. The fanatics like you, me, BP and a few others can usually point someone to the hidden thread. Must admit though, I'd forgotten that Museum pic you found. I do have a solution though, which I've been working on since you were a little boy (or it seems that way :o ). Nearly finished. Watch this space... ;-)
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Re: Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Post by gameswat »

John T. Peterson wrote:"Lucky Stars."

Or "Moonjammer"

Or….never rmind.

J Peterson
Eggnoggin' Head in America
Nice try JP but there is already an Allwin by BMCo named "Lucky Star". While out in my workshop just now I was thinking about it absent mindedly and came up with what could be perfect............................. " Over The Moon" :*:
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Re: Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Post by john t peterson »

Quite perfect, Gameswat. !THUMBS!

If you wanted to tweak it a little with topical reference, it could be "To the Moon, Alice." !!IDEA!!

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Re: Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Post by gameswat »

Been busy making the missing marquee. On resizing and making a pattern from PM's marquee photo I found that when you folded the pattern in half the two sides were all over the place! While the "Wineasy" example was almost perfect when folded, though it is about an inch shorter in height once scaled. And you can see in the photo that the "Wineasy" example has the tongue and groove joints running horizontal, instead of vertical on PM's. I decided to use the "Wineasy" pattern but with PM's vertical joints. There were several reasons for this, the sign is already in the "Wineasy" example and fits the shorter size perfectly, and because after cutting separate patterns for the four pieces I found the horizontal joint version was going to waste a huge amount of my great old wood, compared to the vertical joint style which uses shorter pieces and better suited the particular offcuts of wood I had to play with. Otherwise I'd have ruined some lovely long quartersawn oak planks that will come in handy for other projects. When I get time I'll find someone with a large scanner bed to copy the pattern for the site.
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Re: Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Post by badpenny »

You're not wrong there Gameswat old bean.

I guess that's a job for the admin team, as the last thing we want to do is trifle the free flow of knowledge from the contributors by dictating how they contributing.

Should Mr.PM decide to authorise and delegate such activity then I for one would be happy to tackle some sort of cross referencing that would help the situation, also the 2004 Rioja is a particurararley fine example that examples the fine nuss ness of it ..... that !!UHOH!!
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gameswat
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Re: Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Post by gameswat »

PM, hard to tell from your photo but is this inner profile around the glass just a flat chamfered angle, or a slightly curved profile? And depth is going to be 1/4" I guess. Thanks.
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Re: Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Post by pennymachines »

It has two flat chamfers, as illustrated, but the edge between them is rounded off.
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gameswat
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Re: Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Post by gameswat »

Thanks PM.
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Re: Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Post by gameswat »

Finally got some blades made for my table jigsaw machine and cut out the marquee, then sanded into shape, as shown here. But before that happened I did a huge amount of work rebuilding the cabinet. A lot was wrong! To begin with the top and bottom planks had been reshaped to remove the profiled edge, possibly by an operator to modernise the shape, or possibly to hide damage to the edges? Could have been a later restorer though because the wood had been hacked at. The machine had been painted at least 5 times by showman judging by the thick paint remaining on the plywood back, and it didn't even get painted every time the front did. But by the time Bob obtained this old photo of my game you can see it had been stripped and coated in a yellow varnish or stain. And you can see that by then the bottom rhd edge was cut off flush with the side, as was the top lhd edge!? Strange, I've had this before but always on the same side, I guess to make a machine fit a tight space. Then later still the game was stripped again and stained a darker colour with wood glued on to replace the two side edges, except the grain was running 90 degrees the wrong way. :tut Just to add insult to injury the cabinet had been sanded back several times using a rough grit orbital sander, rounding the hell out of every edge and leaving nasty swirl marks everywhere!!! I thought about trying to clean the top and bottom panels up then straighten the edges and glue matching grain back to then re -profile. But by the time I'd have cut it back there wasn't going to be much left. I decided to remake the top and bottom using old wood, then clean up the other panels and glue it back together. Was going well until I stripped the stain off the door to discover it's a different wood! And after refitting the cabinet it didn't actually fit correctly anyway as sat back a little too far. So meant making a matching door too. I recycled a piece of the old base wood to use in the bottom mid section of the new marquee though.
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Covered in thin plastic to stop the stripper from drying in the heat here! And this was at like 1am.
Covered in thin plastic to stop the stripper from drying in the heat here! And this was at like 1am.
over the moon signed.jpg
Vintage photo of my game showing top lhd side edge missing, bottom rhd side edge missing, and look Ma, no profiles!
Vintage photo of my game showing top lhd side edge missing, bottom rhd side edge missing, and look Ma, no profiles!
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gameswat
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Re: Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Post by gameswat »

One positive about remaking the top and bottom panels was I could slightly shrink the cabinet size to better fit the door, which after shrinkage and over zealous sanding was a bit gappy.
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