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Welcome to My World.
On this page I hope to show you some of my own work and creations both past and present. I have been an engineer all my working life, thats some 40 plus years and have always been more interested in how the old mechanical slot-machines work, than trying to collect them, although I have owned and restored a few nice machines over the years, my only regret is that I did not take many photographs of them at the time,but what I have is shown here, please enjoy them.
This is my Erie Digger(or it was as I no longer own it) I made this 10 years ago, I made every part from scratch, even the gears which were turned and then filed by hand,it took me well over a year to complete, it works in the same way as the original machine and is constructed from recycled/scrap wood and steel from local businesses,in the early days they used to think I was quite mad when I told them what I was doing, but over the years they have been a good sourse of materials and spare parts for my projects. and I was after all recycleing in the days before it became "cool & pc" to do so. I am sorry about the quality of the photgraphs they were taken in the days before I had a digital camera and have been scanned from poor quality photographs.
The two photographs above show an Oliver Whales Personality Love Meter,I had the pleasure of restoring this rare machine about 8 years ago. It was in a very sad state when I came across it in the back of a garden shed in Normington.The artwork is original and it had a pressed brass front covering what was left of the door, this was beyond repair and had to be removed, luckily this brass front had held together all the other parts so nothing was much was missing, I had never seen another like it so I had to give it a new case of my own design,the only main parts that needed replacing were the 8 lamp holders which had corroded away. The last time I heard of this machine was when I was told it was in a vintage arcade on the Isle of Wight. (could it be the same one?)
This is my attempt at a classic Clown Catcher type wall machine, again it is a poor photograph taken in my pre digital days. I dont know what has happened to the photograph of the mechanism for this one but if I find it I will add it at a later date,the mechanism was built loosely on the designs of an original machine. I do remember spending a lot of time getting the ball lift arm to work correctly every time without the ball making the return trip back to the bottom of the machine. And as with all my projects every part of this machine was made by hand from whatever materials I could beg at the time.
When I made this machine I decided not to use a gallery for catching the winning ball and used 6 cups instead, and because I like to make all the parts myself I constructed a small press tool for forming the cups from 1.5mm thick brass sheet, I did the same when I made the payout cup which was then soldered in to its back plate, the coin slot is handmade in the style of a "Wondermatics" 1d coin slot. All the knobs and track are also handmade from brass, the only parts I had to buy were the spandrels. The back of the playfield is red velvet. The mechanism is of all steel construction and quite basic, and on winning the player gets his penny back and a free ball. The case is made from 16mm furniture grade plywood with wood veneer edging, the door is softwood, all of which was stained and polished.
It all started about five years ago when we had a day out at Bridlington with our two year old grandson Ben. we called in at the vintage penny arcade to have some lunch and play on the old slotmachines,well it was not long before we came across the laughing sailor and every time the sailor started laughing so did ben, he thought it was great, after that Ben went on about the sailor every time he came to our house,one day he said Grandad can you make one for me in your shed?. that was over five years ago and the rest is history.It took me seven months to plan make, it works from a 12volt battery so it is safe and portable,infact I took it to a local fate last year and made £25 for the charity by selling old pennies for 20p each. I am going to have to find time to service or replace the laughs sound system as it has started to get a lot of background noise and buzzing when it plays.
Happy to report that I have now replaced the sound system and Jolly Jack is now back in fine voice!
A few weeks ago I was asked by a fellow slot machine collector if I could have a look at an old electro-mechanical wall mounted bandit, and see if it was possible to get it working again. The machine dates from the 1960s and had been badly neglected over the years and a lot of the original parts were missing or rusted solid. After checking the machine over it was decided that it was well beyond economical repair as a fully working machine, however it did have a certain charm so I spent some time on rewiring what was left of the control panel and getting what I could to work, The result was that the machine now lights up, and each time you pull the arm down the lights run through a sequence before stopping on a random display. Ok its not a fully working slot machine, but it makes a nice display piece and the owner is more that happy with the result.
From Cam Automatics of Seaham Co. Durham
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