Wisconsin Pinball

Working on fixing up a Freddy and I have 2 of the guard rails with broken tabs. Not sure what's the "best" way to go about fixing them, as they're fairly small. Anybody repaired these before?

Check with the Pinball Resource. Steve has a ton of nos Gottlieb parts.

I saw a really clever hack once... some thin metal flashing (think very thick aluminum foil) was cut in a strip. It was then folded over the top of the rail and bent into an "L" shape over the screw hole. A screw was then drilled through it.

Not a beautiful solution, and not one for a "restoration" job. Not really even infinitely durable, to be honest. But it held up for a table on route and I didn't notice it until I ripped the table apart.

So... how nice do you want your Freddy?

I have welded those before with success, but it isnt super fun. I would get a slightly smaller sized l-bracket from the hardware store and JB weld it on top of top of both parts of this one. Should hold forever and really not be too noticeable. You will have to drill a hole through the new lbracket for the screw, but that should be about the extent of it.

Hell, thinking about it more, you wouldnt even need the bottom piece that is broken, just JB weld the length of the new lbracket onto the remaining bracket that is on the rail.

Pinball resource does have them, but they wanted part numbers; which for the rails, is not in the manual at all. I'm worried that even with new parts, these tabs aren't the strongest; so there's a chance they could break again.

Welding seems like a pain, given how small they are. I did try to JB Weld it back together already, but the 90 degree angle makes it a pain as well.

I thought about going the route of a new I-bracket; or even one of the L brackets; and JB welding it. It'd give a LOT more surface area and then could just dremel off the extra and drill a new hole. I just didn't know if anyone else had another trick that worked really well. Otherwise I'm leaning towards JB welding the bracket on a shaping from there.

I'm about to do a similar weld for Sean for a different pin and can totally do this one, too.
I'm used to TIG welding tiny things, so it's really no problem for me. Honestly, grinding it will take more time and effort than the weld.

Feel free to PM or contact me offline and I can take care of this.
(Other folks, too).

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Maya

Maya does FANTASTIC work and is a huge asset to the community for offering this!