SMC Discussion Areas

Recently picked up an 81 an 56 and thougt I would sell one and restore the other.  Well  can't pick one over the other so I am going to try to do them both at the same time.  The parts are so similar between the two, I don't think it will be that much more work to do them both.  Well, at least not twice as much.  Kind of hoping that for 1.5 times the effort, I end up with 2 machines.  Plus, I think there will be some economies of scale if I do all the powdercoating at once, have them painted together with the same paint scheme, etc.  So far, I have torn both down to the cabinets, removed the stacks, liners etc.  Trying to figure out what to zinc plate.  My list so far includes the following:  door latch but not the sleeve, coin door locking bar, locking bar latches, duck bill coin slot, and the bottle stack components with the exception of the faceplate, which will get powder coated.  So, any other components that should be zinced?  Any parts of the stack not to plate?  Any special instructions for the stack parts to make sure they all fit together again after plating?  What about yellow vs silver?  Also, any larger coin mech pieces to send while sending in all the rest?  I don't want to take on the whole mech, seems like something better left to Tom, but for now I would send in the bigger parts if they dressed things up a bit.  Hope this is not too much detail to ask about.  Just trying to minimize those moments when you smack yourself in the forehead  :darn: and realize you should have done something different or that you left one piece out when sending to the plating shop.  Lastly, any recommended midwest platers to use.  Would like to make sure to use someone who has done some soda stuff before.  Thanks to all.

Your right, send all your stuff in together, should give you a price break, at least on zinc and powder coating.. paint and body work will vary depending on how bad the cabeints are once sandblasted and let all imperfections, rust etc show their ugly heads..

as far as zinc, I think you listed all the parts.  I'm assuming youll be dissasembling the bottle stack, don't send it in as one unit..assuming you know that.
don't zinc the actuator cup, and make sure they pay special attention to the Arms with rollers on them , as they too are a different metal and if put in solvent too long , will erode away... Also some bottle stacks have Stainless steel parts, some are zinced.. if you have any stainless, just polish that up nicely looks nice..

also some prefer to zinc plate the shelves and shelf supports as well, others prefer powder coating,, I have done both...

also may want to consider the two covers on the main door, round one and rectangular one to zinc or chrome.

I also zinc the cup washers that hold on the large door coin entry bezel... looks nice when done.

may also want to consider the coin box and cap catcher

And take pictures of everything you send out,  include a copy of the pics t and a list of parts   to the plater, the second copy for you to verify  everything is returned

The locking/latch that goes through the main door to cabinet... there is a “sleeve” that you should remove as it's a pot metal and will dissolve during the zinc plating process... At least it did where I had some pieces plated... they go through a acid bath first...

OK, I know I am a greenhorn, but give me a little credit :laugh:  I don't think I could show my face if I sent in an entire stack and got it back plated into one solid piece.  Although I think that would certainly make for an original topic on the forum.

I just had to mention it,, as I've been asked several times from people "should I take it apart before..."   Uh Yes... I had one guy say he was going to dip the whole thing in an acid batch to clean it off.. I had to explain to him about the different metals used in it..  some people.. :oops:

Good luck on your restorations!

Believe me, I appreciate any and all input.  The knowledge base here is pretty amazing.  I do have one question on the bottle stack.  What do you do with the bottle gate assembly.  The linkage arm appears to have been originally yellow zinc.  The gate door is nonmagnetic (pot metal?) and the gate roller is magnetic.  The roller axle is somewhat rusty but doesn't look to be easily removed or replaced.  The gate assembly is in good shape but definately has seen some use.  How do you treat this piece?  Also, I set the actuator cup aside, also non-magnetic.  If you can't plate it, do you just polish it as best you can or is there a better option.  Thanks to one and all.

I just had a whole load of VMC 81 parts zinc plated.

As far as the Bottle Gates go, I told my plater that the gate portion itself was a cast item that couldn't be left too long in the acid or it would damage it.

I drove out the pins holding in the stainless rollers and removed both springs and had the gates re-plated using yellow zinc. In my opinion they turned out great!

When I get a chance I'll take some pictures of a few pieces that I had done.

I get the whOle thing done roller and arm just make sure your plater knows and they should know what to do

I take the roller out to polish it seperately seeing as how it's stainless. They look great!

Arms disassembled; removing the roller and disconnecting the arm from the pot metal (later replacing the old step rivet with a new one). Polished the pot metal and had the arm and roller plated then reassembled.

Use caution, I've learned the hard way. In general terms (if I'm not mistaken) the rule of thumb when it comes to polishing v. plating is anything a magnet won't stick to; polish and anything that does stick to a magnet is fair game for plating (providing of course a specific piece's tolerances are such that the added plating won't interfere with its function). I've been told horror stories of bottle gates coming back from plating being very attractive, but with the portion that holds the roller being "melted" beyond recognition. Same goes for the 110 linkage; there are pot metal pieces riveted to the metal arms. As such, they must be disassembled, polished & plated appropriately and reassembled. If simply plated and not disassembled and separated, one may have a little glob of goo at the end of their 110 linkage and I know none of us wants that! :biggrin:

Decided to disassemble the bottle gate.  Took out the rollers and found it quite easy to clean them up.  Drove the pin out one side enough to remove it from the gate and then used the protruding end to chuck the roller into my drill.  Spun the roller at high speed on a very fine grit sandpaper and then spun it on a rag with a dab of metal polish.  with exception of one roller which was in really bad shape to start with, they all turned out great.  Even the really rough one looks pretty good.  Now the stupid part.  Got in a hurry and hit one of the pot metal gates with a miss hit while driving out the pins.  Need a replacement gate.  Anyone got a spare they would sell?  Other than that goof, I am happy with the result.  I can get new  SS compression pins at Fastenal for .20 a piece, so I will be glad to have the old rusty ones out.

I think I have an extra Gate.. you need the whole thing with arm or just the pot metal part.
PM with your address and I'll get it off to ya...

PM sent

Does anyone know of a source for a step rivot similar to those used to connect the bottle gate to the arm?  I have not been able to find anything at the standard hardware stores or at any of the site sponsers.  Even struck out at a couple of local machine shops.  Tried searching a couple online rivet suppliers with no luck either. 

I did a LOT of searching and sourcing when I was working on my VMC 81 bottle gates and am 95% positive that the rivet you are talking about is a 100% custom job.

There are (2) rivets, one forward attaching the arm to the gate and the rear rivet which attaches the triangular pivot mount. If I remeber correctly, I found a rivet that would work for the rear but not the front.

All of the critical dimensions for the semi-tubular shoulder rivet seem to be built speciffically for it's use. Basically what it boils down to is finding a rivet manufacturer that would be willing to do a smaller run of custom rivets where 25,000 pieces aren't required!

I have the good fortune of living near The Soda Jerk Works and Steve did the step rivets, I highly recommend you contact him.

That's great to hear! I checked the Soda Jerks website and couldn't find any listed. Hopefully he still has some!

I talked with SodaJerkWorks a while back when I ordered new gaskets and screw kits.  They did not have any on hand but mentioned that they had made them in the past.  Got the feeling that making them is not high on the priority list so I figured I could find a suitable solution elsewhere.  Sounds like thats not the case so I will check with them again.  They were very helpful previously - Sharon was great - so that may be the best solution.  In lieu of that, what do you think of using a post bolt?  The pics below show a brass option that has almost the same dimensions as the rivet.  The only concern I would have is that instead of riveting in place, the post has a screw that would go into the bottom of the post.  My concern would be that over time the rotation of the bottle gate would tend to unscrew the post even with locktight on the threads.  Any thoughts? 

If you use locktite Red, you'll snap the thing in half before it will loosen on it's own, (unless you heat it up with a heat gun) for removable fasteners you'd go with the Blue locktite.

Talked to Sharon at SodaJerkWorks.  They don't have any now but are working with a mfg to get them made.  When they have them, they will show up on their home page in the new products section.  She thought it could be up to 2 months out though.   

Just following up on this previous thread.  I noticed SodaJerkWorks now has the bottle gate rivets listed in their new products section on their homepage.  These are not available anywhere else that I could find.


http://sodajerkworks.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&category_id=16&flypage=flypage_images.tpl&product_id=963&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=27