Welcome to my restoration.

This is a 1966 Grand Flair Ball Bowler made by Chicago Coin Machine Division.  Technically, mine is a Grand Flair with what has become known as a Detroit Deck.  As I have been told (hearsay), the dealer in the Detroit area had factory modifications to his units to make them unique.  The word "Grand" was added to the front of the Plexiglas and the deck was changed from a roll over switch style to a roll under switch style.  This raised the pins out of the way protecting them from overzealous shots as well as it gave the deck a cleaner look because you did not see the switches.  This was a style used in the first years of ball bowlers but some users felt it did not give you the real feel of bowling since the pins were raised....I say hey it is a bowling game, go to alley if you want the real feel of bowling....just my opinion.  The Flair along with the 1967 Vegas are the only two ball bowlers that used a ball with a thumb hole (that I currently know of).  It is not listed on the flyer and several sites list this ball as being a 6.00" ball but after measuring my deck height (measured at 5.75") and seeing a 5.50" thumb hole ball being offered on stl-bb.com I think the 5.50" size is the correct size.  No balls came with my bowler.

The unit is in rough shape as you will see from the pictures but from initial evaluations this looks like a unit that can be restored and back to working with just some major cleaning, hard work, replacement of broken/missing parts and stripping of many layers of paint.  Some of which were painted by a blind man or a two year old.

Typical restoration plans include cleaning the unit from the years of smoke, spills and crud, setting the unit up, evaluating it, repairing obvious problems, prepping for initial power up, powering up, verify (typically one player), dis-assembly, restoration of wood, restoration of deck, restoration of glass/Plexiglas, restoration of metal parts, restoration of electromechanical units (all), re-assembly and finally testing/final verification. 

I am skipping around slightly doing a little more cleaning, repairing and prepping for restoration prior to setting it up and beginning the long road of restoration.  I'll continue to add to this as I progress and post any of my findings and research that may be helpful to others who wish to pursue this type of endeavor.  I'm open to any other owners of the Flair or Vegas to send me some of your machines pictures.  I am particularly interested in the ball return unit.  My bowler has a switch wired near the motor and I'm not sure exactly what is if for.  One suggestion was that it is for a gate that the ball passes through (that is missing from my unit) but a picture would be very helpful.