My name is Ray Hewitt from Soda City Restorations.
My team, which includes my son and my wife,
are going to walk you through the full restoration
of this beautiful 1950s Vendo 44 machine.
So, this is a Vendo 44 machine.
Retail, restored, it's between $7,000 and $8,000.
And it was popular in the 1950s mostly.
We start by taking the machine apart.
This allows us to restore one piece at a time
from the ground up.
Once the machine is disassembled,
it is sandblasted and the bodywork is done.
We sort the parts according to
the way that they'll be restored.
So all the parts that are going to be repainted,
primed, and clear-coated are sent out for sandblasting,
and then the rest of the parts
are going to be restored by hand one part at a time.
Technically it would be called abrasion blasting,
because we don't actually use sand for it.
So it's actually glass
that's been crushed into tiny pieces,
and that's run through a compressor,
and the compressor blasts it out at high velocity,
and it removes the paint,
any dirt, any grime, the paint,
and the primer that's underneath the paint
down to the bare metal
so that we can begin to do bodywork on it
and prepare it for priming.
So, we sandblast all of the outside
of the cabinet machine.
Any places where we find any rust
on the inside of the machine
are blasted down to the bare metal
so that all that rust can be removed
and won't be a problem in the future.
It is important to note that when you're sandblasting,
you have to be aware and know what you're doing,
because if you sandblast the machine too hard
you can actually cause waves in the sheet metal,
and so it has to be done at the right pressure.
As we restored this machine,
we found that some of the issues we faced
were some large dents that were in the machine
and some areas that had some rust,
but those are pretty common
when we're doing restorations.
Bodywork involves anything from
filling and removing dents,
like that big dent on this machine
that was on the top of the door.
Little dents or nicks, we use autobody filler
to fill those and then sand those smooth
so that it matches the exterior of the metal
so they become unnoticed.
Not only was there a dent on the top,
there was also, along the bottom,
it looked like it had been rammed
with something in the corners.
And so we had to spend a lot of time
on this machine doing bodywork.
Almost every machine that we do has some holes in it.
It's very common that we have holes
that we have to fix. When there's a hole
that goes all the way through the metal,
we often have to put a support on the inside of the frame,
and then from the outside we would fill the hole
using a body filler or a long-hair body filler
in order to secure the hole
and make it strong enough
to be able to look finished when it's done.
When we restore a machine,
we typically will put about
three coats of primer on the machine,
and sanding between each coat
to make sure that we're getting a smooth finish.
So, for the base coat,
we use an automotive paint.
It's not a petroleum-based paint,
like a Rust-Oleum paint that you would buy
at a local home-goods store.
It's an automotive paint that is fast-drying,
and the clear coat can be applied
over the top of it shortly after it's painted
without it causing any issues to the finish.
We typically will put two to three coats
of base coat on the machines,
and each base coat on this machine
that we restored,
the red part probably took about
15 to 20 minutes to do for each coat.
Then, after the red part is done,
we will tape off
all of the red area,
and then we'll do the same with the white parts,
so the white top of the machine.
The painting is done with a compressor
and an automotive spray gun
that holds about 20 ounces of paint.
After the clear coat is applied,
we will typically address anything
that might be wrong in the finish of the clear coat.
If the finish that comes out of the gun
is not as perfect as we want it to be,
then we always have the option
of running over the entire machine
with 1,000-grit sandpaper
and polishing the clear coat to a new finish.
Once the machine is painted and clear-coated,
the reassembly process begins,
including a brand-new cooling system
and resembling each part back into the machine
in working order.
On this machine, we definitely noticed
that the the power cord had been cut
somewhere along the line on the machine.
And when we see that,
that's usually an indication
that somebody didn't want it plugged in
because it wasn't safe.
And we did notice that a lot of the wires
had been frayed.
Perhaps they had been chewed by rats along the way.
That's very, very common.
All the Coke machines do have insulation
inside of them as the way
to keep the cooling inside of the machines.
We replaced the breaker strips
just for cosmetic reasons.
The breaker strips are what seals the insulation,
so it's a flat surface that the gasket molding
can press up against on the frame side of the machine.
When we removed the breaker strips,
we were not able to get them out without damaging them.
Sometimes we are able to get them out
without damaging them,
but we put new ones in just for cosmetic reasons.
It makes it look much newer.
The cooling systems in these machines
are 70 years old, and oftentimes we find
that the compressors have locked up,
that rats have chewed through the wires,
the fans don't work, the thermostats are stuck,
or that there's leaks in the old copper tubing.
And so this is why we always will replace
the old cooling systems. In addition to that,
they use an old refrigerant
that is very expensive and hard to get now.
And so the best thing to do
is to just replace the compressor
and condenser on the machine.
When we reassemble the machine,
we want to make sure that every part is working
as it was originally intended to.
Sometimes that requires for the coin mechanism
a cleaning or a disassembly of the coin mechanism
in order to address whatever
may not be functioning properly.
On the machine there are several pieces
that we send out and get them re-chrome-plated.
So the main bezel that's on the coin door
where you insert the coin,
the crank handle are all replated.
And then we use an automotive chrome trim
that separates the white from the red
on the side of the machine
to kind of make the machine look showroom finish
with all new fresh chrome on the machine.
So, when we started this machine,
there were decals on the side of the machine
and there were decals in the coin mechanism area.
And then there's the Vendo logo
that is at the bottom of the door
in the lower right-hand corner.
Those were the three standard logos
that were on the machine.
When we restored this machine,
we replaced all of those with new lettering.
And then in addition we added,
just for a little bit of show,
another additional 10-cent decal on the outside.
There's a sense of satisfaction with every machine.
But my favorite part is always the same,
is when everything's put together,
everything's been tested,
the cooling system is in and running,
and you put a dime in it for the first time
and the can falls out and you grab that can
and it's ice cold and you crack it open.
It's just very satisfying.
Most people that come to us have a machine
that has been in their family for
20, 50, 75 years,
and it was their old grandfathers,
they dig it out of the barn,
and they want to bring it back
and make it as a heirloom piece
that they'll pass on for generations for the future.