Somebody posted a picture on Pinside of the coolest looking topper for a Stern Pirates of the Caribbean that I had ever seen! The problem was that they were a very infrequent poster and I couldn’t for the life of me, find the source of the parts they used to build it. I sent them a PM but got no response. So I began to search on my own. What the heck does Queen Victoria’s Royal Yacht have anything to do with Stern’s Pirates of the Caribbean? Arr … read on me hearties and discover for yerselves! 

I spent countless hours (yes, hours) crawling through Amazon and Ebay pages hoping to find what it would take to build my own version of this cool topper for my recently acquired POTC pinball. It appeared to be built from a wooden (Pirate style) ships wheel AND a skull and crossbones that looked to be of POTC Disneyesque origins.  Well, the skull and crossbones was found rather quickly on Ebay. Turns out it WAS from Disney and it was a licensed POTC wall hanger for kids to use in their rooms. It had a built in motion sensor, speech and eyes that lit up. The jaw also moved when it “talked”. It appears they made at least 2 versions of this “toy”. The one I bought that has bones crossed behind the skull and another version with swords crossed behind it. Assuming both are the same scale, then either would work. The whole thing runs on 3 AA batteries, and is constructed of hard plastic. I paid $32 on Ebay and it arrived in perfect working order a few days later. I took a few minutes the day it arrived to use some E6000 adhesive to glue the bottom plastic plate in place (it was hinged in its original design) as a future “mounting base” when fixing it to the top of the pinball machine. This saved time later on as you’ll soon see. 

The ships wheel wasn’t so easy. I simply could find no information on the wheel. After quickly finding the skull on EBay I figured I’d quickly be building my new custom topper BUT after exhaustively searching Google and Bing enginesI came up empty. I did image searches and a hundred variations of “Ships wheel”, “Pirates ship wheel”, “Wood ship wheel”, “Boat wheel”, you name it but … nothing. In all the years I’ve searched for things on the internet, I’ve never been completly stumped – this time I was. I went to Pinside for help and asked if anyone recognized the ships wheel behind the skull. Was it a:- Toy? – Beer sign? – Disney POTC item? – Handmade Etsy item? – Liquor advertising piece?  In the original image I can see it has 8 spokes and it’s probably plastic – but I’m not sure. I can see acorns and oak leaves and I see a crown and swords. Even zooming in I could see no other clues that might help me in finding it. A fellow Pinsider suggested it might be a clock or even a thermometer so … I went back to Ebay and searched hundreds of “ships wheel clocks”. Nothing.

I then thought about what another guy said and tried “ships wheel thermometers”. Still nothing. I was about to give up when I tried “ships wheel barometer”, and … a couple dozen hits later – BOOM! There is/was exactly ONE identical item on Ebay, and it was in the United Kingdom. Looks like it was made in the 50s or 60s. No wonder there were no Google images of it! The maker was listed as Rototherm. I bought it immediately for just under $90 delivered from the UK.  

When the package arrived (quickly BTW) it looked like it had gone through a meat grinder but the wheel was in perfect condition. Sure enough, right in the middle was a still functioning barometer. Along the bottom was a brass plaque stating “After the Ships Wheel on Queen Victoria’s Royal Yacht Osborne 1870-1908”.  

The barometer looks like wood but is made out of a material that is much more dense. It has the weight of concrete but the appearance of plastic close up. Maybe it is wood but I could not tell and I never needed to drill into it to discover its secrets. The rear of the unit is covered in green felt and has one brass keyhole at the top to hang it with. I was able to quickly pop the barometer out of the center. The only thing holding it all in there was some old hot melt glue that had browned with age and weakened to the point of failure.  

I put the wheel back in the box intending to build the entire topper the following weekend. Then life happened. Or, should I say “the move” happened. We were in the middle of building a house and it was time to “get going” – so the topper was put on temporary hold for 4 months. To shorten the story, we finally got moved. The house is beautiful and the new gameroom is awesome (SEE IT HERE). Now it was “time” to finish that topper. Sunday October 13th I set aside a few hours 

In a nutshell, I cut all the inside wiring and functionality of the original skull out and tossed it. In it’s place, I wired in 2 MUCH larger/brighter LED “eyes” and added 2 large LED effect lights that are mounted low on the skull and flash to light up each side of the “face”. I then glued the entire skull to the ships wheel and mounted that entire assembly on top of the pinball head and wired it to an existing flasher in the game. By plan, the moving jaw no longer functions What follows is a loosely documented step-by-step of how I first gutted the skull, rewired it and then mounted it to the wheel. Step one was to simply “get in there”. This involved unscrewing the backer which was held on by 6 to 8 screws. Once open, I cut the motion sensore out of the nose, then unscrewed and then removed the black smoked eyballs “visor”. Note that there are 2 pins in addtion to the screws that hold that visor on. One of the pins is glued, the other is not. I carefully but forcefully pulled and pried the visor to break the glued-in pin – it’s not structurally integral to the visor so no worries breaking it off. I then unscrewed and removed the existing (very, very tiny!) OEM eye LEDs 

The holes left by the original LEDs in the eyes were much too small so I grabbed my step drill bit to enlarge them to hold much larger LEDs. Those larger holes were used to accommodate Comet brand 8MD Red “flexi” style LEDs and wedge sockets (13 volt style – used as flashers in modern games).

I wired and soldered the wedge style socket in series using some 24 gauge speaker wire. I mixed up some 1 minute epoxy to glue in the whole eye assembly and wiring 

With the epoxy now dry, I popped in my big LEDs and stopped to admire the work so far! I needed a way to get the newly wired “eyes” power supply wire out of the skull so I drilled a tiny hole just below the battery compartment in the back. It was then that I decided to add a few more of the large LED around the base of the skull for dramatic effect. I mounted these using some LED wedge bases I had on hand that had some right angle mounts already attached. To power them, I would need another supply line so I tapped into the one I had just completed by soldering then adding heat shrink tubing to a “Y” connection on my 24 gauge wire. The additional 8SMD Orange flexi style LEDs were then mounted down low on the skull but with the LEDs bent to be facing up. Finally I would need to a way to disconnect the topper for when the game needs to be broke down for transport so I added a 2 pin Molex quick disconnect to the power supply wire 

Before I put it all together and mounted the skull to the wheel, I dragged it over to the machine and tested the LEDs to make certain all wiring was good. Taking the whole thing apart AFTER I had it mounted to the wheel would have been crazy painful so I wanted to make sure it would work first – it did. With the testing behind me, I used E6000 to mount the whole skull to the ships wheel and painters tape to hold it in place until the E6000 setOnce the glue was set, I needed to decide exactly how I would mount the whole thing. The skull came with a base of sorts. You’ll remember earlier that I had already glued that part in place a few months ago. That saved a step during the process and also alllowed me to complete the entire topper in just one day. 

When the wheel was added, the spokes actually stabilized the entire structure and it became apparent that just ONE screw, in the back of the skull base would be sufficient to anchor the entire assembly. I pre-drilled the base of the skull and the top of the pinball machine cabinet and mounted the entire assembly – I was getting close! All that remained was to feed the wire through the back screen of the cabinet head, down the right side into the larger base cabinet and choose a flasher to marry it to.I chose the pop bumpers as they are typically fired on every ball if you plunge to the top instead of a short plunge.  All in all I’m very please with how it turned out! It’s plenty bright and the addition of the 2 outside (and low mount) Orange flashers really enhance the entire look.   

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfaB2yvvttg?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque&w=500&h=281]

This post will be different than most. Less Pinball and more People. I’ll warn you up front it will also be very personal. The anniversaries of losing my best friend Andy and my father Douglas J. Purcell are just around the corner. It was October 12^th of last year that Andy passed and just 41 days later on Thanksgiving Day, that I lost my Dad from the very same disease. Both were great men in my life. Both influenced me in dramatic ways. My Dad in the ways that form the foundations of young men. My attitude, work drive, compassion, focus, sense of duty and more. My Dad shaped who I have become. I wrote about his struggles in Andy’s book but those words were written while he was still here, alive and talking with me every week. What follows is a two-part update. First on my Dad and then on Andy. I’ll wrap it all up at the very end.

DOUGLAS PURCELL

After losing Andy, my Dads condition
worsened and I visited him in late October. He was in the hospital
and with uncontrolled bleeding. I spent 3 days there and was thrilled
to see him improve enough to go home. I left with hugs, several
pictures of all of us smiling ear to ear and piled into his hospital
bed, and the promise that he was going home. I said goodbye, said I
love you – felt like running back to say it again but didn’t and
left for home – 13 hours away. For the second time in just a few
months, I had seen someone for the last time and did not realize it.
I talked to my Dad many times after that but never saw him again.

During the following weeks his condition worsened, so I bought a plane ticket for the day after Thanksgiving to go back and visit him. In the middle of the night before Thanksgiving Day, I got a call from my Mom saying that he was being rushed to the hospital with bleeding again. The doctors did not give him a good prognosis. He was checked into the hospital but under what is called “comfort care” – no extreme measures would be taken to save his life. He accepted that fact. I called my Mom early on Thanksgiving Day to talk through what to do. I had a flight the next morning, but if I left “now”, I would be there by that evening. The doctors shared with my Mom that he might not make it until tomorrow. I gathered my Tennessee family in the driveway of our ranch in the chilly early morning air of that Thanksgiving Day and asked if they would bless my trip to NY and carry on without me. Through many tears, it was decided that I should leave immediately. I did.

I got almost halfway there when I got a call from my oldest Daughter. He was gone. I was too late. I pulled over. I talked to my Mom and Sister, who were both with him. I sat in the parking lot of a McDonald’s along Interstate 81 and cried. I got a call from a friend that heard the news and we both cried some more. When I finally got myself composed (an hour? more?) I got back on the road and continued my trek “home” to grieve with my family and provide comfort to each other as best you can in circumstances like this.

Over the next few days, I’d say we did pretty good. My Dad has a fantastic sense of humor. It was contagious to the whole family. We talked about him a lot while I was up there. More than that we laughed as much as we cried – and he would have wanted it that way. We know that because we had all heard him say a million times that he did not want to have some somber event memorializing his death – instead, he wanted a party. He wanted others to get together and have some fun thinking back on who he was and what he meant to them. So that’s what my Mom and Sister planned. They did all the work and in early May of the following year, we all got together for Douglas’s “Celebration of Life”. By then, I’d had enough time to reflect on my life and his impact on it. What follows is what I shared that day about what it was like to be his son.

Spoiler alert – it was really good.

My
Prepared Comments for Douglas Purcell’s Celebration of Life May 4^th
2019

My
Dad was a great man

• He
  loved god
• He
  loved his family
• He
  shared that love with us openly and publicly
• He
  taught me to do the same

It
is amazing my Dad taught me how to show love

• As I heard him say on many occasions – his Dad did not outwardly demonstrate love to him
• So my Dad had no blueprint, no coach, no example of how to show love as a man
• But he did it anyway … And I remember it vividly
• And it has forever impacted how I behave as a father, husband and person

My
Dad showed me how to be a Father

• He was patient with us
• He forgave us
• He also said “I love you” – ALL the time
• I kissed him goodnight until I was a teenager
• He told me he was proud of me – ALL the time, it’s one of the last things he said to me
• And when I moved away from here in 1995 it was HE who stood in for me with oldest daughter (she stayed behind with her mom) and was that father figure every daughter needs
  • That single act of love on his part represents the single best gift I’ve ever received
  • I suspect that my daughter might say the same

My
Dad showed me how to be a Husband

• Dad
  stayed home
• He
  preferred to be with my Mom
• They
  were best friends and together for over 50 years
• They
  had their “dust-ups” and he would get angry BUT I always
  remember my Dad apologizing and admitting when he was wrong

My
Dad showed me how to be Human

• He never thought of himself first – he was always worrying and praying for others
  • You see, I lost my best friend Andy to MDS this past year – he was 38 years old
  • The exact same disease that my Dad was diagnosed with
  • When my Dad was at his absolute worst with MDS, the first question he would ask would be about Andy – How is Andy doing? How is his little girl?
• He did not really care much for material things – the closest he got to that was his Volkswagen’s
• Dad loved music, so I do as well and I think some of the best people I know love music
• He was happy for others when things went well – he was happy for me and he often told me so
• He NEVER took himself too seriously and that drove a humble personality and a great sense of humor – he was fun to be around and loved to laugh

My
Dad showed me how to Live

• He and Mom decided a long time ago that they were going to live in the moment
• There would be no plan to “start having fun” when they retired
• Because of those decisions, I have thousands of GOOD memories growing up as a kid
• My Mom and Dad did this “on purpose” and I am so proud to share it with you

• From about 1970 on, Dad drove our station wagon cross-country every summer on vacation
  • To build memories and experiences ahead of acquiring things or a big bank account
  • This was not long after the interstate system was completed so travel was a challenge
  • We camped in a pop-up in hundreds of KOA campgrounds scattered all over the country

• In 1977 they decided to take the entire plan to “bright” and move to upstate NY for good
  • They became self-employed business partners and doing for the next 40 years got do do what they loved AND provide my sister and I the most magical experiences we could imagine:
  • I thank my parents for the blessing of growing up here, to be grounded in “country” values and lifestyle
  • I thank them for the once-in-a-lifetime chance to be a teenager living on this very lake
  • Since leaving in 1995, I’ve traveled all of the country and many others BUT I still think Brantingham Lake is one of the most beautiful places on earth

• When
  I look back, I can see that the decisions they made were not really
  about them – they were decisions made for all of our benefit – our
  family’s benefit
• I
  am forever grateful they chose that path and that my father was not
  only a willing participant but was “all-in” and eager to
  lead our family in a most un-selfish way

Closing
comments

• It’s
  clear that with every passing year, I become more like my Dad
• I
  guess it’s no surprise but the past 5 years of so, I’ve noticed it
  more
• I
  also notice lately how far I need to go to get even close to the man
  he was
• My
  hope is to continue in that journey – to be a better father,
  husband and person
• To
  finish the race as well as he did
• It’s
  harder now ‘cause my coach is gone
• I
  miss him

We had a great time at the Celebration
of Life. Everyone did. I got to see old friends and family that I had
not seen in many years. There were tears of course but a lot more
laughter. I was grateful to all who came and spent a major portion of
my time thanking them for that. After all, my Dad was gone. If they
were attending it was to show support for me, my Sister and my Mom.
What a wonderful gift and demonstration of respect.

Bottom line? My Dad was all about people. While seated at a table off to the side, I whispered to an old friend that I was blown away that over 100 people showed up at the event. My Dad was not a celebrity. He was not a politician. He did, however, care about people – and it showed in the response and respect of those in attendance that day. How blessed I was to have been born to him. How proud I am to say I am his son.

ANDREW HENDERSON

Andy’s influence was different and how terrible that it took his death to have the largest impact on me. If my Dad built the foundations of who I am today, it is now Andy who is driving changes forward into the future. I’ve written a book about Andy so I won’t rehash what is already written. If you care to know more about this amazing young man, you can read it here. Click on the Andy link at the top or if on your mobile in the menu section. I couldn’t let the date go by without recognizing the anniversary of his passing and share what has happened in a year.

Let’s start with – Pinball. The big Pinball Loft gameroom that I was building in our new home is completed. Andy would have loved it. This blog is all about Pinball and I could go on and on about the Loft but you can read more about it here at this link on Pinside – get a snack and a drink, it’s a long story

Here are some highlights:

• Over 1,500 square feet
• Holds up to 50 games
• Has a sleeping loft built in
• Has an 8 foot tall Spiderman
• Almost 200’ of RGBW LED lighting

I’m still close with Andy’s Dad. He
stops by the Ranch on a regular basis to talk, play a little pinball
or spend some time on my shooting range. He is doing great and
remains a great friend.

Andy’s daughter is doing well. She
spends quality time with Grandma and I get to see her through dozens
of pictures on Facebook! She’s growing up and has an amazing and
supportive family.

I still miss him. Especially now. 40
pinball machines in a room are no fun when you’re alone. Andy would
have been over all the time. He would have brought other friends as
well. Man, I’m nowhere near as good as he was at “being a
friend”. I miss his impact. His influence. His ability to bring
people together.

So what am I doing about that? Well, trying desperately to be a little more “like Andy” and “like my Dad”. Inviting people. Opening up to people. Exploring and trying new things. Over the past 6 months I’ve been much more proactive at either inviting folks over or saying “yes” if asked to join them. My old self is way too eager to say “no” for a million reasons … most under the “I’m too busy” umbrella.

How’s it working? Better. I’m
making more connections. Sending more time with others. Meeting lots
of new people (outside of Pinball as well). I’ll be honest and
share that it’s hard for me. It doesn’t come naturally. Mustering
up just a little bit of the new behavior feels like I’m having an
out of body experience. But I press on and so far:

• Invited Brad – my political junky, manure hauling, Hammond B3 organ playing, all around genius mechanic buddy up to see the room and play a little guitar
• Chris Blue is now a regular player here at the loft – and I love his passion for Life, Music and Pinball
• Invited Tony my land excavator up to see the room and play some Pinball – work boots and all
• Invited a coworker to bring his entire team for a team building event at the Loft
• And, of course Darin has dropped by a few times already and he and I share a deep passion and interest in Pinball – he a great guy with an amazingly positive outlook and can play the heck out of any game!

It’s easy to see the positive impact of the changes – Life is just more interesting when shared with others.

Andy and my Dad knew that

I’m still
learning …