Find Nedry!

John Hammond needed Nedry. NOW! It was about to hit the fan and he had no idea what Dennis Nedry was up to. In a way, I want him too. I want a Stern Jurassic Park pinball machine – now.

So – it’s time to sell some games … and that’s saying something because it is RARE that I ever sell a game. Up until recently, the grand total of all games I have ever sold was 3. Out of 45 total purchased, I had sold only 3.
That all changed a few Sunday’s ago when I began to feel even more keenly how challenging it is to keep older games running well – or probably more accurate – keeping 40 games of all ages running well. To reduce my time spent maintaining and fixing games, I put 3 out of my collection up for sale. It quickly spiraled to me selling 6 in about 48 hours!

I listed Cactus Jack’s, Twin Win and my Atari Middle Earth for sale on the multitude of Facebook groups that do those kinds of things. The gentleman that quickly bought my Middle Earth and Twin Win is someone I know and he asked if I had any others I might consider selling.

Readers might know that I keep about 40 games up in the Pinball Loft and the overflow of project games stored in a secured but seperate outbuilding. When the buyer asked about other games, I remembered that I had a Williams Post Time and a Big Strike in storage. The Post Time was a nice EM in good working condition. The Big Strike on the other hand was simply a project machine that would light up when plugged in but needed a ton of work to function. I bundled those as a package deal and offered the buyer my best price if he took them both – he did

Interestingly, the machine that was the rarest (1,900 made) and most desirable (Cactus Jack’s) did not sell immediately. It was a real nice example that I had put a lot of work into getting both beautiful and playable. I bought the game locally from a co-worker and quickly put over $700 in parts into it. I added new legs, a new ramp, new flipper bats, cactus decals, LEDs, lithium battery holder, apron cards, drop targets/decals, rubbers and I’m sure a bunch more. The new parts were the easy part. The real investment was time. I rebuilt the drop target mechs, rebuilt the entire upper playfield with lexan, fixed the head lock mechanism, polished the playfield mylar, touch up some ball drop wear, washed and vacuumed the cainet and on and on …. In the end the game was not perfect by any means but it WAS a nice machine nonetheless. The interest and positive comments on the social media sites was high, but no one stepped up with the money or a commitment. Until late that evening.

I got a notification from FaceBook Messenger from an out of state collector stating he wanted the machine. No questions asked, just “is it still available?” I told him yes it was, BUT before he drove to come get it, I wanted to let him know all that was good and bad about the machine. I shared the issues with him and then sent him some more videos and pictures showing inside the backbox and actual game play. Satisfied that this was the game he wanted, he asked if I could hold it. Not a problem for me as I did not really need the space immediately. He sent the deposit via PayPal and we made arrangements to meet the following week.

At the same time this was going on, I got another FaceBook message from a local guy asking how he could pay for the Middle Earth machine. He was local and he wanted it. Hated to message him back to let him know that it was already (just) sold. I raced over to the listing page and marked it as such. While doing that I got an additional message from him asking about the Williams Space Mission EM that could be seen in the Atari Middle Earth photos. I told him it “might” be for sale. After a few emails back and forth I discovered he was a local that had just moved here and was connected to a few folks that I already knew. Couple of FB messenger chats later and I invited him over to see the game and play a few others.

A few nights later, the gentleman that bought the Twin Win and Middle Earth stopped by to pick up his games. When we closed the deal on the Twin Win and Middle Earth he asked if I might have any other “project” games I wanted to sell. In fact, I did have 4 or 5 stored in my pole barn and I offered him the Big Strike and Post Time titles to him as a combo deal – he agreed to take those as well. We used my Escalera to move the 2 machines out of the Loft and then drove over to the pole barn to load the others. He was loaded and gone in under 2 hours

I climbed the steps to the Loft to clean up and put my tools and packing materials away. It was strange to see the “blank spot” along the wall where 2 games used to be … I had to console myself with the thought that soon enough a new Jurassic Park Premium would occupy at least one of the spots.

Well – that escalated fast. I planned to sell 3 games and had already sold 5! At that point in time 4 were already loaded and gone. The only game that remained was Cactus Jack’s and I had a deposit on that machine as well. It took a bit to finally nail down a pick up date. The buyer and I had to work out a common and convenient time and at first struggled a bit to do so. I found out later why. He was driving 7 hours to get here! No matter, we settled on a Sunday evening at the end of the following week. True to his word, he pulled into the ranch right on time! We spent a few minutes getting to know each other and discussing his pinball journey as well as mine. We played a few games (he had a nice 51MM game on Metallica) and started the process of packing Cactus Jack’s for transport. 5 minutes on the Escalera and the machine was safely out of the Loft and slid into his vehicle. He shared that he was now headed to North Carolina to pick up a Twilight Zone before turning north to head home for the 7 hour drive. I handed him a bottled water for the road, thanked him and wish him luck with the new games and he was on his way.

All the while this was going on I was hot and heavy on the Pinside threads surrounding the Stern Jurassic Park game. I wanted to learn as much as I could about the game if I was to order one. My FIRST concern was quality. Playfield quality to be exact. I had just had a terrible experience with Stern Pinball on a KISS Premium machine I had purchased new a few years ago. It game with ghosting inserts that turned into cracked clear coat within 250 plays. I worked with my distributor (who, in turn worked with Stern) over the rediculously long time period of over 2 years, only to be told I would not get a populated playfield to replace my damaged one. You Pinball collectors know what that means … Stern was willing to send me a new playfield but it would be barren. It would be up to me to “do the swap”. Now I’m quite capable of doing this but, come on Stern. A playfield swap is 25 hours or more of work that I don’t need. When I received Stern’s “final answer” on the KISS playfield I was so angry that I had basically sworn off any NIB Pinball purchases on a go forward basis – then I saw Jurassic Park.

I spent hours pouring through more than 70 pages on the JP Premium/LE thread on Pinside. Within a few minutes it was clear that (at least early on) there WAS an issue with playfield quality. I found pictures of rippled clear coats where factory installed posts had pressured the soft clear. I saw images of chipped clear near posts and in some cases where that chipped clear had removed some of the artwork. Dissapointed and concerned … I read on. The good news is that as I moved forward in the thread (newer posts) the problem began to go away. Newer built machines had fewer issues. As I neared the end of the thread, it looked like all of the playfield issues had been resolved.

At this point I’m going to weigh in on the clear coat issue. Not many people can share opinions on this with authority. I can. I’m not an expert but I HAVE clear coated a playfield. I did the playfield on my Bride of Pinbot. I used a professional quaility 2 part (2 pac) clear coat, sprayed through a HVLP gun (High Volume, Low Pressure) hooked to a compressor in a dedicated spray booth (while wearing a hazmat suit and breathing apparatus). I sprayed several coats and finished the playfield with an air sander and then buffing wheels/polishing agents of various grits. It came out looking like glass. You know what? After 2-300 games, it STILL looks the same. No dimples, no chipping, no pooling/rippling – at all. The issues being experienced today MUST have something to do with the chemical composition or mix of the clear.

I have Stern machines that have heavy dimpling where the clear coat is the same thickness as the layers I put down on my BOP. It is very clear that the “dimpling” is in the clear and not the wood. That tells me it’s too soft. I don’t know why, but it is. This has proven to be one of the things that Stern discovered in their work to fix the issue. They simply put less clear coat on the playfield. Less clear coat equals less dimples. This still does not address that issue of why the clear used by their vendor is so “soft”. Hey at the end of the day, it looks like the clear on the newest games is staying put, has less dimpling and pooling so guess what? Time to call my distro and order one.

I zipped off an email to my distributor and got a quick response that they would be “back on the production line” in late February. I asked about sending a deposit or the whole amount and was told to send the full payment and that by the time the check was cleared the machines would likely be made. I got that done the very next day and let him know the “check was in the mail” (I always take a photo and send it along via email). Now there was nothing left to do but wait … or was there?

OK … there were a LOT of things to do before the game arrived! In fact, you probably know by now that I’m a obsessive “modder” when it comes to pinball. It doesn’t stop with modding either. I like to compliment my machines with autographed objects, artwork and even life size replicas of associated characters if available. In the case of Jurassic Park, I went right to Pinside and started researching the “must have” mods for this new game. I did not take long to blow a grand.

Jurassic Park PB Mods:
$130 – Ulek store (3D molded directional signs)
$200 – Mezel Mods (Raptor pen mod, Fossil signs)
$120 – Pinball Life (Shaker motor, upgraded coil stops)
$370 – Robert Stone (Orange powder coating)
$40 – Pinnovators (Subwoofer cable and circuit)
$120 – Amazon (Polk 10″ powered subwoofer)
$90 – Pingraffix (Interior side art blades)
$175 – American Pinball (Magic Glass)
$57 – Titan rubber kit (Clear rubbers, playfield color matched tapered posts)
$1,300 Grand Total

Over the course of the next 2 weeks the porch filled up with boxes from Pinball Life, Mezel Mods, Titan and others. I hauled the booty up to the Loft and stacked it in the store room until my game arrived. One of the very first things I ordered was a set of powder coated armor. Robert Stone does fantastic work and he was an easy choice. When I asked him how the process worked, he shared that you pay for the powder coating and he ships the parts when completed. Once you have the original parts removed, you ship those back to him. It’s an honor system that works well for the most part BUT can get wonky if there are delays (on the customer end). Almost exactly 2 weeks later I got a message from Robert that my powder coating was done. Wow – that was fast … too fast actually. I didnt even have confirm that my game was shipped yet! I started to worry that I would be one of “those customers” that does not return the original armor that Robert needs to complete the next job for the next customer. The message went on to say that he had posted pics of my finished powder coated armor in his Pinside thread “Let me powder coat your game”. I went there to check it out and was blown away. I couldn’t wait to see that orange on my game! The 3 artwork styles that the Pro, Premium and LE version present offer enough variety to warrant a unique powder coat color choice for each. The premium has an orange sky on each side driven from the sunset scene it depicts. The Prismatic brand Illusion Orange Cherry with gold flakes in the clear coat was a perfect match. It would be a while before I had my game in hand to make the swap … at least that’s what I thought.

I spent many hours researching mods, checking out the gallery images in the 2 major threads about the game on Pinside. All of that time paled in comparison to the time I spent searching Ebay for the perfect “non-Pinball” compliment item. I looked for life sized dinosaurs, wall art and tons of autographed Jurassic Park items. I wanted something HUGE or at least something with enough presence that it would be the correct scale when sitting on a floor sized display pedestal. I was about to give up when I found a Wayne Knight (Nedry in the film) autographed Jurassic Park orange safety helmet! It was perfect. It had a plastic IGen identification badge and, importantly came with a custom Lucite stand with the JP logo engraved in the bottom. I was thrilled and quickly made an offer. After a (just as fast) counteroffer, I accepted and within a few days the well packed box arrived. It was AFTER I had purchased the item that I realized just how aligned that kind of item was to the game. During my search I had considered many autographed items. Stuff from Laura Dern, stuff from Sam Neill and others but just couldn’t fall in love with it – some due to size, others due to (insane) pricing. The revelation came when I was listening to a podcast about the game where it was mentioned the ONLY reference to any specific film character in the entire machine was Wayne Knights character – Nedry. It was accidental, but I had bought the one thing that made the most sense to place near the game!

Then, I waited …
Then waited some more …
Before I knew it, the end of February came and I was hopeful, but waiting …

I left for a business trip to Arizona for a few days. The day I left I got to the airport early to find a pretty sizable line formed already. As I approached ticketing I reached for my license … it was gone. Not to be found. Anywhere. OMG. I’m going to Arizona to speak to 200+ people and they are expecting me. I have GOT to get to this meeting! I pulled out my TN Handgun Permit – the only other form of ID that has my image on it. I showed it to the ticket agent and asked if that would get me through security. He said sure – no problem. Then he asked if I had a firearm … to which I answered “no” (wondering why he asked). He was correct. I got to through security using that ID, but what he failed to tell me was that I was going to go to the front of the security line for “enhanced” screening. They tore my bags apart, they used the explosives residue wipes on every little thing. They hand screened me (OK rubbed me all over). Then they let me through security. When I landed in AZ, I began to worry (a lot) that I might not get home so easily. I was not so sure that AZ would agree that a TN Handgun Permit was an OK form of ID – I checked the TSA website and they do NOT accept permits so I had a good reason for concern. I was also scheduled for minor surgery the very next morning of my return so I really needed to get home on time. I contacted our company event planner. She is amazing and a friend. I asked if there were any seats left on the 2 company jets that were returning to Knoxville that Wednesday. Turns out there was ONE and she gabbed it for me. I’m forever grateful.

When I arrived home, I noticed a large and long box on the porch. That could only mean one thing – my armor had arrived from Robert. Now the race was on. He expected me to swap that newly powder coated armor with the original and then ship the original back to him. I was worried. I still did not have my game or a ship date.

I had my surgery the next day. Sitting around recovering stinks so I shot an email off to my distributor. Any updates? I asked … He quickly got back with YES! The game had shipped 3 days ago and was on the way! The next day I got a call from the shipping company asking if it would be “OK” to deliver on the coming Friday. Heck yea! Bring it on …

Friday came and the freight driver called sometime just before lunch and got here about 20 minutes later. I was just finishing up some work when he pulled in to the gate. I had him bring the game to the pole barn because the new house is not “turn-around” friendly for a straight truck or semi. We met out at the barn and I asked if he could unload directly into the Ranger. He said sure and he did. Easy as pie.

Now … getting that game OFF the Ranger was a little more challenging. I could not lift due to surgery so my daughter (who clearly thinks I’m certifiable for being so deep in this hobby) was kind enough to help me. We backed up to the front porch and tipped the machine so that the pallet made contact with the steps, from there is was pretty simple. Escalera to the stairs and then up we went – box and all. That turned out to be a bigger challenge than I anticipated. The box is a LOT bigger than the machine. We made the corner at the bottom but could not turn at the top. Had the pulled the Escalera out and then tip the box on the “truck this side only” side onto the floor and drag it up the last step. From now on all NIB get the “B” in NIB removed before going into the Loft!

Next steps were to cut the box, add the front legs, use my pinball lift to add the back legs, then go to town modding the heck out of it before playing a single game.

I got all the armor swapped without incident. It was stunning to see in person. Just beautiful.

Next up was the shaker motor – 10 minute install max. No issues

Next was the Pinnovators (one of my favs) subwoofer output kits. Takes about 15 minutes if you go slow and carefully strap tie all parts. I take time to do that so an inadvertent tug on the sub cable does not rip components out of your circuit boards in the head.

Next I added the Mezel Mods signage. Super simple with only the upper right ramp causing a slow down because you need to first remove the plastic Stern Pteranodon piece to install the new sign. Two nuts and it comes right off and into the coin box it went.

Time to add the Pingraffix side art to the inside of the cabinet. I first place the playfield upright. Then slide the decals down without getting them stuck to the cabinet side. You can do that by making a “V” out of them as you slide them down into the narrow crack between the playfield and the cabinet side. Then pull the ends of your “V” back toward the cabinet and get a rough placement. Don’t stick them hard yet. Go to the other side of the cabinet and check your alignment. Once they are aligned you can work the decal to make it stick. I install these dry with no issues. Some trimming is needed up near the flipper buttons around the washers that Stern uses to secure the Pal nuts that hold the flipper button housing in place. Use a sharp knife but know that these trimmed areas can’t be seen above the playfield anyway.

I still had quite a few “sign posts” to install from the Ulek store. These were very easy to install as they had a plexi base already affixed with a hole drilled to correspond to many threaded posts in the game. There are a half dozen good places to locate these and I used some imagery from Pinside to mimic placement. These are 3D and look super installed.

I saved the Mezel Mods “Raptor Pen” install for the end thinking it might be challenging. It was not. It took a few minutes but was very straightforward. Pull the 3M tape covering, and stick each half to the top of the Stern plastics. Be careful to locate the domes that allow flashers to shine through in the correct orientation. The piece on the right is sensitive to the washer that is installed on the wireform hold down nut – center that washer first, then install the right side piece. Following the pen sculpt install, you’ll need to add the wire. There is only one piece supplied and you can cut it exactly in half to create 2 wires around the pen. Go slow and don’t force the wire or you may break part of the sculpt. Once complete, nip the ends toward the back off using you wire cutters. Finally hang the 10,000 volt sign wherever you wish on the pen. It looks fantastic and the only issue I see is getting under it when maintenance might be required. That just means you’ll pull the parts and either re-use the 3M tape or place some new. Tired from the day (and the anti-biotics I was on) I called it quits for the night.

I started fresh the next morning by spending a little over 2 hours swapping all the black rubber for Titan clear rubber. Most of the swap was easy but of note for you all attempting this the back plastic behind the pops needs to come off to get to the 2 rubbers on the star posts back there. That was tricky and involved loosening the spiral wireform to remove the left pop cap. Then the plastic could be removed by bending it and pulling toward the backboard of the machine. Be careful or you’ll remove art from the plastic as it slips over the threaded post. The ONLY rubber I could not switch out was behind the right metal ramp that feeds the spiral wireform. When/if I ever need to remove that ramp, I’ll make that swap. You can BARELY see them anyway.

I had ordered 3 colors of Titan flipper rubber to test. Red, Blue and Green. I settled on green and installed those next – 5 minutes max. I had also ordered a complete set of Titan slim tapered (Stern style) post sleeves. I wanted to color match the playfield to the sleeves. I ended up using green at the T-Rex, Blue at the Jeep and Pteranodon ramps and left the black at the upper flipper and raptor pen area. Black at the upper flipper looked great and the black at the raptor pen was out of prudence … it looked like a major pain to get to those sleeves!

Finally … I popped open the box from American pinball that contained my fresh sheet of Magic Glass and slid that in to replace the stock tempered version. It looked amazing! Time to play!!

Chris and I played a few games and really enjoyed it. My daughter even popped in for 2 games. My wife showed no interest in the theme even when invited to the inaugural game. She loves her WOZ, Aerosmith and KISS and is super excited about the new GnR but Jurassic? Not so much. So we played several 3 person games and had a bunch of fun. Here’s why.

• The original score music is just awesome. It’s one of the things that ties the entire game back to the movie series
• The JP logos that are everywhere help to do the same thing
• The sound quality is better than I expected. It plays loud and clean. The Helicopter adds to the package, a subwoofer is a must.
• The T-Rex roar at 30 volume (or higher) is just sweet. You can feel it due to the shaker and the subwoofer combo – very movie-like!
• The artwork is really nice. Johnny Crap did an awesome job. Colors on the Premium Edition are beautiful – love the orange!
• Escape Nublar Challenge is a blast to play. What a unique way to add another dimension to the game
• The shots … OMG the shots. They are … challenging, incredibly fast at times, incredibly satisfying to hit in combos, incredibly diverse and varied, incredibly tight in some areas, incredibly smooth in the wireforms, incredibly unique – did I say incredible?

We finished a few games and called it a night. I went back to the Loft later that evening to have a few more games on my own. When playing I notice 2 things that did not “seem right”. First the left apron “art triangle” was not lit up like the right one was. Second, there were times where I would get a ball added to my ball in play. Most times during ball launch, right around the time the ball passed the helicopter blades. I pulled the playfield out to see if the LED board had a broken wire or something obvious that would cause it not to light up. I traced the power supply wires to a “Z” connector and quickly spotted the problem. Whoever assembled the machine had missed one of the connectors on the “Z” by one wire. I unplugged it and plugged it back in correctly. One issue solved. Too tired to investigate the extra ball being added to game play, I headed off to bed to worry about that the next day

With a fresh mind, I went back to the machine and watched the screen as I launched the first ball. Sure enough, almost instantly, another ball was launched into play. This time I spotted the screen saying “Ball Save”. Aha! Has to be an opto in the ball trough or an outlane switch. I went to Pinside to post for some help. The response I got mirrored my suspicions. So, I placed the machine in switch test and tested the left and right outlanes. Sure enough, the NEDRY (of course – trouble maker) right outlane switch was poorly adjusted and was not fully opening. Thus it was randomly telling the machine that a ball had just passed over it and (if within the allotted ball save time) to serve another one! 2 minutes to adjust and the game was back to full strength!

Final verdict? Too soon to tell. Read the laundry list of positive comments above. I clearly like the game. I may even love it. It’s a blast to play. It keeps you on edge with the music and non-stop action. The only thing to slow the game down is the T-Rex modes and the Raptor Pen. It’s fast and fun!

I’m only a casual Jurassic Park fan. Dino’s are cool no matter what but I was busy raising a family and building a career when the first movie came out and didn’t even see it until years later. I don’t have the nostalgia for the franchise that others might. Still … I like the movies. Actually really enjoy them. But the lack of theme integration or “imperfect” call-outs that others bang this game for are not an issue for me. Will I fall in love with it? Maybe, you know that Pinball “always finds a way …”