I’ve been at my current place of employment for 25 years this past October. That hardly seems possible cause I feel like I lived an entire lifetime of careers before I started this one but … it’s true. I’ve only been alive about 20,000 days and have worked for the same company for 9,000 of them! The back story looks like this. In early 1994, the owner of the company where I was the acting VP of Marketing shared with me that he had “sold the company”. I was asked to stay on as they transferred ownership over the next 6 months or so. I did that and at the same time got my name in the hands of an executive placement agency. They called to share an opportunity with a small company that I eventually accepted a position with. That “small company” grew to become a top 20 privately held company in the US. None of us saw that coming. I have certainly been blessed to have the job I’ve have for all these years and even more blessed to have it with a wonderful company. I’ve had the opportunity to run Stores, Organizational Change Management, Marketing, Fuel Analytics, CRM/Loyalty and several others. It’s been challenging for sure, but in the words of an oft-used quote – it’s also “been a great ride.” The actual day of the anniversary was very nice. My lovely wife enjoys celebrating moments both large and small and she surprised me at the office with some balloons and a beautiful plaque. Blessed indeed

What the heck does my job have to do with Pinball you say? Well in this case nothing – except the fact that one of the games I own is ” Iron Man” and I love to collect all things related to the games I own. So when I received a gift card from my company in return for my 25 years of service, I bought an Iron Man statue with the money. Of course I did. Who wouldn’t?

The whole interest in 1:1 statues began before I finished the new Pinball Loft. Late last winter, Tami and I were just getting ready for bed and were using our tablets to look for lighting fixtures for the new house when I happened to see a picture of a full scale 1:1 Spider-man. I quickly got lost in the hunt for more info (squirrel!) as she continued to search for fixtures. I found the Spider-man on Ebay at prices around $5,000+. It sure looked cool. Spider-man was sitting on a lamp post – the top of his head was over 8 feet in the air! He was colorful, detailed and realistic looking too. Through research I soon discovered the item to be made by Rubies Costume company and that it was an official Marvel licensed product. I thought I’d check to see if Amazon offered the same item or any other (less expensive) versions. The first hit on Amazon was the exact item BUT … it was 1/3rd the price of any of the items on Ebay. I whispered over to Tami, showed her the picture (to which she said “cool!”) and then asked if she thought it would be a good idea to get one for the new Loft – she said yes! I ordered the Spider-man and he showed up just a few days later in perfect condition!

Fast forward to September of this year and the Pinball Loft is complete. Our new house is finished and we are officially all moved in. Spider-man looks fantastic up there and is one of the things that “wows” people when they walk in (still wows me too!). So my work anniversary rolls around, I am given a one-time gift for my service and it’s all mine – what to do? The answer is start searching for a partner for Spider-man. I began with the games I own. Simple internet searches quickly ruled out games where no manufacturer had yet built a 1:1 scale of the associated super hero, talent or personality. There were no 1:1 scale Stay-Puft Marshmallow men from Ghostbusters. There were no 1:1 scale X-men (that I cared about). There were no 1:1 scale KISS figures (that I could afford!). The one that DID come up again and again was Iron Man. Over the years there have been several versions of a 1:1 scale Iron Man. Over course there are also MANY versions of Iron Man as well. When I narrowed my search into a certain price band, the name that came up (again) was Rubies. Seems they had just released a version of Iron Man themselves. Licensed through Marvel and manufactured the exact same way my Spider-man was made. Very cool. Now I just had to find the best price.

The price search took about 2 weeks on and off. There were quite a few places that had the item for sale. Ebay, Amazon and a few independent retailers as well. There was also an online costume company – and they had the best price. I waited a few days and they had a site-wide sale of 15% off and using that coupon code I purchased Iron Man that day.
I received an order confirmation and quickly thereafter a shipping tracking number. Things seemed to be going real well – or so I thought. I watched as the shipment moved from “tracking info received” to “order picked up” and was pleased to see it headed my way. I was then shocked when just a few days later my shipping notice was marked “Arrived”. Not seeing the huge box on my porch I began the usual rounds of the ranch looking for where else the FedEx driver might have dropped it off. Pole Barn – nope. Other house – nope. Down by the gate – nope. Behind the house – nope. OK, so clearly it did not “Arrive” – then where was it? I checked the shipping tracker again and read the destination. Bummer. Iron Man was shown to be delivered right BACK to the original shipping address. He had gone in a circle from the warehouse he left right back there again.

I started to worry, so I researched a little more on this company and found a (admittedly old) website of reviews that were not glowing. In fact, one of them was from a disgruntled customer that had the exact same thing happen to them. Item showed shipped and then received right back to the place of origin. I called the company the next day and explained what I saw on my end and why I was worried. They could not have been nicer. They asked me what I wanted them to do to fix it. Did I need another shipped expedited? I was blown away. I simply asked that they ship it to me (not themselves) and that I was not in a particular hurry. They said they would and within a few minutes I received an email confirming it.

This time, Iron Man made it! Within just a few days I got a call from a FedEx driver asking for our gate code and stating that he had a huge box strapped to a pallet for delivery. I gave him the code and asked him to place in under cover on our porch as it was going to rain later that day. He promised to be extra careful because (as he said) “I don’t want to break Iron Man!” I didn’t think to ask him how he knew what was inside but when I got home I found the box marked on the outside with a checklist for all the Iron Man parts- turns out our FedEx driver does not have ESP after all.

One thing I noticed right away was the large sheet of paper on the outside of the box marked “Feiermeier, Nürnberg/Bavaria”. That’s odd. I live in Tennessee, not Germany. How did that get there? It’s also marked with a Order number and PO number that has nothing to do with my order. I did a little research and it seems that Feiermeier is a costume/party store in Germany. Looks like a large operation too. I can only guess that at one time the Feiermeier folks wrote an order for a bunch of these and they were either refused or returned. Just a guess but this giant box originally shipped from the Rubies Phoenix AZ location to Germany, then made it back to a warehouse in Cudahy, Wisconsin and eventually ended up on my front porch. I’m just glad he’s arrived and think it’s pretty cool he’s traveled the world to get here.

A full day went by (a rainy one) before I could start the process of un-boxing. I got home at a decent hour the following night and planned to get him un-boxed and set up. I quickly changed my clothes and grabbed a box cutter. It’s always a little nerve wracking deciding how and where to cut the box without accidentally slicing into the item inside. First I cut the single plastic strap that was holding the box to the pallet. Then I made a cut near the edge, peered inside and saw it was safe to cut the entire length. With the box now open, I could quickly assess the other cuts I needed to make to get the exterior opened up. In no time at all I was staring at a headless/body less Iron Man completely wrapped in bubble wrap, with a large cardboard box propped on top of his legs. The cardboard box was sitting on a scrap of blow molded black foam that was used specifically as a “table” to give a spot for the box to rest upon during shipping. Tucked in between his legs where what appeared to be his arms.

A few minutes later, I was able to get the box off of his legs and remove both the cardboard surrounding him and the pallet under him. I could now grab his legs and easily lift/carry the base portion of the statue up into the game room. I grabbed his leg assembly and lifted it by locking hands just under his crotch – wincing a little (for him) in the process. Tami grabbed the door and I was on my way to the Loft.

I got the legs section carried up to the second floor of the Pinball Loft without incident. There I began the tedious process of removing the protective plastic. It was in 2 layers. The first was a heavy plastic that was both wrapped tightly around each piece and was taped in place. The outer wrapping was all bubble wrap. It too was tightly wrapped and taped. The process for getting the 2 layers off was straightforward but slow going. Find the tape area, poke it with my knife to cause it to split, tear that section of plastic to allow it to loosen and gain distance from the Iron Man piece, then slice the plastic lengthwise. Rinse and repeat about a hundred times. The only time the work slowed was when I was cutting directly around the poor guys crotch. Something about a razor sharp knife in that area just gave me the willies and I was a degree more careful as I cut the wrapping free!

The cardboard box I found stacked on his legs when I originally opened the shipping box contained both his torso and his head. They too were wrapped in the same fashion as the legs were. At the base of the legs I found a very small box that had 2 long hex head bolts in it and the Marvel authorized certificate of authenticity (translation = piece of cardboard) taped to the outside. I set aside the bolts for later and put the certificate in a drawer.

With the legs and torso free of their plastic wrapping, I could begin assembly of the statue. The torso, arms and head all have a plastic PVC pipe (painted black) molded into each end. These rigid pipes mate with a similar diameter hole drilled into the foam on the statue itself. There is a hole right in the middle of the legs assembly in order to seat and mate the torso – that was step one and it went off without a hitch.

With the torso in place, I next proceeded to unwrap each arm. The arms each have the same PVC pipe and these mate into drilled holes in the top area of the torso. The difference here is that the pipes are also drilled crossways to accept that hex head bolt once pushed into the the torso. The bolts are slid in vertically and downward from the open neck area. Once the bolts are in position, the arms can not be pulled off of the torso without first removing them. When the head is added as a final step, the bolts are hidden from view

There are only a couple of online reviews that discuss the Iron Man Rubies statue. Every retailer offering it for sale shows that one of the features of the item is that it “lights up”. I was excited to see that in action but none of the reviews provide any details on how it worked. I did know that it was a battery operated function. I wasn’t too excited to hear that because my Spider-man (from Rubies as well) is lit via an AC “wall wart” – it’s super convenient and batteries are not. I quickly discovered the only real downside to this beautiful sculpt – it takes batteries, it takes batteries in 3 places, it takes batteries in 3 places that are hard to get to (insert sad face here). To be honest, it’s not a deal breaker just a disappointment. I will probably replace the battery supply with an AC/DC wall wart in the future. It looks like each battery compartment takes 2 pieces each of a 3 volt lithium coin cell battery. I can find a million 6 volt power supplies online so getting a power supply is easy. I would then need to run supply wiring to each of the battery boxes (there are 3 total) and tap into the wiring. The supply wires to each battery box are easily accessible so this is not an insurmountable task. It is, however, one I’ll need to be careful with because the LEDs in the statue are not replaceable.

In just a few hours or so I had the entire statue put together. I slid it into position right next to Spider-man. It fit – barely. This is a large item – not nearly as tall as Spider-man but due to the pose, much wider. After positioning him, I replaced my stanchions and red crowd control strap to keep little kids and clumsy adults away.

It should be noted that these Rubies items are not indestructible. I would not call them fragile but they are pretty close to that designation. The layer of plastic over the foam is relatively thin and it can crack. I also know that if someone was to run into the arms on these that they would likely split, crack of break off the PVC mounts. It’s just not worth it having them exposed to handling by folks that would not know the level of delicacy inherent to the design. Best to warn everyone before they enter the Loft. My standard goes like this “No kids upstairs without an adult, no kids under 12 without constant supervision and no one, EVER touches Spider-man or Iron Man. The Pinball games are a completely different story – anyone (and I mean anyone) of any age can play ANY game they like. Just keep the drinks in the drink holders and play away! I even have a few stools available for the youngsters to use to reach the flippers.

As is customary here on the ranch, when finished un-boxing something this large … it’s off to the burning barrel! This time there was no way all of the cardboard would fit so I leaned it against the barrel and with a flick of the thumb had flames leaping 20′ high into the air. In just minutes only ash remained

So what do I think about it now that it’s here? For the price I love it! I love the battle damage paint job that makes him look like he just fought the Iron Monger. I like the detail of the sculpt. It’s a level of detail that makes him appear real – not a cartoon version of IM but a movie version. He looks perfectly “balanced” with his hand outstretched. It’s not as easy as you might think to get a sculpt to look that natural but this one does. The base of faux rocks he is standing on is just enough to give him some context in the room. The sculpt detail is also a full 360 so if he was in the middle of a room, he would be just as convincing and nice to look at from any direction. 

What would I change? Just a few things and one of them you already know. The lighting needs to be AC supplied. Batteries never really work for permanent display items and this is the epitome of “permanently on display”. I would also brighten up the red and the gold color that was chosen for his paint job. It’s a little dull. It’s probably screen accurate but IM is supposed to be a “wow” figure – make him pop with color.

That’s it! I’d buy him again given another chance to decide. If you had told me in 1994 that I would still be working for the same company, I would have trouble believing you. If you followed that up with the words – and you’ll use the anniversary check from that same company to buy a full scale Iron Man statue – I would have called you crazy. Yet it happened that way. In the end, I think he is a great conversation piece for Pinball Loft newcomers and for any fan of the Marvel franchise. I’m glad he’s here.

You would think that getting some snacks put together for your Pinball room would be fairly straightforward – right? Speaking from the experience of just having done it, I would have to say “it’s a little more complicated that you think”.

Let’s start with the fact that this is not simply “getting some snacks for a one time event”. It’s more than that, much more.

Here was what I wanted for my gameroom:

• A permanent selection of snacks to LEAVE up in the Pinball Loft
• Needed to be snacks that would not get stale too quickly
• I wanted a few items that would be healthier than just sugary candy
• There needed to be a way to store AND display them
• The containers needed to be clear – to show off the colors and the contents
• I needed multiple sizes to allow varying inventories of each
• I needed to be able to get whatever snack choices I made in bulk pack sizes
• The containers had to be fairly easy to open or be a “dispensing” type BUT had to be airtight too
• I needed a counter or a cart to place it all on
• I needed to solve exactly how to get the snacks out of the containers (no hands please)
• I would need to find disposable cups or sample cups to allow guests to carry the snacks with them

I started my quest with a vision to have all of these snacks dispensed in traditional style gumball/nuts machines. After reviewing what was available, the price per unit and the fact some of the snacks I wanted just could not be dispensed. I gave up on that idea and began to pursue more traditional snack containers

I must have looked at a hundred varieties of glass containers and wall mounted bulk food dispensers in my quest. I don’t know about you but whenever I find a decently reviewed item on Amazon (4 stars or so), after digging into the individual reviews, I always find one or 2 that scare me off and I decide not to buy. That was the story on all of the wall or counter mounted “dispensing” types. So I moved on.

Next I searched for the simple glass containers. Most looked pretty good. They were the very traditional looking Anchor Hocking style glass containers – but they were HUGE and they were NOT airtight. They were also fairly expensive at $20 each! So I moved on.

I spent a few more evenings researching and had about given up on the idea when I was shopping in Walmart with my daughter and decided to “see what they had”. First we struggled to find anything – even the glass containers. Once we narrowed down the right aisle we found a cheaper version (of course) of the traditional glass containers with the loose lids. Nearby though, we saw what turned out to be the “final answer” – the Better Homes and Gardens “Flip-Tight” containers. These things are awesome!

• They are inexpensive (largest one I bought was <$10)
• They are airtight
• You can open them with one hand
• They are clear
• They come in MANY sizes
• They are stackable (though I don’t use this feature)
• They are BPA free (matter most if you put liquid in them)
• I bought 3 each of 3 different sizes:
• 4.5 cup, 7 cup and 10 cup

With storage solved, I was on to the next mission. What snacks to put in them? Some were an easy answer because they are favorites of mine.
It’s my room and I get to pick! So I picked up some:

• Peanut M&Ms
• Runts candies
• Snickers
• Payday
• Peanut Butter Pretzels

The rest of the list was chosen based on:
– Picking a cheap “kids” candy
– Picking a popular item that I did NOT like
– Adding a healthy offer
– Adding some variety
With that in mind I added:

• Dum Dum lollipops (super cheap, huge bag)
• Skittles (loved by all, but not me)
• Trail Mix (healthier option)
• SweetTarts (variety and value)

With the food choices solved, I now had to figure out how my guests would get the snacks out of the jars and what they would put them in (besides their mouth)

Still in Walmart with my daughter, we went straightaway to the paper goods section, and specifically scoped out the cup offering. Bingo! The good folks at Dixie make a cute little 3oz cup that you can buy with it’s own plastic dispenser right in the box! The dispenser is durable and re-usable. Not only that but you can buy the 3oz cups refills all by themselves – home run. I grabbed the dispenser pack and a spare box of refills and we were off to the kitchen utensils area.

I spent a good 10 minutes looking over:

• Coffee scoops
• Ice Cream scoops
• Fruit scoops
• Melon scoops
• Pooper scoops (kidding)

I finally gave up and settled on what looked like and ice cream scoop. It was, in fact a super cheap, plastic ice cream scoop – 88 cents. I had a choice of green, blue and red and I picked the blue. I honestly thought I would probably just toss it once I found a “proper” scoop but to be honest – it’s perfect. To be perfect, functional and cheap is downright amazing. The scoop stays.

I got all of this home and rushed it upstairs to the the Pinball Loft to unpack and set it up. I was nervous my wife would see me and I would get the “look” for bringing (mostly) unhealthy food into our (mostly) healthy home. I passed under the radar and undetected. Over the next hour I un-bagged and unwrapped all the goodies and found a spot on a end table to place it all. I’m not sure if this will be the permanent home but it works for now.

In the end it all came out really nice. I love the “look”, and really like how easy it is to get into the containers and get yourself a snack with little effort. Refill is a breeze as well. The only thing I might change is to build a small cart in the future that would be custom designed to hold these specific containers. It would have built in tiered/stepped levels to full display the candy. I would add a spot for the scoop and the cups and likely add wheels so it could be moved around the gameroom as needed. Lastly, I’d add a custom (colorful) sign to the top (Snack Time!, etc.)

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 …

Thought I’d share how this all started. I was not always involved in the pinball scene. Here’s the rest of the story …

My wife and I purchased a summer home in 2008 and wanted it to be a place where we could decompress. We planned carefully, researched the location, type of home, etc. One of the things we knew we wanted was a house that was “fun” to visit. We literally sat down and wrote out what “fun” would look like to us. Once we purchased the home, we ordered a Ping Pong table, built a hardscape and waterfall out back, bought a boat, went shopping for board games and … bought a Pinball machine. Theater of Magic to be exact.

I grew up in the 70’s and although not surrounded by Pinball, I was at least exposed to it. I played it on occasion in arcades and laundromats but was always intimidated by it. I never understood the rules. I was not very skilled at it and my games were typically short and generally disappointing. In short I never loved Pinball – heck I barely liked it.

I went off to college, studied Fine Arts, got my degree and graduated to a career in Marketing. My interests and hobbies throughout my adult years prepped me to finally both appreciate and eventually fall in love with Pinball. I’ve worked with wood to remodel houses, wired houses, wrote software, crafted commercial art, wrenched my own cars and even studied electrical theory to get my HAM license. The same things that interested me about these subjects would eventually align to cement my love for all things Pinball.

Fast forward 40 years and Theater of Magic is sitting in the corner of my new summer house. I’m stunned. I can’t believe I have my own machine. I play a few games and that old “you’renot very good at this” feeling comes back. Then a few more games as I tell myself “who cares, it’s YOUR game – just hit start again!” I played the heck out of that game and was from that moment on hooked on the hobby. I loved the art, the complex mechanics, the software/lights/sounds system, the randomness that Pinball has over video games. I loved everything about it – I found out later that just like cars, I liked working on them too. Good thing.

By the time we sold the summer house, I was up to 8 games and wondering what had happened to me. Was I a hoarder? Why was I compelled to keep buying games? I had no other answer other than I loved the hobby and wanted to go even deeper. So deeper I went. We moved back to our main house and with more space, the collection quickly grew to fill it. Within 2 years I was at 17 games and no space left to put them. I had 2 in storage and one literally sitting inside my home theater. I had to sell something. I finally was forced to sell 2 games to make space. Once they were gone, I was (briefly) resigned to keeping “just 15” machines and simply trading them out as new titles came up.

Shortly after the sale of the 2 machines, we began to search for a home that had more property. The property search was driven by our family love of horses. We owned 2 at the time and wanted to buy/build a horse ranch of our own. On Super Bowl Sunday we found a real estate listing for 44 acres of land that had been on the market just one day. We called. We looked. We bought it 2 days later. The property was stunning with one caveat. It had a small rancher house on it that would barely allow me to set up 8 machines let alone 15. No matter. We knew right away we would quickly build our retirement home on this land. In the meantime, I could put a few machines in storage in order to wait for the “perfect game room”. So we set about building a functioning horse ranch. We ran 3/4 of a mile of 4 board poplar fencing. I Bought 250 gallons of Lexington FenceCoat black acrylic lacquer paint and sprayed it twice (both sides!).

We also excavated and constructed a 36 x 60 foot 6 stall horse barn. We even built a smaller barn for our mini horse and donkey. I added 2 run in sheds for the horses and a built a concrete floor manure pit for good measure. Midway through the build I discovered that I had to have a quadruple heart bypass. I’m a lifelong runner so to say the least that was a surprise. I’m blessed to share that I came through just fine but 6 months of forward momentum was lost. Oh well, no need to whine about it. I had the operation and just over 100 days later was back running a 5K again!Importantly, I’m healed and healthy and able to lift and move 300lb Pinball machines again.

I took nearly 2 years to complete the horse ranch and while all of THAT was going on, I bought ANOTHER 28 Pinball machines! The property already had a 75′ x 40′ pole barn on it and in 2 years I did a pretty good job of filling it. Machines were stored in our office, the pole barn, in the basement, living room, dining room … it was getting a little crazy. Toward the end of the ranch build, I was challenged personally with the passing of my neighbor, my best pinball friend (Andy) and my own father from the very same (rare) blood disease called “MDS”. As you might imagine, it was a roller coaster of emotions during this time period. In fact, they all passed away during the same year. My perspective on life, relationships and “things” has been forever altered because of it – certainly for the better. If anything, Pinball became even more important to me. Not the games themselves, but the people I’ve met because of them. The people I now invite over to play them or to just sit and talk. Andy taught me that lesson. For him, Pinball was the means to an end. That end goal was to engage and know people in a deeper way. He was a genius at it. I’m still in Kindergarten.

We finally broke ground on our new custom home in October of 2018 and 11 months later moved in. It was everything we had hoped for. The game room WAS perfect and the “Pinball Loft” as it is called today can hold up to 50 games at any time. I like to keep it at 40 because it leaves lots of room to move around and work on the games. The room is over 1,500 square feet, has a sleeping loft, restroom, star gazing back deck, 200 feet of RGB LED lighting and recliners and sofas for guest comfort. It was engineered to hold the over 50,000 pound of weight generated by 50 pinballs and 50 guests. The wiring includes 8 dedicated 20 amp switched circuits so I can turn all the games on or off with 8 flicks of the finger. There is a dedicated HVAC system to keep the area comfortable no matter how many games are being played. I designed and built most of it and am feel blessed to be able to create something so fun!

So what’s next? Interestingly, I can tell that something has changed in my feelings about the hobby. Now that I have this much space, I don’t feel to urge to add more games. In fact, my focus has shifted into the “quality” realm. I want to make each game as perfect as it can be. There are larger collections than mine in the country (some incredibly larger ones) but I take pride in that all of the games in my game room are working. I don’t collect “project games”. From time to time I might buy one, but that game is earmarked to be restored and most don’t sit long before they are complete. Now, I’m looking at some of my older games and either doing a deeper restore or putting them up for sale to get a better copy or different title. I’m also reviewing all the titles in the collection to make sure they are what I would want in a 40 piece Pinball collection. If not, I can sell or trade that title out for a more desirable one. I’ve also come to realize the significant challenge in keeping a collection this size working. I do all my own work including most of the soldering/board work. I really enjoy it as much as playing the games. At least I thought I did. All that changed with having all 40 games in one spot and all set up for play. Now the percentage of time spent working on the games has increased to become burdensome. Each issue that I repair reminds me that the condition of the games I buy is even more critical to me than it was in the past – I can’t afford the time to repair like I used to during the days of “building the collection”. 

So what’s the bottom line on “me and Pinball” today? I want to spend more time with friends. I want to share the collection. I think all collectors do. The advantages of Pinball is that you don’t just look at them, you play them. I’m now having more people over to the Loft to play the games. Heck, many times I will just hang out on the side of the machine and watch them. I enjoy teaching them little tricks, sharing the history of the games and the details of the company and people who created them. I’m trying to live out the lesson I learned from my buddy Andy. He showed me that Pinball becomes exponentially more fun with friends around and when the things you collect enhance your relationships, you are getting the most from your hobby. Pinball does that for me and will remain a lifelong passion.

The story behind the game starts with a trip to get a Gottlieb Gold Wings. Yup, Gold Wings. When I arrived to see the game in person, the Gold Wings was misbehaving a bunch. There was a power supply issue related to a bad solder joint causing mid-game resets and flippers that wouldn’t allow the ball to make the ramp. I was disappointed because I really wanted a copy of that title but the price along with it’s condition took it off my list. 

When I asked the seller if he had any other Pinballs he said that he had just picked up 2 more and they were still in his truck. A minute later we were standing outside behind his pickup in a very brisk January breeze. Brrrr. He pulled back a blanket to reveal a well worn Williams Jokerz. I knew that this was not a highly desirable system 11 but I loved the artwork and enjoyed playing it when I saw it at shows, etc. John Youssi (the artist) lives in my home state of Tennessee and I simply love his work.

The seller shared that the guy he bought it from said he could not get it to boot and that he had purchased a replacement transformer for it but had second thoughts about tackling that level of work on the game – so he sold it. I got to see just the center of the playfield and that looked “OK” at best. The cabinet on the left side had literally been carved into by either a child or someone acting as one. I was also able to see that the head had some structural issues and would need some glue and cabinet clamps to correct. I also noticed that the backglass was cracked (not tempered) and the translight was significantly faded.

I asked the seller what he wanted for the Jokerz and he shared a price that put it right at “market” – this was not a “market” condition game but I asked him to let me know when/if he got it to boot and I would think about it. I got a call a few days later that he had the Jokerz up, working and had played it. I could stop back and see it anytime. He reaffirmed the price and backed it up by sharing some of the new parts he had on order but had not installed yet. He had ordered  a new upper playfield, rubber kit, lift channel, and a tempered back glass and would give me all those parts if we agreed on a deal. So I drove back to see the game and …  the game was stripped! I mean like down to the bare playfield stripped. All the parts/ramps/plastics were in a box. Ugh. Not his fault at all. I had not committed to buy and he was marching along doing what he does to prep the game for sale. So … I couldn’t play it. I looked over the rest of the game good as this was my first real chance.

The “other” side of the cabinet was just as bad as the “carved side”. The Mylar was lifting in places and would need to be surgically trimmed. The translight was that in name only as most of the ink took a permanent vacation. The legs were painted blue and scratched. Many of the plastics were cracked. The playfield glass was a scratched mess (aren’t they all?) and It started in “adjust failure” mode.  On closer inspection I saw significant corrosion on the top connector of the on-board battery box (nothing below it thank God).

No matter, blinded by the drug called Pinball, I took his word that it actually worked and made an offer. We came together on the price and started to prep the game for transport. First order of business for me was to “check the ramps”.  I never saw them in the game. Never got to check for cracks or broken mounting tabs, etc. When I pulled the first one out of the box my heart sank. It was missing large chunks from both left and right. The left ramp was worse. Now what. This was not going to work. But wait. What do I see, she’s walking back to me .. sorry, that’s a song. What I saw was ANOTHER Jokerz sitting 3 feet from me. I walked over and in 2 seconds saw that all 3 ramps were in very good condition. I asked that he swap ramps as part of the deal. He’s a great guy and agreed on the spot. We grabbed some tools and traded out all 3 ramps before I left.

Time to fold the head and get this project machine loaded, but wait. How do you fold the head and secure the speaker panel and the light panel when there is no backglass (it was cracked remember). Easy, unplug the entire speaker panel and shove some small blankets into the head to hold the light panel from flopping around in transit.  

This Weathers’s a Joke.

Time to load it – boy it looks cloudy all of the sudden. I quickly check the weather report again – nope, no rain predicted for today. But by now you know my track record on hauling pins. If I buy one – it rains. Every time. I get it loaded say goodbye and hit the road. I’m halfway in the middle of nowhere. It’s dark and I have NOT put a tarp over the game. Why? Because I checked the weather and it’s not supposed to rain- that’s why. It starts to sprinkle almost to the second I pull out of the driveway. Within 5 minutes it’s light rain. In 20 minutes I am forced to stop in I-40 in heavy traffic to pull out my tarp and cover the game or risk water damage. I stopped, covered the game and moved on toward home. I made it home dry and safe but had no one to help unload the game.

It was a weekday and I usually only have someone that can help on the weekends. So I tried to unload the game alone. Don’t do that. Getting it to the edge of the tailgate, adding the front legs is a breeze. the next steps are all danger and risk. I pulled the front of the game with the legs now installed off the tailgate. It was then that I noticed the distance from the bottom of the legs to the concrete was “too far” – in other words the game would be sitting at roughly a 45 degree angle and would in all likelihood, simply slide onto the ground and break in a million Jokerz pieces. so I pushed it back on the truck. Then I had the bright idea to put a large flat top wood pallet under those front legs. I repeated the “pull it off the truck” step and sure enough, I was able to reach the pallet with the front legs and not have the game crash. I was so excited! Maybe I had discovered the new “one-man-can-unload-a-pinball-alone” technique that no one else had ever thought of. Not so much. After a minute I came to the simple conclusion – now what? I could no longer put it back on the truck and I could not take it the rest of the way off. Fortunately I heard my daughter approaching on her way to the barn. “What’cha doin'” is her common greeting. Oh – trying to kill myself, why? She knew the drill and asked if she could help. In 30 seconds we had it off the truck and safely on 4 legs.

It was late and I had time to only do one thing to the game before heading into the house. I settled on a shotgun repair of the corroded battery terminal. The top pad was completely gone due to acid and needed something to restore continuity to the through hole behind it. I grabbed a tiny screw and inserted it into the rivet hole that was now corroded away. The head of the screw now made good contact with the battery and the threads of the screw created continuity to the pin from the through hole. I turned the game on and was deflated to find the same message on the DMD – “adjust failure”. Then I remembered that you needed to factory reset these games, then power cycle, then start again. It worked. I now had a game that would hold menu settings as I worked on it in the coming weeks. 

Pieces and Parts

Tonight was inventory night. You can’t restore a machine without parts. In many cases you can’t even start without parts. So I needed to know what I needed. My problem though was that most of my existing parts are in a box. So the process of taking an inventory was just that much more complicated. The existing star posts were a mess. Cracked, faded and covered in 20 years of wax. They needed to go. So I took a star posts count – but wait, some of the ones I have are 1 and 1/16″ inch and other ones  1 and 3/16″. I took an internet trip to the Marco website to confirm these 2 heights exist – they do. I order 35 pieces as it looks like the game requires 34. I ordered the taller ones first only to discover that these had been added by an operator and (best as I can tell) were not the correct height. Fortunately I had  stock on hand of the correct height posts. I stock lots of LED’s but do I have what I need for this game? Turns out, no. So insert by insert I review each and attempt to color match – The Red looking inserts (from the top) are actually orange when I shine my flashlight through the bottom – that throws me off a bit- There are 25 total bulbs under the playfield and I’ve attached my color matching LED plan here because there is very little info out there about this game surrounding LED’s- There is only ONE red insert (arrow right) The drops are sticky on 2 of the 3 banks so I ordered new springs all the way around (9 total) and ordered new drops and decals as well.

Now I turn my attention to the main ramp. This is the one that my seller swapped for me. It’s in great shape BUT the deflectors that are on the end of it (to corral the ball when it jumps up the red ramp) are incorrect. These deflectors are created in left and right pairs. They are not interchangeable. My problem? I have 2 of the right deflectors and zero of the left. Looking at the ramp straight on, the left deflector is not longer protecting the ramp and guiding the ball – it’s actually capturing the ball and shoving it right into the unprotected left edge of the ramp. And … it’s riveted on there. That means this game was on route and played that way from some time. I’m shocked that the left edge of the center ramp is not destroyed. Using my welding pliers, a sheet metal brake and a handheld torch, I created a lefty deflector by bending it 180 degrees on 2 of the angles. Works like a charm.  

Icky Upper

There’s a thread on Pinside about the worst hacks you’ve seen. This one doesn’t make the all time hits list but the installation of a 12 volt fan to keep an overheating transformer cool is pretty “hacky”. I removed the cobbled up fan and moved on to the most challenging part of the Jokerz transformation. It was time to swap the upper playfield. Wow. Not easy. Getting started was actually easy because the upper playfield was already pulled from the game and the new one was sitting in a box.

How hard could it be to simply drill out the rivets, swap the decals and light boards, re-rivet the switches and be done? Turns out – harder than you think. First the easy parts. I removed the 4 flashers on the back side of the upper playfield – just 4 screws. Then the light boards. The rear one has 2 nylock nuts and the front one has 3. Now I’m left with just the switch array – and THAT is riveted to the playfield.

I reviewed the thread on Pinside on how to do the swap and it recommended a 1/8″ drill bit to drill out the rivets. That size did not remove enough material to easily separate the rivets so I moved up to a 9/32″ bit. You’ll need to be a little more careful that you don’t drill out any of your switch plate but I was able to do it no problem. Now the entire wire harness is free and can be set aside. Next I unscrewed all of the various posts that are attached. Now onto the 2 decals that need to be removed. I ran a large sink full of hot soapy water and let the playfield soak for about 5 minutes in the hot water. I removed the playfield and cut off the 2 tall plastic screw standoffs on the rear so they did not interfere with pulling the large decal off the bottom.

Then I carefully began the pull the large decal. slow and steady and adding hot soapy water under it as I went. It came off without any damage at all. I repeated the process for the rear decal. That one was a little “stickier” but I managed to remove and save it as well. Hint: leave the wire loom retainer (gray thingy) on the bottom of the decal. If you try to remove it, you may damage the decal … and you will need it anyway to hold your wires.

Now I needed to removed the small amount of glue residue that stayed behind on both decals. Goo Gone is perfect for this. Spray. Wait 2 minutes. Use a dry soft rag to rub off the glue. Even a small amount of this kind of adhesive is a pain to get off, but stay after it and eventually it will be free of glue.  Finally, it was time to re-assemble my upper playfield. I laid my cleaned decal in place on the bottom and began the process of riveting the switch array back in place. First, I had to choose a rivet size. The Pinside thread (and original Williams specs) recommends a 1/8″ by 7/32″ long rivet. I tried those and they were just too short to properly crimp so I moved up one length to 5/16″ and they worked much better. Remember, if you have to squeeze or crush the rivet any amount past “firmly”, then the rivet is too short or too long. I was able to use my hand rivet tool to address all but 3 of the total 10 rivets needed. For the remaining 3, I used a low profile screw (I ground the head down) and a nut with blue Loctite. CAUTION when adding Loctite so close to the edge of that decal … just a small drop “too much” of the Loctite can very quickly “wick” up and under that decal. Ask me how I know. Ask me how hard it is to clean out blue Loctite from that decal when half the switches are already riveted on. I used a wooden stick based “Q-tip” that I use for detail work on my guns but it still was not easy. Live and learn. I got them all done and they are all nicely attached. Yay!

I had ordered new red mini posts as well and the final steps to re-building my upper playfield required that I re-populate all those posts. The red mini’s are easy and were done in just a few minutes. Then I remembered a post on Pinside where someone had modified the post types to make it easier and more reliable long term. I followed the same instructions. Basically, you are placing a star post in place of 2 metal posts with a rubber stretched between them. That rubber (under constant tension) tends to pull/warp and buckle the upper plastic playfield. The star post is an elegant mod and works well in practice. Heading into the home stretch and I had just a few things to finish. I added 2 SMD yellow LED’s in the front row but covered them in the yellow rubber condoms. I added naked warm white frosted LED’s for the back row.

For reference, all lights in the upper playfield (except the rear flashers) are bayonet style with twist lock connectors into the light boards. When I mounted the light boards back to the playfield, I used some more blue Loctite because you really can’t crank those nuts down without damaging the circuit board. The Loctite ensures those nuts will stay. The last steps were to add rubber rings to the posts and to ensure the decal was somehow adhered to the bottom so it did not droop and interfere with game play or get damaged. I use E6000 for everything – hell, I put it in my coffee. OK, so that’s a stretch … but I use it a lot in Pinball repair. It’s perfect for this situation. A very small “dot” of it placed in 5 places along the back of that large bottom decal is all you need to hold it tightly in place. If you ever want to remove it, just gently pull and it will release with no harm done. I did the same for the rear (yellow and red striped) decal. Upper playfield DONE.  

Mylar, Plastics and Game 1

The Mylar on this game needed a good polish and the playfield needed some cleaning as well. Polishing the playfield is fairly straightforward but its messy. I use a 2,800 RPM hand drill with polishing pads. Keep the pads dedicated to each polishing “grit” by storing them in labelled baggies. I start with Meguiar’s Medium Cut. You don’t need much. If you use too much it just spins and sprays all over the place anyway. Polish until the pad is “almost dry” but not completely or you will quickly build up too much heat. Use your hand from time to time to check the playfield temperature. Warm to very warm is OK – HOT IS NOT!

Then I wipe the playfield down clean and start with Meguiar’s Fine Cut. Repeat the procedure using Meguiar Mirror Glaze and you’re done. Depending on the amount of scratching/cloudiness to your Mylar, you may need to start with a more aggressive polish. If you are new to this I suggest you choose a spot away from the flippers and away from the center of the playfield and test it – go through all 3 polishes and see if the result is satisfactory. If it’s not “shiny” enough, it’s more likely you did not START with a course enough grit – not that you did not spend enough time working the other/finer ones.

The logic is simple. Course grit removes the deepest scratches, Medium gets the next ones BUT can not now remove any course ones left behind in stage one. Get the first stage wrong and the Mylar will only be as “shiny” as that first choice. I’ve never gotten Mylar to “shine like new” but I have always vastly improved the look and you can do the same. I finished the day by using my Super Clean degreaser to clean up the pop skirts and the inside (blue painted part) edges of the cabinet to the left and right of the playfield. I swear I don’t know how that could get “greasy” but it did. No amount of soap and water would remove it but the Super Clean did! 

As  I noted when I picked up the game, there were also a few spots around the edges of the Mylar that needed to be trimmed away. When Mylar loses it’s grip at the edges, it not only comes loose but it also grabs any and all available dirt and grime and holds it to the now exposed adhesive. Those lifted sections cant be saved. I started by trimming them. First step is the plan the attack. You are literally cutting away part of a pattern that was very purposefully placed on the playfield. The cut you make to remove it has to:- Look good- Work well (not lead to any playfield wear)- Be “far enough” into the good Mylar (so no more lifting takes place) I made mental notes where I needed to cut (it was 4 different places) and here are my steps. Start with a new blade or fresh razor knife. Make one “score cut” not all the way through Mylar, then turn the knife on edge (may need to expose several lengths of blades). Cut along score mark, while tugging loose end. I made all the cuts successfully and the game looks significantly better without the “black flaps” of Mylar all over the place.

Time to move to the new plastics set I ordered and get this game ready to play! The first thing you notice when you compare the old plastics to the new is that they are NOT the same. Oh, all the shapes and colors are the same but the old plastics have parts riveted to them – like quite a few parts! They require that you drill out rivets in the old plastics and remove, then move those components (mostly errant ball deflectors) to the new plastics. So what I had planned to be a pretty quick process to get the new parts populated onto the game was at first slowed down by the need to get the new plastics set ready for install.

An hour with the rivet tool and I was now ready. It was the weekend and I was glad because I would need a bit of time to pull this off. Remember – I did not take this game apart. I picked it up with all the playfield components in a box. This makes the challenge of knowing what post and what gate goes where even more challenging. The rough order is to add the playfield posts and gates as you go (first), then add the center upper playfield, then the side ramps and work your way down to the slings and flippers. After 3 hours or so, I had it back together … except for the slings. Darn it. I was a few metal posts short.

I did not have enough of the steel rods that go through the star posts and into the playfield either terminating in a #6 wood screw or a 6/32 machine end. I was missing a few of each. I racked my brain on how to make/modify or jury-rig it to get it together but to no avail. I would have to wait for the parts from Marco to finish adding the sling rubbers. No matte. I didn’t wait anyway. I played a game or two and even without the slings I could tell it was going to be fun! The only real issue presenting itself was the drops being super “sticky” and taking forever to drop after being hit. I had already prepared for the repair by ordering all new drop target components. That fix would be for another day.

I’m Melting

Today I tackled the little seen backbox area. The white colored light board is always a mess on these games and the only thing that seems to be able to get them clean are the industrial strength degreasers – like Super Clean. This stuff is surprisingly powerful so I usually spray the rag, then use it to clean with. My exception to that is when cleaning the cabinets. After testing a spot for potential paint loss, I will spray the whole cab, then after a minute, wash it down with a damp rag to remove any remaining degreaser. After cleaning the back box light board, it looked almost new again. Next I moved on to replacing all the 47 incandescent bulbs with 2 SMD warm white LED’s. I then replaced all of the burned out flashers with fresh incandescent #89s.

This, it turns out, was a mistake as you see later. Next I moved on to the spinning card decal on the draw poker wheel mechanism. I tried peeling the old one off – no luck. I decided to use my heat gun on low and once it got started it came off nicely and left almost no residue. I installed my new one using the index marker (black triangle on the decal and “notch” on the wheel itself) and squeegeed it out flat. It looked awesome compared to the dirty, bubbled and blistered one I just removed. I Installed new translight and was disappointed with the color saturation – it was not the translight problem, it was the fact that I had just installed 2 SMD LED bulbs in the backbox – it was simply too bright. Oh well, time to play a game anyway. I could always swap out the LED’s for a single SMD later.

About 5 minutes into the game I started to smell something burning – it was my translight. The new flashers I had just installed that correspond with the Draw Poker function in the backglass were locked on because of a previously blown transistor at Q16. They had gotten hot enough to melt my translight right around the Draw Poker see through window. Bummer. I typed a quick message to the gentleman that I ordered it from on Ebay begging for a “frequent flyer” discount. He was kind enough to allow one so I ordered a new translight. While waiting for the new one to arrive, I was struck by the idea that maybe I could stuff the older/melted one in behind the new one and get 2x the saturation of colors – maybe even leave my 2 SMD LED lamp in? The translight arrived when I was traveling but when I returned home, I popped open the shipping tube and installed it in front of the other one. The registration was perfect and lo and behold so was the color saturation! It almost looks like a backglass – really nice!

Now I noticed that the cards on the draw poker wheel were about 1/2″ our of alignment with the see through window. It was bugging me. I searched high and low for a way to adjust the rotational/index alignment of the spinning disk but without success. I could test it using the menu system. I could make very small adjustments by loosening the 4 mounting screws in the back. I could make it move step by step in test mode. I could move it by hand to align it BUT nothing would make the adjustment “stick”. So I solved it the old fashioned way. I pulled it out of the game and tossed it in the trash. Kidding. I ordered another replacement decal for $9, marked the one that was installed so I knew how much to rotate the new one. Taped the new one to the old one with painters tape. Played a dozen games to watch it and make certain it was lined up, THEN I used my heat gun to remove the old one and install my fresh one in the correct position – problem solved! 

Make it Sparkle

I had already Installed about half of the total insert LED’s and today my project was to add the remaining. I color matched all the inserts and am pleased with the result. I used some of the Comet flex product to great effect. Specifically the arrow inserts under each of the left and right ramps. the “10,00 W/L” large inserts left and right of the center ramp and, finally, the “Deal Again” insert between the flippers. All of the GI and backbox were LED’s using Comet 2 SMD Warm Whites with the frosted lens. I took the time to document the insert LED type and color and that chart is listed here for reference. While under the playfield I completed a repair a 2 terminal connector that someone had cut and then rewired improperly. These were a .062/2 pin style housing and I had a male/female pair on hand so in just a few minutes I had the new terminals crimped on and inserted into the fresh housing. 

Dealt a Bad Hand

The fact that the Draw Poker flashers were not working (locked on) was driving me nuts. I read the schematic and for the life of me could not find which transistor drove that flasher section so I posted the issue on Pinside. I got a quick response that narrowed the issued to the Q12 pre-driver and Q16 transistor. I had already checked the board and noticed that Q16 was blown out so this confirmed what needed to be fixed. I had a TIP102 transistor on hand and the 2N4401 pre-driver as well so all I needed to do was remove the circuit board and get busy un-soldering and soldering. Removing the system 11 board is very straightforward. Take a bunch of pics of all the plugged in connectors, then unplug them all – then unscrew 6 phillips head screws to unbolt the board from the metal stand-offs.

While I had the board out, I soldered in a new remote battery holder that I ordered from Marco BUT the supply wires were waaaay too short, so I needed to first solder on longer leads (WHY!!??). With the new leads in place I had enough length to mount the battery box almost anywhere within the head.  To pull the old burned out components off the board, I used my Hakko desoldering tool. First I removed the pre-driver (oops, removed Q10 instead – soldered it back – no harm). Back on track, I desoldered the CORRECT component, the Q12 pre-driver and soldered in a new one, clipped the leads and moved on to the Q16 transistor (TIP102). Ugh. The Q16 was a mess- ground leg was completely blown out, the trace was lifted and the through hole was enlarged. The traces were lifted on the center leg too although the last leg was fine. When I tried to add solder to the blown out grounded leg, it simply dripped through the hole and pooled across all 3 legs of my newly installed transistor – time to desolder and start over. This time, I scratched the front of the circuit board to expose the ground trace and soldered the transistor ground leg to that exposed area using a solder “blob” or solder trail   

Molasses Drops

Today was drop target day. The drops in Jokerz play a unique role in the game vs other games. First, there are 9 (yes, 9) drop targets spread out over 3 individual banks. The lower banks (left and right on the lower PF) are positioned so they can be purposefully targeted. The upper left bank – not so much. No matter … mine were taking a month to drop after hitting them and looked like they had taken a frontal attack from a nuclear blast at some point – they were a mess. I bought all new drop targets and (I thought) a completely new set of decals. I got the targets, but my decal set from Planetary Pinball was 3 Jokerz short of a full deck. I sent them an email asking for the rest.

Meantime, I set about rescuing the best 3 from the 9 old ones. To pull the drop targets for cleaning and repair is super simple. Loosen the wood screw holding the single bulb that lights the insert for each and rotate that bulb holder out of the way. Carefully pull the circuit board connectors from each drop target board (there are only 2). Then use your 1/4″ magnetic nut driver to remove the bottom 2 screws holding the drop target frame to the bottom of the playfield. Then remove either one of the top screws. Next hold the entire mech while you remove the last screw (there are only 4 total). Finally, use your 9/16″ nut driver to remove the coil stops on the attached coils, thus allowing you to remove the coil from the bracket, freeing the bracket to be removed entirely. I always mark which bank of targets each represents (Lower Left, Lower Right, etc.) just because I want to put them back where they came from – even if they are interchangeable. If one of them was experiencing any board issues or misbehavior, I don’t want to unknowingly transport that problem to a new spot in the game. While the coil is hanging there from the bottom of the play field, I slip in a brand new coil sleeve. The next steps are all “Mike Rowe” dirty jobs kinda things.

Pop off all the retaining clips, carefully save all the washers and spray the entire bracket with your favorite degreaser (Super Clean for me). Spray and clean those washers and clips too – very important as the drops “slide” along the face of those parts and you don’t want them all sticky with grease and God knows what. Use a bit of alcohol to clean the face of the new targets and then stick the new target decals into position. Rub them hard to get good adhesion to the surface of the new target. Add new target springs cause the old ones are probably worn out, reassemble and you’re ready to put them back in the game.  

Well bummer. I played a couple games and the drop targets are super snappy when going down, but now they are struggling to go UP! How can that be? Brand new everything, sparkling clean, etc. Well, there can only be a few things that cause this. Especially because all 3 banks are the same issue. Either I put them together wrong (I did not), there is not enough voltage getting to the entire circuit (there was) or … the brand new springs I put on all the drops are too strong (they were). So I spend the next 15 minutes digging through the garbage trying to fish out the 9 old springs I tossed when I was finished rebuilding the drops last night. Scrape the potato peeling off and installed the old vs the new and voila – they all work again. How on earth did I get drop springs that were “too strong”?  

My Head is Loose

I drove over to see the seller during lunch today and returned the spare ramp he loaned me. While there, I had a chance to see some new games he had gotten in. There were quite a few and several that caught my eye. Bally Frontier, Gottlieb Totem, Harlem Globe Trotters to name a few. I was mostly interested in a Gottlieb Volcano that he had. It needed quite a bit of work but he was getting much of it fixed before offering it for sale. I put my name at the top of the list when it was ready. I headed back to work and ended up leaving work later than normal. Once home, I had a ton of work to do on planning our new house. Tami and I spent more than an hour reviewing the electrical plan and making notes for our builder. When we finished there wasn’t much time left for Pinball repair BUT … I thought I might at least head out to the pole barn and get one thing done on Jokerz. So tonight was the night to tackle the head. If you remember, it was cracked, chipped and separated in several areas. There would be no quick fix for the cosmetics of it but there needed to be a permanent fix for the structural issues. Tonight I would address the structure of it to make it sound again.

The head was cracked at the top left and bottom left dovetailed area where the side panel joins both the top and bottom. The back panel was completely lifted from its rebate on the left and halfway across the bottom. My plan was to use glue and my Paslode finish nailer to get it back sound. I wedged a screwdriver into the top and bottom left joints to force them open while adding glue. When the glue had settled into the joint, I used the Paslode with 1 1/4″ finish nails to secure it tightly. The rear panel was trickier but no too difficult. I carefully pried  the panel away and backwards from the entire side/top frames. This was a little scary as I was essentially pulling the entire circuit/ground board assembly with it. Being careful not to COMPLETELY pull it free from the right side where it remained fully glued, I was able to drip glue into the interior of the head using Q-tips into the void I had just created by pulling the panel. I then pushed the panel back to its correct position within the rebated edge and used the Paslode to secure it. Pretty? No. Functional. You bet!  

Fire Wire

The power cord always looked a little sketchy to me. I decided to order a 14′ replacement from Marco. Like everything related to restoring a Pinball, it’s not as straightforward as you think. I needed to find out how to get the original cord loose from the filter/ground box connection before I could proceed. First, I unplugged the machine. Then I checked to make sure I had unplugged the machine. Next I removed the 4 wood screws that mount the filter box to the sidewall of the cabinet. Now I could see the soldered connections and the strain relief that was used to secure the cord in the box. It is easier with these types of strain relief designs to “push” the strain relief back OUT of the box, then unhinge it and remove it from the cord (save it as you’ll need it again). I took several pictures to make sure I soldered the new cord correctly.

Quickly there appeared to be a problem. The original cord was European color coded and the Marco cord was North American. I checked Pinside and Vid1900 had a great section on how to replace an old power cord on a Williams system 11. I followed that to the letter and all ended well. The old cord was quite loose on the plug end and I feel much more comfortable with the new one installed. There is great info on this link for anyone looking to do the same!

Rocky Ramp

I was going to call it quits but Pinball can make you pretty obsessive. I just couldn’t leave that cracked lift ramp alone. So on a rainy weeknight around 8:30pm I grabbed my rivet tool and headed out to the workshop. I can knock this out in an hour – right? Nope. But I did get it done in 2! Not too shabby from a flat footed start.

Let’s see … just getting it off seemed to be a bit of a puzzle. The mystery is now solved and I’ll share it with you. The entire assembly is held on by just 2 machine screws. Look under the playfield directly under the attached metal ramp flap and you’ll see them. ONE of them is under the motor bracket and you’ll need to remove the 4 motor bracket screws to get to it. Use your 1/4″ magnetic nut driver and you’ll have the motor bracket off there in no time. Just gently move it to the side and let it hang by the soldered joints to the attached switch. Now remove the 2 machine screws that hold the ramp and the entire ramp comes out. As soon as I got it out, I made a quick scan of the face of the ramp “just in case”. Then I turned it upside down onto a piece of 0.093 Lexan and traced the exterior and cut a fresh piece using my jigsaw and laminate blade. Now I was ready to tackle that decal.

Now that it was out, I was now keenly aware that there was a bigger issue. The red decal was glued on. I also had no idea what it was made of. Would it come off with some gentle tugging? Was it paper and it would quickly tear? I got my first answer – NO. Pulling was not going to accomplish anything good. Next step was the heat gun. That was going to work. Going slowly and taking advantage of the broken pieces to peel just a little at a time, I started to make headway. I kept the decal “just hot enough” to keep it moving until it was completely off. Steady and slow is the way – no need to hurry it or you might end up with “2 decals” if you know what I mean.

It was off. It was incredibly sticky. The good news was that it was also made of the SAME material as the upper playfield decal – maybe a little thinner but certainly the same. That means the cleaning procedure is the same. Goo-Gone and lots of rags. I sprayed and let it soak for 2 minutes. Then I started rubbing, careful not to “catch” an edge and wrinkle it. After 5 minutes or so it was clean as a whistle. Time to get this thing glued back to my newly cut Lexan ramp. But first … I took one more “clean” scan.

To put the decal back on the ramp/Lexan requires some special tape. It’s from 3M and the code number is 467. It’s sticky on 2 sides and super thin. It’s used by many Pinball restorers to attach decals to ramps. Just get the old decal flat, cut a section of the 3M tape slightly longer than the decal. Square up one end of the decal at one end of the tape and then work the tape bit by bit until the entire decal is covered. Remember, you are putting the sticky part of the tape on the FACE of the decal. Next, trim away the excess tape from around the perimeter of the decal. Finally, pull the brown protective covering off the tape and prepare to “stick it” to the new piece of Lexan. Carefully align the bottom (widest) part first and eyeball the rest. There is NO TEST STICK. If it simply touches the Lexan it is bonded until eternity. You can see on mine that I got it a 1/16″ off to the left – oh, well. It is now married in that position. No prenuptial is going to help undo what is done. Proceed carefully.

All that’s left is to rivet the Lexan to the frame up top and to the frame AND the ramp metal on the bottom. Don’t forget to include the ramp metal flap in your parts sandwich when you prep for riveting the hinge end (ask me how I know to tell you that). The top is easy – 2 parts, 2 rivets and you’re done. The bottom has the metal ramp flap, the Lexan/decal, the entire frame piece AND, finally the hinge all included in your rivet job – again add 2 rivets. Couple hours and it’s looking brand new. It’s made from Lexan and will never crack again. Now about those black key lines and missing paint around that ramp … hmmmm.

Dirty Apron

I had ordered a replacement decal for my damaged apron almost a month ago. It still hadn’t come so I reached out to the seller who shipped me another one. Well, today – they both showed up. One with a ship date from more than 3 weeks ago. No matter. It was here and I had a few minutes to duck into the shop and prepare the apron for the install

Prepping the apron involves REMOVING all of the existing art. It’s painted on and getting it off is tricky. I soak mine in Goo-Gone for 5 minutes then use plastic razor blades and my fingernails with a rag to step-by-step scrape away the paint. You need to be careful that you don’t remove the black base paint or you will be refinishing the entire apron. When you finally get all the artwork scraped off, then wipe down the apron with some alcohol to remove the remaining Goo-Gone. Next I install the left and right triangles. Line them up along the top edge of the instruction card recesses. Let them stick in the middle and then work the decal left and right. This eliminates air bubbles.

The center decal is a little trickier to install. First, I remove the backing from the large “W” medallion and a little bit to the left and right as well. Position the decal so the base of the “W” is right down near the bottom edge of the apron and make certain it’s level. Then let the bottom edge stick to the apron and work your way up until the entire medallion is on. Now you can work the “wings” that are left and right of the medallion because you left the backing on. Peel away about 2/3rds of the backing and work the “wing” toward the outside of the apron taking care to keep it level along the bottom as you go. Repeat for the other side and you are done!

Playing Cards

So how’s it play? Great! I’m a big fan of the simpler games and Jokerz is very easy to play and understand. Plus, it has 3 ramps and lifting ramp, 3 banks of drops, a multi-ball and a spinning deck of cards in the backglass. What’s not to love? A few if my favorite things about the game:

• The left and right ramps are challenging to hit consistently. They look deceptively simple – they are not
• The drops are challenging as well. The top left set is mostly hit by the pops action but the bottom left and right drop targets (especially the single target closest to the flippers) are hard too.
• LOVE the Draw Poker animated backglass. What a fun idea
• The flippers do NOT have to be super powerful to accomplish what needs to be done in the game. Each ramp is easily hit, yet the flippers don’t beat up the plastics in the game.
• The asymmetrical ramp shot up the middle is brilliant. Not much risk at all of having SDTM drains – well done
• I really like the simple but well executed sounds and call-outs
• The multi-ball launch into the pops area
• Lock stealing is a game function
• Finally, the art – nice job John

For some really great photos of Jokerz during a shop out, visit http://www.videoengine.com/pins/jokerz/jokerzmain.htm 

As you might guess by looking at my collection, I’ve been on a bit of a mission lately to collect EM titles. I’m also a history buff and when I got the chance to pick up a local copy of Williams “Space Mission” I was excited at the opportunity. My problem is that I’m in the middle of building a new house and if I asked my wife to buy one more pinball she would likely drop one on me. If I was to get this machine, I would have to be stealthy. But how do you “sneak” a pinball machine into the house? You’ll see a bit later, you don’t.

I knew the seller and had purchased games from him before so it was a quick trip once we arranged our schedules. I was pleased on the day we planned to meet because (at least at the time) it looked like it was not going to rain! I have a pickup truck and my track record for picking up games in inclement weather is near perfect.

I got there at the appointed time and met him in his shop/garage to see the game. We talked pinball for a bit and spent a few minutes checking out a nice condition Gottlieb Haunted House he had just picked up. That title is still on my wish list for a later date. I turned my attention to Space Mission and noticed right away it had some issues. The biggest being the cupped inserts, a destroyed apron (missing paint) and the fact that it simply would not start player 3 or 4. I shared with the seller that the inserts would require clear coat or at a minimum a playfield protector installed. He agreed and was willing to adjust the price accordingly. I offered him a price that allowed me to buy a protector and asked if he had another apron laying around to replace the damaged one. He did. He changed it out on the spot. I bought the machine and loaded it. Done

I hit the road and it immediately started to rain – well drizzle anyway. Whew! I was worried I might break the streak. The roads got slick and I began to make a plan to pull over and tarp the machine. The thought had barely left my head when I came over the crest of a hill on the narrow road I was on and came upon a car off the road and in the ditch. Waaaay in the ditch! I slowed but saw that no one appeared hurt and there were a half dozen locals standing around looking like they had the situation under control – I moved on. I stopped a bit farther down the road in a parking lot and put a tarp on the machine – good move, it started to pour. I made it safely home and unloaded the machine into the pole barn. Tami was out at a concert and although I’m sure she knows the Space Mission sitting in the pole barn is “new to us” she still hasn’t said anything. How could she? It was such a good deal and it’s out of the way in the barn!

One of my favorite things about the Pinball hobby is not the hunt for a new pinball, not playing pinball, not listening to pinball podcasts, but actually taking a broken, or imperfect machine and bringing it back to life in a step-by-step, methodical fashion. That was my plan with Space Mission. First, a little background on this title …

Space Mission is a Steve Kordek designed game released in January of 1976. It was designed to celebrate a moment in time when 2 superpowers took a step back from being wary of each other and cooperated to achieve a common goal in space. I was 16 years old at the time and remember vividly the US Bicentennial of the same year AND the general attitude and politics of the US and Soviet governments of the time. We were nearing the end of the cold war and Thomas Otten Paine the NASA Administrator of the time sent a letter to the Soviets proposing a cooperative space mission. A few months later it was set. The US and Soviets would dock in space, ceremoniously shake hands, conduct some joint scientific experiments, have lunch and return home safely. For the most part all went as planned. They successfully docked on July 17th 1975, and overall the event was heralded as a huge success for the newly minted process of “detente”. The US team had a bit of trouble on splashdown with some poisonous gases entering the cabin, and although it was a close call (they spent 2 weeks in a hospital in Honolulu) they all recovered to tell the tale. Here’s a cool tidbit of history. The US and Soviet flight commanders, Stafford and Leonov became lasting friends. According to Wikipedia, Leonov is the godfather of Stafford’s younger children – now that’s detente

The artwork on Space Mission is from Christian Marche who has more than a hundred Pinball machines to his credit. The backglass art was inspired by a painting by Robert McCall. Check out the image and you’ll see the unmistakable similarities (image from NASA website). Space Mission is actually 2 machines. It has a little brother named Space Odyssey – a 2 player game vs the 4 player that is Space Mission. They made 11,652 total units of Space Mission with roughly 5,600 units for the US market and the remaining exported overseas. It’s model number was #464 and they sold to distributors for $861.50 and had a manufactured cost of $355.99 (info courtesy of IPDB)

The first thing I did when I got the machine home was to start a deep clean. The most obvious area is usually the cabinet and in this case it was pretty dirty. Sitting for years in a bar will deposit a surprising amount of nicotine that is hard to see until you spray some purple power on it. You need to be careful because these types of degreasers can easily remove paint if left on too long. My method is to test a spot first. If all goes well, I’ll spray, let sit for 15 seconds, then wipe off. I always follow that step with a clean, wet cloth to remove any residual degreaser. Quite a bit of tar stains came off this machine in the process. It was looking better already!

Next I moved to the interior of the cabinet. The seller had already done some cleaning but there were lots of pieces of nuts and old fiberglass insulation that either squirrels or mice had introduced to the game at one time. It grabbed my trusty mini-vac and got rid of that in short order. The playfield was already in great shape as the seller had cleaned it as good as it was going to be without a full touch-up/clear coat. No further work was needed. However, there was one plastic on the play field that had a large chunk out of it from an errant ball. In addition, the plastics had the expected yellowing that comes from the “bar life”. I knew that CPR made a replacement set so I put that on my “might spend the money” list depending on how much the rest of the repairs/restore might cost

Cosmetically, I noticed a few things as I took inventory of the condition. First the pop caps were the wrong color – Space Mission games had blue factory pop caps and the ones on this game were white. The saucer cups in both kick-out holes were yellowed and nasty, as were the lane guides at the top of the game. The leg bolts were a mix of 9/16″ and 5/8″ head leg bolts with a few “Home Depot” subs thrown in for good measure. A few of them threaded hard and most looked rusty and beat up – time to replace them. I took a note to add these items to my Pinball Resource order.

At this time, I thought I would play test the machine and see if I might be able to get the 3 and 4 player credits to work. During extended gameplay, you get to see a few things you might not have noticed during the test games you play at the sellers location. This was true here as well. Surprise! There are a few more things that are not “quite right”. Let’s see … the flippers are pretty weak. The left even more than the other. The rollover switch in the horseshoe shot does not register. The match indicator is not coming on. The captive ball lane on the left side switch is only operating intermittently (and stopping gameplay when it does not!).

So where to start. I quickly wrote orders to Marco, PBR, and the Playfield Protector team over in Germany. The leg bolts from Marco and the blue cabinet protectors came quickly so I got them installed first. I then turned my attention to those weak flippers. First, I needed to check all switches for cleanliness and good contact. Check (after I filed and cleaned them!). Next was a quick look at the EOS switches. They were opening way too soon and that was a big culprit in the left flipper being very weak. Using my switch adjust tool, I reset those accordingly. Now it was time to use my fresh parts to completely rebuild them. New bats, shafts, coil stops, sleeves and flipper bushings. I re-used the plunger shafts and just ground down and wire wheeled them smooth. Messy business but they are fresh and snappy now!

I setup the game during our Ranch Christmas party and it got lots of plays. There were lots of “I haven’t played one of these in years” comments and at least one guest asked that I help buy her one for her husband. She wondered if there were any motorcyle themed pinballs. I assured her there were and I’d start looking for one locally. During the party, the left captive ball kicker was still giving intermittent trouble but I was able to shotgun repair it right there and get the game running again.

A few days after the party, the game started exhibiting some strange behavior. Sometimes you could get a game to start with the credit button and other times the game was completely unresponsive. Being new to the EM world, I was clueless where to start, so I posted my situation to Pinside and waited for the good people there to help. While waiting, I noticed that if I manipulated the coin door switches, I could get a credit to show on the game. I still could not get the 3rd or 4th player to start BUT at least I could get into game play. So I went back to the schematics and reviewed the coin door switches. I posted what I saw on Pinside and between Pinside feedback and a little homework, I figured it out. The coin door switches were badly adjusted. One of them is “make/break” type switch and for whatever reason that was set permanently open.

With the coin switches working, I could “drop a coin” in the slot and go about playing a 1 player or 2 player game. I closed up the coin door, hit the credit button and … wait for it … NOTHING! Back to square one (or so I thought). I posted my result to Pinside and then began to research “free play” for a Williams EM pinball machine. I found my answer on the web and it was as simple as shorting (or using an alligator clip, like I did) a switch back in the head on the credit unit. Simple, done. It worked! Now I had a game that could be played as intended … sort of. You see, when I was checkout out the back side of the head where the score reels are, I noticed there was a little stepper unit right in the middle that said “match unit”. But it wasn’t doing any “matching” – in fact it was doing nothing. I poked and prodded a bit and soon discovered how it was at least intended to work. It was driven at the end of each game via solenoid. A plate was supposed to move forward engaging a nylon “tooth” on a nylon cog/gear that would then drive the contacts in a circular fashion around the bakelite plate. This made an electrical connection that then lit one of 10 bulbs in the backglass. These bulbs then highlight the numbers on the backglass 00 through 90. If your score ended in the 2 digits randomly presented you win a free game.

But mine just sat there because the plate that was supposed to be there was broken in half and the nylon tooth was missing. No tooth, no match! Finding that part was like hunting for the Ark of the Covenant. Unicorns are easier to find. Finally, someone on Pinside suggested I check out Flippers.com up in Canada. Sure enough they had the part! Pricey at $25 plus shipping but the only game in town – so thankful they have them.

If you pull just the bottom 2 short black screws and you are patient, you can get the new plate inserted back in there, the tooth aligned on the cog, the plate return spring (attaches to bottom of the new part) hooked back on and the whole thing screwed back together. I did but it was a bit of a delicate/frustrating time and took over 30 minutes for something that seems so simple – replace it and you’ll see why. That tooth always wants to pull toward the backglass and end up on that (wrong) side of the cog. Keep after it and you’ll be rewarded with a match feature that works.

So what about that 3/4 player bit? I asked myself … don’t you think someone will someday want to play this in 4 player mode? Why didn’t you just buy a Space Odyseey? That’s a 2 player! As you can see – it bothered me. So I began a quest to find out how to get the machine to work as intended – as a 4 player EM. I noticed when mucking around earlier that if I forced the switch closed on the cabinet located coin unit, I COULD add 3rd and 4th players.

It made sense to start there. I posted a picture of the orientation of that switch on Pinside and did a little more research. I suspected that the switch was installed on the wrong side of the actuator pin. With some web based images and a confirm from the Pinside team, it was clear that this was the issue. A was a little unsure what to do other than “move the switch to the other side” because I did not know how and at what point the actutator pin interacted with that switch. A little more web searching showed me that in 4th player position, the switch is broken open by that actuator. Perfect, now all I had to do is watch that actuator pin move as I hit the credit button each time and then set the switch to stay “closed” until the pin hit the 4th player (last) position. I shot a video so I could review each pin position as well. I loosened the front screw on the switch stack, rotated that switch outward and then over the actuator pin – now it was on the correct side. I set the gap on it so it looked like it would stay closed until the 4th player position and … it worked! Perfectly. I now have a game that can be played as intended.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkIWbniH6f4?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque&w=500&h=281]

Back to the very beginning of this story. Remember when I shared that the seller agreed to knock some off the price so I could buy a playfield protector? It really needed it as the inserts in some spots were cupped so badly they were changing the ball direction and badly impacting play. So, I ordered one from Germany and it was now time to do that install. Chris was there to help but adding these to EM games is about as simple as it gets. No ramps to get in the way, no complex mechs or habitrails either. Just start by making sure the playfield is super clean, then remove the plastics.

You first remove the protective backing (both sides have this, but leave the top side on for now), then lay the new protector over the playfield. Nothing “bolts” or screws it down, it simply free floats. It needs to or the heat from the incandescent bulbs would cause it to swell and buckle. In the case of Space Mission, I had to remove just one side of the spinner gate assembly in order to slip the protector under it. Other than the plastics, and importantly the flipper bats, nothing else needed to be removed to install. These protectors are amazing in how they fit, but sometimes take some tweaking to be perfect. Mine was no exception and you can see where a red post on each side of the outlanes could have used a notch cut in it for the best fit. I cut it out myself and moved on – problem fixed.

If you own pinball machines, then you know you’re never really “done” when repairing or restoring one. Space Mission was no exception. With some time on my hands and the Christmas parties over with, I dug in with both hands. First was to install some new lane guides and pop caps up top. The old lane guides had turned a nice nicotine yellow and (as you now know) the pops were the wrong color. This was literally a 3 minute job. Boom. Done. Looks fantastic now.

With the lane guides done, it was an even faster job to remove 4 pop cap screws and replace the old, yellowed ones with the vibrant blue original ones that I had ordered from PBR. Again, they fit perfect, went on fast and look outstanding.

Space Mission was looking good. I was feeling good about it but I wasn’t hearing the best “sounds” from her. She needed her chime box tweaked. Don’t we all from time to time? Another order to PBR and I soon had in my hands a complete Williams chime box repair/rebuild kit. It included foam washers, nylon top washer, tubing, sleeves and a rubber strip for the striker shafts that shoot from the 3 vertically mounted coils under the playfield.

The PBR kit is slick and comes with everything you need to make your chimes sing again. I used my own tubing by cutting red heat shrink tape, then using my heat gun on high, ran it over the tubing to quickly shrink it to the metal tabs. I purposefully kept the tubes short so the chime bars do NOT bind or scrunch them down when you re-install. If they do, your chimes will sound dead. I added the new coil sleeves, cleaned up the coil shafts, added the new foam washers and foam block under the coil shafts. I then took a few minutes to polish the chime bars, then put it all back together, added the copper pins and man … in ain’t stereo but it sure sounds sweet now.

I ordered a fresh box of #47 bulbs for the game and one day when I had a few extra minutes, I replace nearly 100% of the backbox lights. The #47 bulbs runs much cooler (draws only 150 ma of current) than the #44 (draws 250 ma current) . The #44 were of course original, but the #47 give off nearly as much light. Those lower temps are easier on the paint on the backglass and on playfield plastics as well. Replacing bulbs in the backbox is a pain as some of them are very difficult to reach. A bulb tool is very helpful here.

For just a few dollars and available for many games, Marco and other suppliers can set you up with crisp white apron cards. It’s really hard to to understand how yellowed and nasty these are until you get the new ones. Bravo to our supplier community that these are still available. Cheap and effective enhancement to the game. I put mine on in just a few minutes.

I fee like I’m getting close to completing phase one of the Space Mission restore. This spring I plan to paint and stencil the cabinet. For now, there are just a few minor things to finish. I have a new set of plastics I ordered from CPR. I added those recently and was blown away by how the color (especially the blues) had faded/changed to more green due to time and cigarette smoke. When I finished installing the new plastics, I played a few games and headed into the house. On the way, my phone indicated I had gotten an email. It was a reminder from Ebay that a favorite seller has just listed some new items. I sat down at my desktop in the office and pulled it up.

Karma. Fortune. Blessings. It was the original blueprint from the Williams corporate office archives for … Space Mission. I bid, and then won it. What a privilege to have a piece of history this significant. Space Mission was/is a popular EM designed by a prolific and great guy – Steve Kordek. I now own the original signed blueprints for the game he designed. I can’t wait to get Space Mission and this piece of history set up in the new game room. Who could have predicted that when I bought this game, I would have the opportunity to acquire the blueprints too – how cool is that?

Shane and Evan asked to meet with me concerning the planning of a Christmas party for our entire group of IT Team members. I was excited to see what they had in mind. This was a really large (200+) group of people and would require some level of planning. The day of our scheduled meeting came and I quickly learned that they had already had a version of this same party last year. At the time of the party last year, they were both part of a smaller group of our IT team and the party was attended by about 40 people or so. The party was designed to cater to exactly what the team members liked to do at parties they attended outside of work. There were board games, role playing games, Nintendo video games, classic arcade games, card games and more. They didn’t have a lot of time to even have last years party. It needed to be finished, then cleaned up before the larger company party taking place that same afternoon. But, by all accounts, they did it and did it well! The feedback from the people attending was excellent. They told Evan that they had more fun at this party than any other company sponsored party they had ever attended!

I listened carefully because the feedback was real, it was extremely positive and it was important to me as a leader at my company to continue to support our mission to make our company a great place to work. Having “fun” is encouraged in our culture and it sure sounded like the team that attended this party last year had a great time. As we discussed details of the entertainment, it hit me … Pinball! Why not? Impulsively, I shared with them that I would bring 2 machines to the party if they thought the team might enjoy playing them. They said they were certain they would. So it was settled then. I’d bring a couple games from my collection on the assigned day.

We talked a bit more and quickly got into the pressing discussion of “the budget”. They didn’t have much. They needed more. We ran some numbers on what we might spend per person on food. We ran some numbers on what we could spend on a small gift per person. I totaled the numbers and we decided that I would meet with our SVP/CIO and get the green light for the spend.

That afternoon, I popped my head into his office (we see each other every day as I look through my glass wall right into his office where I sit at my desk) and shared the planned budget with him and asked if he was good with it. His response was better than “yes” … he encouraged me to spend what it took to “do it right”. He told me he wanted to create an event that said “thank you” for the fantastic year we had, based in large part to the effort the IT team members had put forth. In the end, we ended up spending more on food and refreshments to make the event something special.

Over the next 4 weeks or so, we held several planning sessions and got a ton of support from both the IT team and some other key people. One of those was Barbara. She is our CIO’s Executive Assistant, a wonderful individual and was very happy to give us a much needed hand in the food department. She worked with our internal restaurant/cafe team to build the menu and have the entire event catered. Shane and Evan worked on the gift during this time as well. Evan took the time to have each of the various IT groups pose for a funny/interesting team photo. He then took all the photos and had them placed on a paper desk calendar – one image for each month. They came back from the printer looking like a million bucks! We were all anxious to add a candy cane and see the look on our team mates faces as they received them. To be clear here … I did very little work in the entire process. It was a team effort led by Shane and Evan and they did a fantastic job as you’re about to see.

Now … on to Pinball. Fast forward to the evening before the party. I started to get nervous. I had seen others pack up machines for tournaments, trade shows, etc. I read about it all the time on Pinside. The difference this time was that it would be me alone moving these machines from my ranch about 30 minutes east to our corporate offices.

Unfortunately, the end of the year brings lots of loose ends and I ended up working late the evening that I was to pack the games up. I was prepping an important presentation for the President and had worked to a point that my leader was satisfied with it and was ready to hand it to the CIO. I rushed home and changed clothes in prep for the load up. I got a text from my boss around 6:30 pm saying that there were going to be a few tweaks needed to the presentation (there usually are – so no surprise here) and he would call me in a while. Around 7:30 pm he called and we discussed the changes. They would require a bit of time. We decided to meet around 7:00 am at the office and make the adjustments. With a good plan laid out for the presentation, I was finally able to start packing around 8:00 pm. As I packed, I went through a series of mental checks

• 4×4 post to use as brace when
  installing back legs – check
• Screw gun with 5/8^th
  socket end and spare battery – check
• Shrink wrap – check
• All the legs packed, balls, keys –
  check
• Extension cords – check
• Power strip – check
• Subwoofers – check
• Spare fuses – check
• 3 complete pinball games – check
  (Metallica Premium, Ghostbusters LE and Medieval Madness LE

I backed my truck up to my 12′ trailer and hauled it out of the woods near the pole barn where I keep it. I took a few minutes to brush off the old pine needles and dirt from the bed. This trailer gets used for everything from brush clean up to hauling fresh hay in the summer. Last week it was used for brush and dirt – it was a mess. When I went to crank up the tongue to back my hitch under it, the crank was stuck. I ran to the pole barn and grabbed some WD40 and in a minute or so I was back in business.

With the trailer in place, it was simply a matter of muscle and time to get the machines broken down, shrink wrapped, blanketed and strapped for transport. I purchased some Harbor Freight moving blankets the week prior to protect the cabinets. I have never used blankets when moving a pin before but these were newer titles and I did not want to risk damaging the decals. The blankets do a great job protecting the pins but do come with a couple of downsides. You can’t pick the pin up using the blankets. I tried. They rip. Every time. Also, once the pins are laid down on the trailer, you can’t skid or slide them into position on the trailer. Where you drop them is where they stay unless you lift the pin enough to take the weight off. I was loading them alone so I needed to carefully choreograph where I tilted them down onto the trailer bed.

Needless to say, it was pitch dark and about 11:00 pm when I finally got all 3 pinballs loaded onto the trailer. I was whipped tired but still had a few things to do. For one, it was going to get below freezing that evening and I sure didn’t want to leave the trailer outside all night. I opened the last bay of the pole barn and backed the whole thing in there and unhooked it for the night. I came back to the house, set the alarm for 5:00 am and hopped in bed.

The alarm seemed to go off right after I set it but somehow 6 hours had passed. I jumped in my truck, backed up to the trailer to hitch it up and headed off to work. I hit my desk at around 6:50 am and had the revised presentation completed by 8:00 am. We presented the updated presentation to the CIO who gave it the green light. It was a great meeting – but not for that reason. You see, our CIO started the meeting by asking each of us to pick a plain white envelope from a pile and pass it on. We did and then he explained the inside each envelope was a name of someone in the room. Our job was to write something nice about that person and then share it with the team. It was a really nice gesture and right in line with our company culture of “Making a Better Day” for others. The name I picked was his and it was nice to be able to share the “good things” he does as a leader in front of his team and in such a public way.

We also had breakfast served in our conference room, but not catered by someone but rather homemade by Barbara the IT Executive Assistant. It was amazing and what a thoughtful gesture. These 2 simple things made a very serious meeting (budgets and resources) so much more interesting and fun than it might otherwise have been. We closed out the meeting and by 10am, I was ready to begin the process of unloading the games I had just loaded less than 12 hours prior.

I headed out to where I had parked my truck and trailer and met Shane and Evan nearby. We began to organize the area, locate the best placement (they are noisy in a large/open room) and lay out the tools. Working with new folks puts some added responsibility on you as you work. For example, I asked one of my team mates to grab one leg and meet me at the front of MMR. He did, we then used the drill to put the legs on, then tilt the game down onto the newly installed front legs. When I went to lift the back onto my 4×4 post, the entire machine listed violently to one side. Oops – I forgot to tell him that I needed the FRONT leg. He grabbed one of the rears and with that leveler all the way out, we are lucky we didn’t tip the machine over! Nonetheless, with 3 of us working quickly, we had the games in the room and set up in under 2 hours. Nice to have the help!

We now had until 2 pm to get the room ready for our guests. We finished setting up the games and moved on to decorations, video games, board games and tying candy canes onto each of the desk calendars that would become Christmas Gifts in just a few hours. Pizza was delivered for lunch and we snacked as we worked. I met quite a few people that were “new to me” even though we work in the same department. The IT team is quite large and this party was already having one of its intended impacts – allowing people to get to know each other. Just before 2 pm I asked the Facility Maintenance team if they would “pressure test” the 3 games at the same time – to ensure the breaker would hold. They couldn’t get the smiles off their faces and were eager to “help”. The electrical supply held and we were a go for party time!

The short version of the story is that
the Pinball games were a “hit”. Most interesting for me was the
variety of reasons that people were attracted to them.

Older team members

• “It’s been over 20 years since I
  played a Pinball”
• “Gosh I forgot how much fun this
  was”
• “I used to play a lot when I was
  a kid”

Younger team members

• “They still make these?”
• “Where do you buy one?”
• “I’ve never played one before”

Other comments came from a variety of
age groups:

• “These are YOUR games?”
• “How many do you have?”
• “Where did you buy these?”

Favorite game? By a mile it was Ghostbusters. I warned all who played that it was the most challenging of the bunch. They ignored me. They lined up again and again to be brutalized by the the game. There is something about a popular theme. The game that generated the most smiles was MMRLE. It was the easiest of the 3 to play (and accomplish something very visible). For a while I stood beside it coaching players on the steps involved to blow up their first castle. Watching them accomplish that was priceless.

Players? There we a few – and I mean a few … 5 to be exact. My old boss used to play on the boardwalk in the old arcade days. My new boss played consistently when he was younger. Our Director of Infrastructure was impressive to say the least. Immediately able to cradle and aim for lit shots. Not sure where he learned but he had played extensively in the past and I watched him have a ball on Metallica. We have a newer team member who has some experience playing at our local barcade too. Finally, there was Robert who’s dad collects/restores machines. He grew up playing them so he knew his way around them as well. But that was it – out of almost 200 people, just 5 real “players”.

So did the rest of the people there have fun with them? Heck yea! It was interesting to watch people play or learn how to play who were brand new to pinball. I watched 2 of our newer team members playing Metallica and basically just banging the ball around. They were chimp flipping, not aiming at all and generally just trying to keep the ball alive as many new players do. I heard from Evan that they were about to leave the party when he asked if they had played Pinball yet. They said no and he convinced them to stay and try a game or two. I stood to the side and asked if they would like some pointers. They were literally the last 2 guests in the room, it was after 5pm and it seemed like they were interested in learning. They are MIT grads are always eager to learn something new. They asked me to show them and I stepped up to Metallica and demonstrated:

• Post pass flipper to flipper
• Backhanding the graveyard.
• Trapping the ball.
• Roll passing.
• Bounce passing

Then I let them take over. What a difference it made in just one game. They were now trapping and aiming where they had not before. They were accomplishing more in the game and genuinely having more fun because of it. I was like a proud teacher with an ace student. It’s nice to see people enjoy the game we love so much.

We ended the festivities with an ugly sweater contest and a raffle. The ugly sweater contest was fun and had more than a dozen participants. Exactly how does the IT team run an ugly sweater contest? Just the way you might think – there’s an app for that! The team sent everyone to a URL where they could vote for their favorite contestant using their mobile phones. Sweater/contestant #6 won in a landslide although I was rooting for the elf myself!

We gave away our raffle prizes and our CIO thanked everyone for their fantastic effort and a great year. Right before he finished saying his “thank-yous” he mentioned that all 3 pinball machines would be raffled off so everyone should hold their tickets. I laughed and stepped up to play along by saying “Sure thing, tickets are $1,000 each and I must sell 10 of them per machine”. We had a good laugh, dismissed everyone and just like that it was time to pack up and head home. Loading up went a little faster because both Evan and Shane were now experts and we acted as a finely tuned NASCAR pit crew. We were loaded within 90 minutes I was on the road in 92.

So what did I learn? I learned that even though I had read countless posts on Pinside from others who had done this hundreds of times before me it just not the same as “doing it yourself”. The effort was tremendous. It was hard. It was painful. It was challenging. I required a lot of time. It was hard. Did I say it was hard? It was. And … I would do it again. It was so nice to see people enjoy the game we love and sometimes take for granted. Not everyone wants to spend $10,000 on what is essentially a toy and being able to bring that fun to them was priceless. It was surprising to hear the same comment over and over throughout the entire event “thanks so much for bringing your pinball games!”. I must have heard that statement or a variation of it 100 times. People sensed the effort involved and appreciated it. Finally, I learned that just a few people who care for others can make a difference. Barbara showed me that with the fantastic homemade breakfast. Our CIO demonstrated that with the “say something nice” staff meeting exercise. Shane and Evan showed all of us that with their heart for others. Their idea turned into one of the best Christmas parties we’ve ever had.

Team members were gushing about the party immediately after it was over. One of our Directors shared that he heard a team member say they were not sure they would even come, but decided to show up anyway, only to stay and then share (unsolicited) how much fun they had. Other comments were “This was so much fun” to just plain “Wow!”. Some commented it was the best IT party ever and others showed their appreciation not with words but by staying until the very end. By all accounts we accomplished what we set out to do. Throw a party to say “thanks” for all that was accomplished in 2018 and in the end make a better day for all who attended.

Merry Christmas!

Prologue: Today is Saturday Dec 22nd and with some help from Chris, I JUST got the Pinball machines unloaded from the trailer and back in the house. Pulling them up 3 small steps still requires another helper!

The story behind the game begins in the middle of the sickness many of us have. I wanted another game. Not because I needed one but more because I was building a new Pinball game room and would now have space for many more games. I happened to see a game called “Strikes ‘N Spares” for sale on Ebay as I was looking for other, non-related Pinball parts. I had never seen the game before and quickly switched to Pinside to research it. My wife was involved in bowling in her younger years and I figured she might even enjoy this as much as Pinball. Hey, anything that interests her around the subject is worth pursuing!

After a few forum searches on Pinside I discovered a few things about the game I didn’t know. First, the price of sold games from Pinside was about half what Ebay was (no surprise) and second that the game seemed a little “rarer” even than the number manufactured would suggest. I dug a little deeper.

Oh, THAT Strikes ‘N Spares

Strikes‘N Spares is a game made in 1995 by Premier Technology under the trade name Gottlieb. They made just 750 of them. It’s a game that is listed on IPDB, Pinside and other Pinball related sites even though it’s not a Pinball game. It doesn’t play like a Pinball game. It doesn’t score like a Pinball game and you probably will not play it “alone” much like you do your other Pinball games. Later in this post, I’ll explain why despite all that … I have no plans to ever sell it. It’s a very cool looking game that emulates the feeling and look of a real bowling alley. The lighting is subdued but it’s also very dramatic. Hard to believe how they achieved that dramatic “look” with just a handful of incandescent lamps. The bowling alley is complete with dual ball return lanes – one on each side. The player can bowl “left” or “right” handed depending on which flipper they choose.

The artwork is super simple but as with the lighting somehow very dramatic. The alleyway has the exact (though miniaturized) appearance of a freshly oiled hardwood bowling alley lane. The sounds in the game do a VERY convincing job of making you feel like you are really at a bowling alley. When you flip (bowl) you hear the ball hit the lane with a solid “thump”, then hear it rolling down the lane. When you “hit” the pins, you hear them rattle and crack against each other just like at a bowling alley. As the ball makes it’s way back to you in one of the 2 return lanes, you hear it approaching as well. Just like the real thing. The game uses 14 (yes you read that right) pinballs. 6 of the total (3 per side) will just sit at the side of the ball return and never be used at all – they are just decoration. When you “bowl” the balls never make contact with the pins above them. The pinball rolls underneath them, pushing on plastic rollovers that then make contact with a switch below the playfield, telling the logic board to “flip up” the pins above the ball. It happens so quickly and elegantly that it really looks like the pinball has hit them and knocked them over. So well done!

Let’s Make a Deal!

I searched the Pinside market looking for one for sale. I private messaged a few folks that had one for sale and showed it as “not sold” on Pinside. No luck there as one was sold to a local friend and the other was long ago sold to another collector. So back to Ebay I went. There were 2 machines on Ebay at the time and there was another in one of the Facebook Pinball Marketplaces. Interestingly, one of the Ebay machines was located just down the road from me in Chattanooga. I emailed the gentleman and pitched a price to him for a sale “outside of Ebay”. Many Pinheads advertise their machines both locally and on Ebay at the same time so I thought what the heck, I’ll give it a shot. This machine was the best of all 3 that were for sale at the time. From the pictures, It looked like it was in absolutely perfect condition. I shot an offer to the seller through Ebay. It was significantly less than the selling price but … no shipping for the seller and no Ebay fees. Sadly, the offer was promptly rejected.

I then messaged the seller hoping we could make a deal outside of the Ebay network. After all, I was so close to him. I heard back from the seller that he would prefer to just let the listing ride until over. I also quickly heard back from Ebay that I had better not be making offers to purchase outside of Ebay. They are no fun anymore. I’ve been listing with them since the late 90’s but boy have the rules changed since then. So I waited. While I waited I cooked up several hair brained ways that I might get my hands on one of the other 2 Strikes ‘N spares available. Each of them were almost 8 hours away by car and neither sellers would ship. Driving that distance (and back!) didn’t seem to make sense when there WAS one just 60 minutes from my house. So I waited some more. Finally the auction ended. The game was not sold. I emailed the seller again and we began to negotiate price. I ended up paying much more than the average sale price of Pinside and a bit less than his advertised price on Ebay. I was happy with the proposed deal and we set a day to shake on it and for me to take possession of the game.

A Pleasant Surprise Pick-Up

It happened to be a weekday evening that worked out for both of us. I got home at my normal time, changed into my Pinball pick-up clothes and hit the road for the one hour trip to Chattanooga. The weather was threatening. I brought tarps and straps just in case. I arrived on time and was greeted by a super friendly, very Pinball enthusiastic guy. We shook hands and I entered his well-kept, super clean house. Turns out he has 3 or 4 machines. Several are never going anywhere. Tommy and an older EM are those titles. He also has one machine that he will trade out from time to time to keep his collection fresh. His “never-going-to-trade” machines are all upstairs and the trade when I’m bored with it game sits downstairs near the living room. The Strikes ‘N Spares was that machine.

The pictures did not lie. The machine looked brand new. Like right out of the factory new. The counter showed 435 games in total. Before we even turned it on we started talking about Pinball, the hobby, collecting. Repair, etc. He invited me to see his other games. The Tommy was super nice and I could see why he wanted to keep it. We talked for a bit and then it was back down stairs to inspect the Strikes ‘N Spares more closely. I turned it on, played a few balls.It worked perfectly. It sounded perfect. I looked perfect. I said that I would take it and handed him the agreed upon amount. He left the room for a moment and returned with the manual, all the original factory paperwork, bulletins and spare parts that came with the machine. I swear, it was like going to the Gottlieb factory and buying a new machine.

Rain Chases My Games

The next steps were to begin to disassemble the machine for transport  pickup. I’ve bought so many machines that I go everywhere prepared for this part of the process. You would be surprised how many households not only don’t have a 5/8th box end wrench, but may not even know the legs come off. I had all my usual stuff: Shrink wrap, wrenches, socket set, 4×4 post, spare head lock, pliers, small drill, zip ties, cardboard, wire cutters, blue tape, etc. My seller was impressed. I call it prepared. As prepared as I was, I’m not sure I could have figured out exactly HOW to fold the head down on this machine. Thankfully the seller in this case had a thing or two to show me. He knew that it was a compound hinged head and exactly how to unlock and safely fold it flat. I’m thankful he had that part down.

With the game folded up and wheeled out to my truck it was a quick load and I was on my way. I pulled over in a school parking lot not far from his home to double check my tie downs and to quickly check my Doppler radar. It didn’t look good. I was having flashbacks to my trip to Nashville to pick up my Williams Fire Pinball machine. There was definitely a thunderstorm ahead of me. I was just west of downtown Chattanooga and the storm was just crossing the spot where I75 and I24 intersect and I would be coming to that spot just behind the storm. Oh well, had to get home somehow so with the load secured I pulled out of the lot and headed north. The radar map was spot on.Thankfully, I had just missed the storm and much of the water had already drained from the roadway so there was no spray getting to the game. As I drove north on I75, I could see another thunderstorm brewing and tracking alongside the highway – I just got ahead of that one. I could see the lightning and very dark clouds in my rear view mirror. The rest of the trip was uneventful. I arrived home and it was dark. I unloaded the game (alone), wheeled the game into the house (alone) and then set it up (alone). I don’t mind working alone. I like myself. I don’t get lonely easily … but DANG there are some parts of the pinball hobby that demand an extra pair of hands!

23 Years Old/New

Now that the game was setup and operational, I could take a few minutes to do a close inspection. It was even cleaner than I remembered at the sellers home. The inside was immaculate. The switch and coil location cards and the card holder were still stapled inside. The playfield was nearly perfect (more on that later). The cabinet art was as good as I’ve seen on any game that was 23 years old. The reds were vibrant, the blacks scratch free and deep black.

The only issue I saw that I wanted to address was just ahead of the flippers where the playfield did not have any mylar. There was some minor scuffing in that area. I knew to look for that because if a Strikes ‘N Spares has any play field wear – that’s where it will be. The ball doesn’t come in contact with ANYTHING on the playfield except the flippers (OK, so it does roll over some plastic pieces under the fake pins to activate switches). So if wear is to happen – that’s the spot, right in front of the flippers. The other contributing factor is that the spot where players will “flip” is almost the exact same spot each time – very unlike a Pinball game. The reason is simple. This is not Pinball, it’s bowling and you aim for the same spot every time. No matter. There wasn’t any real damage, only the light scuffing.

The Mod Jobs

So a quick wax job was completed and most of the scuffs in front of the flippers were now gone. It was time to create a custom cut piece of mylar to place in the front part of the playfield to protect the only section that was left exposed at the factory. My process for that is simple. Use printer paper to create a template, then use that template to trace and cut the mylar. This took a bit longer than usual because the factory mylar has a very graceful curve to it right in front of the flipper gap. The new piece of custom mylar must be cut to tightly mate with that curve without overlapping. Too loose and that gap would eventually be dug into by the ball and remove paint/artwork. Overlap at all and you’ll create ball hop.

I finished the template, traced and cut the new mylar and VERY carefully installed it. The tight fit and the need for near perfect alignment made the installation both nerve racking and lengthy. I had to re-position the mylar 3 or 4 times but was finally satisfied that it was aligned and pressed it into position. It was perfect. It plays that way too. Like it’s not there.

Other than minor cleaning there really was not a lot that this machine needed. There WAS however, a few things I wanted to do to spice it up. Now if you want to mod your Metallica, there will be a thousand posts just on Pinside to guide you or give you some ideas. If you want to mod a machine that’s not really a Pinball and there were only 750 made … you’re more likely going to be on your own. Thank God for Todd Tuckey! He has had a few of these through the years and in one of his videos he had added green LEDs to the two troughs that hold the “bowling balls”. I liked the look so I proceeded to do the same. If you raise the playfield on a Strikes ‘N Spares, you’ll see that the area where I placed the LEDs looks as if the factory had originally considered adding lighting there as well but decided against it. I couldn’t use the factory drilled locations and had to drill new mounting holes. I used a 1/6th inch bit and drilled just about 3/16th inch into the playfield, one mounting screw and I had my LED bayonet mounts in place in no time. Next it was time to add some “lectricity” and I did that with some Comet quick connectors and alligator clips.

I scoured the internet for other mods that folks might have done to this machine, and came up mostly empty handed. So striking out on my own I started to run searches on Ebay for bowling related memorabilia. I got a hit. 300 rings. There were lots of them too. None too expensive and in a few minutes I found a few to purchase and I had a spot on the game located for them. Right at the ends of the ball returns. So I bought an ABC 300 ring (red stone) and an ABC 299 ring (blue stone), then installed them on top of my ball returns. Each of these are engraved with the names of the original owners from 1988 and 1995 respectively (1995 being the same year SnS was made). They are a nice conversation pieces and don’t block the view of the game in any way

Bowling ‘er Gameplay

The game plays like you would expect bowling to work. Because it’s electronic, there are advantages to the real thing. First, there are 3 games that can be played. Regulation bowling where the goal is to bowl a “perfect” game (300 score). There are 2 other unique games. One is called flash and works the same as regular bowling with the added challenge of scoring the most points by making your strike or spare when the under playfield flasher is at the highest point scoring position. A strike can score 400/600/800 depending on your timing. This game adds a significant challenge to the regulation version as you now must not only aim your shots (bowl) but you must time them as well. The third game is called “Strike 90” and simply changes the scoring of regulation to make spares worth 60 and strikes worth 90. If you make a strike, you keep shooting until you don’t! It exponentially increases the value of your ability to clear a spare or make a strike. All of the games are fun but the “Flash” version is certainly the most challenging.

Tournament Mode For Cash

This game also has a programming mode to be played as a tournament with cash payouts. When set in tournament mode, you put money in the machine and if you choose tournament mode, you will put in additional coins to pay for your entry. You will then play 3 consecutive games to get an average or “series” score. When completed, if your score exceeds others that have bought into the tournament, you will be asked to add your initials and your birth date for verification. Only the operators can see the birth date and will use it to make sure that you are indeed the winner. Winnings paid 3 positions deep are split 50/30/20%. Because players are always asked to “buy in” to the tournament, the operator and the establishment would always “get their share”. In other words the players were funding the pot. Seethe images for the actual tournament rules. I’m not sure that I’ve seen them reliably reproduced anywhere

Really Big Balls

It’s interesting that I now own the only Pinball machine (that I know of) that uses SMALLER than regulation pinballs (Big Betty’s Truck Stop) and another that uses LARGER than normal ones. Strikes ‘ N Spares balls are 1.25” in size. Even though that’s only 3/16^th larger than a normal pinball – it seems much larger. Because they are an “odd” size, they typically sell for about 5x the price of standard pinballs.

Kid sized

This is one (of several) Gottlieb machines that came with 2 sets of leg mounting holes. There is a lower and an upper set of holes. The lower set will raise the machine up to normal, adult player height. The upper mounting holes effectively drop the playfield down to a more kid friendly height. An interesting way to allow operators to cater the machine to each locations clientele

Playing alone?

The game is an absolute favorite at our house when you are talking about non-Pinball people. They actually like to play it. This is from people that have no desire to play regular Pinball. There seem to be a few reasons why. No matter how good the “other guy” is, your turn is coming up FAST. Games can be played in as fast as under 5 minutes if you wish. The competition has the same number of shots you have … 2 per frame. It’s so much different than when I play Pinball against a newbie. Sometimes on a Pinball game, I’ll play for 15 minutes and when the unskilled player finally gets a turn – they drain in seconds. Strikes ‘N Spares is refreshingly different. I think another reason is that the skill (at least on Regulation) is very straightforward. Aim the ball, and flip the flipper. The rules are easy if not already understood. Everybody has bowled at some point in their life. My youngest daughter will have some of her young friends over and they would never consider playing Pinball – yet … they have no problem playing this game.

When we play, in order to give both flippers an even “work out” we require players to alternate flipper sides as they bowl each frame. This also introduces some challenge if you have better aiming skills with one side or the other. The game has 2 complete DMD displays used in various ways during gameplay. Most importantly when you are playing a 4 player regulation game, you can see normal bowling style scoring for all 4 players at once. The game doesn’t have a huge variety in call-outs/sounds but one that stands out is the “Turkey” – both the image and the gobble sound when you get 3 strikes in a row. It’s a cool reward for bowling well and all who play the game look for it. The light show is simple but informative to the play. When you get a strike the red, yellow, then white flashers on both sides will light in sequence and then flash. A spare will light just one side depending on which side of the alley the spare was made. Again, these simple light cues are a real nice reward for clearing a spare of pulling off a strike. Feels like you accomplished something!

So back to playing alone. How is it? Not so good. You might do it once in a blue moon, but it’s not going to be the same as with a Pinball machine. It’s just not as fun as with a partner (or multiple partners). So my recommendation is to have this in a larger collection. It’s fun as heck with a group or even with just one friend. I’d say that most of us collect these things to have others come over and enjoy them WITH us. If that’s the case then this is one of the best bang for your buck machines you can buy. People really like to play it, even if they don’t “get” Pinball. It’s waaaay smaller than a full sized bowler, even smaller than a puck bowler and no need to put your bowling shoes on. About the most fun you can have without a real bowling ball. Well done Gottlieb!

Smart Switches & Game History

I usually post nearly 100% original content here but because information about the game is very hard to come by I am posting some info from another website. John Buras was the game designer. The below info is credited to the folks at the “PA Pinball” site and comes from an interview with John. This was John’s response to the question of how he came up with the design for the game. “I designed this game back at Gottlieb/Mylstar shortly before the company was closed.  I then brought the design along when I started at Premier, but it did not get made until the last days at Premier.  My original design did not have any of the flash, such as the animated bowling pins like the final version had.  Since I was involved with other duties at Premier, Ray Tanzer took my prototype design, and enhanced it.  I initially had the idea for this game, because the puck bowling machines were so popular at the time.  Many locations could not fit these bowling machines in their places, because of their size though.  I thought that this game could possibly fill a void, and turn people on to pinball as well.”

They then asked John about his involvement in the development of the Gottlieb “smart switches”. These switches are used on this game are very unique. John answered first by describing what they are “The Smart Switch is basically a device which translates mechanical energy into an electrical signal, that is similar to that of a mechanical switch made with contact points, but with better reliability.  The switch design was based on the properties of piezo film.” John went on to share why it was important to develop them. “One of the biggest complaints over the years after pinball went solid state was dirty switches.  This was mostly due to atmospheric contaminants due to the locations where pinballs were being operated.  If you could come up with a switch technology that would be immune to these contaminants, it would greatly reduce the maintenance on a machine.  This was very important, because pinball was always fighting the fact that the machines required more maintenance than a video game.  Anyway, I worked on the design with an outside company for over a year, and finally came up with a version of the switch, which could be used as a drop in replacement for the standard leaf type switches in many applications.  To my knowledge, the switch was received well.  I often wonder at times though how the switches are still performing in the field, since I left the industry after Premier closed its doors.” Thanks to the guys at PA Pinball for this interview material as so much of this stuff is being lost to time.

I’m keenly interested to learn even more about this rare and quirky game. If you know of someone involved in the design, reach out to me. If you have some insight into the game that I’ve missed, please share it. The game is unique in the Pinball world and crazy fun with a group as part of a larger collection.

The story behind the game –

If you’ve read the memorial article I completed for my friend Andy, then you know why I bought a NIB Metallica Premium. If you haven’t read it – check it out at the top of the page under the link “Andy”. He was quite a guy and my guess is you’ll take something good away from having read it. For those that did not read it or if you simply don’t have time, I’ll cut to the chase. I’ve always wanted a Metallica but struggled with the theme and music. Loved the gameplay, loved the artwork. My buddy Andy had a really nice MOP LE version and Darin has a Refinery Pro that I’ve played many times. There were 2 tipping points in deciding to find one for myself. First, my wife went to TPF with me and played it there. She and I then went to SFGE and she played it there as well. On both occasions she commented how much she enjoyed it. She’s also a huge music and concert fan. As all Pinheads know, it doesn’t take much prompting to go on the hunt for a new Pinball.

So maybe 3 months ago or so I began to search. I lost an opportunity to buy a nicely modded premium down in Atlanta – sold quickly to a local. Then Andy tried to help me from his hospital bed by sending me regular updates when a MET Premium or LE showed up locally or on Pinside. Several times the pricing or availability just didn’t work out. Fast forward to October 12^th 2018. A day I’ll never forget. I got a text from Andy’s Dad that he had passed away from the illness he had been fighting for almost a year. I balled liked a baby. Then I cried. Then I was sad. Then I got a little angry. Angry that Andy wouldn’t be here anymore. Wouldn’t come over to play Pinball anymore. Wouldn’t be able to come see the new house and Pinball space we were building. Right at that moment I was checking my Facebook feed when my sister posted this message. “Make him proud and buy a pinball.” No way. Listen, I’m building a new house. Putting all my funds into that right now. Heck, I don’t even have space to set even one more up.

But …

I was just emotional enough that I did just that – I ordered another Pinball

I texted my distributor to see
availability. He said yes. I said “how much”. He gave me the
price and I said “how do you want to get paid” – all done, one
day. New Metallica Monsters Premium bought. You can read more about
that in the Andy memorial article if you want, but that about sums up
the “why”.

So what about MET? In this post I’ll
try to answer a few questions about unboxing, modding, playing and
living with one of the bestselling modern Stern’s of all time.

That’s whiskey, not Pinball!

Let’s start with the pickup process. Bit of a story there too. After placing my order with my distributor. I didn’t hear anything for almost 2 weeks. I sent a gentle reminder email and got a response immediately “It’s shipping this week!” Super, I thought, just a few more days and I should get a call from him letting me know shipper, pro #, etc. No word all week up until at least Thursday. No call. No email. Nothing. Not a big deal as I really didn’t expect delivery that week anyway. Friday afternoon, I’m walking out of my office to head home for the weekend and my phone rings. Local number but I don’t recognize it. Usually I ignore because they are spam/robo calls, but on this occasion I answered it. Turns out it was a local freight company. “We’ve got a piece of freight for you on a pallet.” “Is it a Pinball game?” I asked?

Yup! I asked where they were located and after a few minutes of back and forth I discovered they were 5 minutes from my office and as a bonus – I drove the pickup to work that day. Double bonus … they were open until 6:30. I told the guy I was on my way.

I arrived and finally found the correct door to enter. Climbed a set of stairs to get to the dispatch office, opened the door and was met with a blast of hot air. I found a small cheaply paneled room with space heater cooking on high. I peeked around the corner and found a young man all smiles and eager to help. I told him who I was, he asked for my license and took a photo copy of it. Returned my license and had me sign a document. He then asked me to follow him down to the dock area.

On the way down he proceeded to explain to me that the Pinball was in the very last trailer and he couldn’t remember what part. We walked the length of the docks to the last trailer where he quickly disappeared into it. He re-appeared a few seconds later and said “It’s at the nose” – “don’t worry though, it won’t take but a few minutes to unload this thing.”

I watched as he unloaded about 40 total feet of a 53 foot trailer. Now I’ve watched lots of guys handle a forklift but seriously – this guy had skills. Still took him about 15 minutes because the entire freight load was all “Kilz” paint in various package forms. From gallons to boxes to 5 gallons and up – they had every type of package that Kilz could come in. And it was heavy. So it took time. Cause sometimes the pallet wouldn’t let go of the forks without some serious persuasion due to the weight. He finally says “I can get to it now” and a couple seconds later he appears with a box lying flat that looks about the size of 2 large pieces of luggage. He says “Want to inspect it first?” I said “No need – that’s not it!”. He said “It’s not?” After I convinced him it was not a Pinball machine, we both went back into the trailer to closely see that very last big box touching the nose of the trailer. That wasn’t it either. It was a whiskey display – ugh, this was gonna a take a while.

We walked all the way back to the first
dock (the only other trailer with freight in it) and sure enough,
about halfway down was the Stern logo peering back at me. I pointed
to it and said – that one. He started the emptying procedure all
over again and finally, after 35 or 40 minutes I had the MET Premium
leaning against the back of my truck. With another set of helping
hands from him, we tipped it in and away I went. Homeward bound with
one of Andy’s (and soon to be mine) favorite pins!

Truck this side only

I got home and my usual helper (Chris) was getting some well-deserved sleep after a long overnight shift. The weather looked threatening. At least it looked threatening if you have a $7,000 Pinball machine made of wood and electronics sitting exposed to it. What to do? You know the answer. Cut the pallet off the bottom, pull it to the edge of the tailgate, let gravity assist and slowly lower it to the ground. Now tip it upright, grab your freight 2 wheeler and drag it to the front door! Now pull it up those steps – Nope! This is where I was stalled. I weigh 165 soaking wet and am plenty strong enough for most Pinball work but manhandling a NIB up stairs without an Escalara isn’t in the cards. I left it at the bottom of the steps.

Chris woke up an hour later and within a minute we had it in the house safe and sound. We took a dinner break and then when we returned it was back to the MET unboxing. I cut the left and right corners down full length of the “Truck this side only” and then peeled it down. We pulled the legs out of the main container, loosened and removed the pre-installed leg bolts,then attached the front legs

Setup from here goes pretty quick. I always add some sticky felt to the leg leveler bottoms because we have our pins on hardwood floors. With that done to the front legs, it’s a matter of tipping the machine down so the front legs are now touching the ground.

Now lift the back of the machine (helper needed) and I put my DIY 4×4 post under it for support. Add the back legs and you’re ready to cut the band that holds the head for shipping. After cutting the band, lift the head, be careful not to pinch any wires going into the backbox. Have your head bolts ready and as soon as the head is vertical, insert the head bolts and finger tighten until you can finish with a 5/8^th wrench. Boom – the game is up.

For Metallica, there are just a couple more things to do. Pull the power cord out of the recessed hole in the back of the machine. Mine was wrapped around the transformer so make sure you open the coin door and have your helper pull the cord while you watch and guide if needed. Next I pulled the glass and removed the strap tie and foam block around Sparky. Pull off all the other “Adult language” warning papers, assembly papers, etc. and add 4 balls and you are ready to play!

Take a picture of the serial number of
your game. I’m surprised at how many folks don’t keep a record of
this. Take that picture and the next time you are on Pinside,
navigate to your collection page and add that number to the notes.
Not only do you have an image of it but you have a backed up record
of it that you can access anywhere in the world. I know that pins are
rarely stolen but if ever that happens or there is an insurance claim
– you’re prepared.

Screw in the shooter lane – bet that hurts

So we plugged it in. Hit the rocker for power and just like it was supposed to do – it came on. Awesome job Stern. It works. Even after shipping. Not an easy accomplishment. I pushed start. Nothing happened. I have done this dozens of times, still gets me every time. So into the menus I went to set the game on free play. Now I hit start – again. We played maybe 4 balls or so and on the last ball Chris was playing, the launch seemed a little “off”. He drained. I stepped up and pulled the plunger and the ball moved to the forked part of the launch guide and stopped dead. Powered off the game and grabbed the flashlight. A screw had neatly wedged itself into the shooter lane forked area

It literally took 10 minutes to get the very tightly wedged screw out of there using my magnetic rod and gentle prodding. With the screw removed it was time to find out where it came from. It took just 5 seconds to find that.

Right above that area is a clear plastic placed to prevent captive balls during gameplay. There are 2 screws that insert into hex posts from underneath. One had fallen out, the other was on the way. Two drops of blue Loctite and we were back in business. Before we slid the playfield glass back on, I noticed that one of the retaining bolts for the rising cross mech was protruding from the playfield. It simply looks like it was not tightened down enough at the factory. Not sure it’s a problem as the ball doesn’t seem to be able to impact it because it’s so close to the edge of the ball guide. To date, I’ve just left it as is.

Mod it like you mean it

We played a few more entire games and as much fun as the game play is on MET, I was missing the subwoofer and shaker motor. It was time to mod. As you’ve already read, I had some time before this machine arrived. So I spent some money. Too much. On too many mods. The following is the list of mods we installed over the next 5 hours in total:

• Green slingshot
  and inlane protectors
• Polk audio 10”
  subwoofer
• Pinnovators
  subwoofer out kit (Sam)
• Snake tongue
  decal
• Pinball side
  mirrors
• Pinstadium
  lighting kit
• Shaker motor
  (rev B)
• Shooter eject
  protector
• Shooter lane
  mylar
• Magnet mylar
  circle
• Mantis scoop
  protector
• 3 crosses at
  rollover lanes
• Lighted
  cemetery arch
• Sparky
  protector plastic

Guess what? I’m not even close to done! I’ve still got the following to add:

• Custom Dirty Donnie Sparky (on the way)
• Sparky helmet EL wires (here)
• Lighted hammer LED mod (here)
• Snake fangs kit (on the way)
• Sculpted snake kit (here)
• Cliffy switch slot protectors (on the way)

And … on my wish list

• Color DMD
• Custom purple armor

Let’s review how each of these went and provide tips and tricks for install where we can

Slingshot/Inlane protectors –easy install. Clip the white wire ties that hold the wires on each spotlight above the slings. Remove the spotlight from the post.Remove the hex post, then remove the remaining nuts from the other 2 corners of each sling. Remove and discard (put in coinbox if you wish) the metal washers that Stern provide for protection. These can’t stay as the added height of the fluorescent protectors won’tallow the nut to catch enough of the threaded post. Beside the protectors are doing the job the washers were before. When you assemble, make certain the drop zone of the right habitrail is pushed away from the newly added protector or it will hang up (ask me how I know)

Subwoofer – easy install. Use the Pinnovators web page install instructions. Run an extension cable to your sub. Make sure you have a splitter so you can use the “line in” section. Plug in sub, good to go

Snake tongue decal – clean any oil off snake mech base where tongue decal will be placed. I use some alcohol. Thoroughly dry the area with small piece of paper towel.Remove paper backing from decal, then use a small flat blade screwdriver to stick just the very tip of the decal to it. This will allow you to place the decal perfectly. Once positioned push down to ensure adhesion. 60 second install.

Side mirrors/Pin Stadium – this was a package deal install. I noticed my PF was super tight to begin with- barely enough room for the mirrors on each side. There was NO WAY I could fit the Pin Stadium magnets ON TOP of the side mirrors so … I placed the magnets for the Pin Stadium on first, then installed the mirror blades directly below the magnets – butted up tight to them. Worked like a charm! Even so, the magnets from the Pin Stadium are so tight they have actually shaved some wood from the edge of the Pf as I have raised and lowered it. No biggie as you can’t see it and a testament to the adhesive properties of the Pin Stadium magnets because they have not budged!

Shaker motor – a pretty typical install. All the wiring you need is in the cabinet already. The instructions are typically confusing and they don’t disappoint here. I’ve put in dozens of them so I wish I would just stop reading them. Again they confused me and added 5 minutes to a 15 minute install. Add the circuit board (side of cab is already drilled – yay!), mount the shaker (T-nuts already in place – yay!) Plug in 2 sets of wires, add the cover (in my experience the hardest part) and you’re ready to use it.

Shooter eject protector – Not an easy install. If I had it to do over again, I would simply drop a piece of custom cut mylar in there. Here goes. Remove the two nuts holding the front of the apron down midway down the outside drain lanes. Remove the 2 screws holding the back of the apron in place where the playfield brackets intersect and lock into the lock down bar receiver. Unplug the J connector that sends power to the apron lighting. Remove apron. Remove the top 2 screws from the eject mech (left and right side). Now the tricky part. Bend, twist, cajole, nudge, tweak and wish this protector into place. You will need to do 3 things at once. Get it under the eject lip, under the entire eject mech with mounting holes aligned and pop it over the wire guide – good luck without slicing your hands off. Seriously be careful. It would be MUCH easier to remove the entire eject mech but I was too lazy. Total install 30 minutes

Shooter lane mylar – cut it to fit (rectangle) fit it tight to the left side of the shooter lane. Then use a right angle pick (the outside elbow or bend) to press it down from left to right. Don’t just try to shove it in there or it WILL stick but it will leave air gaps wherever it crosses a sharp angle. Just slowly push it down left to right. When you get to the right side you’ll want enough material left to climb all the way up the black part to protect as balls fly out of the eject mech. This right angle crease is important to “fold into” using your right angle pick (use the outside elbow of that pick as it makes a nice crease in the mylar but does not tear it) 5 minute install

Magnet mylar – I always keep several sheets of mylar around. I traced the inside of a roll of my electrical tape and cut that circle out using my tool/scissors. Wax the playfield first and if you need to remove this later, it will come off with no damage. Remove backing and add over magnet area. I did NOT cut out the magnet. I left it covered with the mylar and it works just fine. 2 minute job including cutting the circle out.

Mantis scoop protector – Remove all the screws that mount the scoop toe the playfield. Slide in the mantis protect under the loosed mech. NOW – be careful as you slide and push this into position in the scoop hole. It’s easy to catch a piece of errant clear coat and chip the clear as you push the mantis UP into the scoop hole. I know because I’ve done it on MMR before. Take your time on this one. Once it’s placed, you will use ONE of the original scoop mech mounting holes to hold the protector and you will need to drill a second. I use a small handheld drill and a 1/16^th bit. NO need to go deep. Place the scoop back as it was, add your new hex head screw and this one is in the books. Took about 20 minute’s total. Not hard at all. Worth the effort. No extraordinary rejects from the scoop at all during gameplay. Highly recommended.

3 crosses – Super easy install BUT the one on the left hits a clear protective plastic (one of the arms on the cross) so I had to fiddle with it to keep the crosses straight and aligned with each other. I actually pulled the left cross off the aluminum mount and re-positioned it higher. The adhesive is very sticky so it allowed for the re-positioning. Problem solved. Total install should be 2 minutes. Actual install was 15 minutes +

Lighted cemetery arch – Not complex at all. Instructions should be a little clearer. But you can figure it out. Follow the Mezelmods instructions on line. I’m still wondering how to secure the wiring even though it doesn’t get in the way of anything – just kind of sits there. Also don’t think that the mod is as “dramatic” as I would have thought it to be.Still looks good as a sculpted piece though.

Sparky protector – I ordered the green fluorescent and once installed did not like it at all. I’ve since reordered the thinner clear version and will install that instead. The green was too much up around Sparky and this protector was very thick. Looked fantastic in design though with engraved spider webbing.

You cussing at me??

So what do I think about Metallica game play? Wow. I’m impressed. It’s a great combination of hard shots with easier repeatable ones. It’s easy to get to multiball. It’s a challenge to drive the ball up that fuel lane. It’s easy to hit Sparky. It’s hard to hit that left ramp. It’s easy to backhand the graveyard. It’s hard to hit it from the right flipper and not go STDM.

I never listened to Metallica growing up. I AM a huge music fan. At one time I had over 7,000 records in my collection. Yes, metal was part of it. Just no Metallica. To be honest, it’s not bad. In fact for a Pinball game it’s absolutely perfect. I wouldn’t change a thing. If you don’t think you would like it because you already know you “hate Metallica” (or as Sparky puts it “Tallica Sux”) then give it a play first. There are simple menu settings that you can use to turn the volume of the music down to your liking if you so choose. I ended up turning my music UP not down. To turn it UP, go into the game adjustment menu and select #134 (music attenuation) and change it to say -40. Yup, you read that right, MINUS 40. The higher the negative number the louder the songs are! Metallica music is OK by me.

What can I say about the artwork – it’s stunning. Dirty Donny is no doubt the man when it comes to this hand drawn art style. It captures a metal band perfectly and from what I’ve heard from true MET fans it captures this band to a “T”. Great job Donny Gillies! We met him at Texas Pinball Festival last March and he’s just a fun guy too. I know that Miss Tami will love her custom painted Sparky from Donny when it arrives.

The sound … the glorious sound package in this pin. It is nearly perfect in every way. The only improvement might be if the entire hardware system was replaced to perform at the level that Total Nuclear Annihilation or Alice Coopers Nightmare Castle are at. This sound package is so good it deserves better hardware – better fidelity. With that said, let’s review some of the highlights. Like the double bass drums tied to the spinners – genius and sounds amazing through the sub. Like the adult language callouts. I’m not a fan of cussing but I am good at it. I also recognize that this IS probably an appropriate place for it. I play the game with the volume around 40 and simply love the feeling of being at a concert or better yet, an event like no other. Adrenaline, excitement, music, skill, lights, sounds and vibes from the shaker – Pinball at its best!

This band is hot!

I live on 30 acres and will typically burn all the paper I can in my burning barrel. Saves trash space. Saves me hauling it ¼ mile out to the road each week. So, after setting up Metallica, it made sense to drag the box out to the burning barrel and get rid of it. I pulled one of the leg boxes out of it (nice long square chimney shape if you know what I mean) and I lit that at the bottom and tossed it back inside the bigger box. I can’t resist a great image so as the box began to burn, I snapped a few. The last one is amazing and as I clicked the image using my iPhone, I was nearly burned in the process (I was many feet away but wow, was that hot!). A fitting end to the box that held the pinball machine that represents a band known for their over the top performances and music – rock on