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2020 UPDATED - Importing a container of pinball machines: My Experience


maxi

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Did it have the funny Italian character voices or was that The Simpsons?

 

 

That was the one that was in Italian. Forgot to mention that. It's in english now, worked out how to change it in the settings. Turns out the italian word for language is "lingua" :laugh:

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I have just added a navigation tool to the first post of this thread which has links to all updates so far. This thread is getting very long so just thought I'd try to organise it to save myself juggling ten different threads at a time. Hopefully that makes following this thread a little easier.

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Just a suggestion having these "on display" from the street ain't wise.

Garage is very secure. Those pins ain't going anywhere.:cool:

But thanks for the concern :)

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Note:

I have just added a navigation tool to the first post of this thread which has links to all updates so far. This thread is getting very long so just thought I'd try to organise it to save myself juggling ten different threads at a time. Hopefully that makes following this thread a little easier.

 

Pinball restorer, IT guru, author, savvy businessman all at the ripe old age of 17. You continue to impress us all Max. Keep the posts coming, we love them. Simon.

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Pinball restorer, IT guru, author, savvy businessman all at the ripe old age of 17. You continue to impress us all Max. Keep the posts coming, we love them. Simon.

17 in August at least ;)

Thanks Simon, means a lot mate.

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  • 4 months later...

Just a small update on this to get it going again and get me motivated to get this machine finished in the next few weeks.

 

I do owe this one to @illawarra_steelers for inspiring everyone with that post telling everyone to pull their finger out :laugh:

Hopefully this inspires some people to do something small one of their pins and post it, whatever it is.

 

http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af18/maxbereny/Family%20Guy%20Pinball%20-%20Before%20and%20Progress/IMG_2941_zpsy95k7o14.jpg

 

As you can see, the beer can on family guy was shot. The ball had hit it that many million times that it made it through the heavy duty decal and even started to wear away at the mild steel. Luckily, when we lifted up the machine, @dloe007 and I found most of the ten year old goody bag contents scattered throughout the base of the cabinet, with about ten replacements for this decal. I guess they saw the problem coming huh?

 

http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af18/maxbereny/IMG_4754_zpsmvsawvwl.jpg

 

After scraping the decal off, there was an unbelievable amount of residue fused to the steel can. We ended up having to just peel it off by hand as nothing else would dissolve it. After getting that sorted, it was pretty obvious we couldn't just slap a decal over the dent, or the ball would just break it in no time.

 

Luckily, my uncle is a Swiss astronautical engineer who is living with us at the moment, and he had the idea to flip the can around so the undamaged side showed. Brilliant. We did some drilling and flipped the can. I then gave it a polish with metal polish and laid the decal onto it. The finished product looks shiny as ever, with a beautiful new decal on it! This was the end result:

 

http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af18/maxbereny/IMG_4763_zpsopg0p4eh.jpg

 

http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af18/maxbereny/IMG_4779_zpswm6iwgxk.jpg

 

Sometimes all you need for pinball restoration is a bit of sense and a screwdriver. I did, however, have a thought; if we are "restoring" pins like this by flipping things around, what's going to happen when they have to be restored again in the future? They'll flip it around and get a nasty surprise that someone has already had the same thought. Are pinball machines re-restorable?

 

Dave and I stripped the rest of the machine and put a bunch of LEDs in so now it's looking even more sparkly.

 

The next piece of damage to attack:

 

http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af18/maxbereny/Family%20Guy%20Pinball%20-%20Before%20and%20Progress/IMG_2944_zpsmrz22mqk.jpg

 

The game plan with this one is to order a repair decal for shrek from pinball centre and use that for the insert, then put a protector over the playfield and put it back together. I'll post an update when it's done and it'll be one more off the list!

 

Cheers,

Max

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  • 3 months later...

The Simpsons Pinball Party

 

Alright, glad to be updating this thread. This project is of course still going slowly as the end of school nears (forever!). In the week between exams and departing overseas, @dloe007 and I got going on TSPP, deciding that the playfield on Family Guy wasn’t a project that could be started and finished in a week.

Turning it on, it worked pretty well. The only thing that seemed to create an issue was the sticking of the coil that locks the balls on the couch (upper playfield). On the surface, the machine didn’t look too dirty, but of course when you start disassembling you discover the extent of the filth.

 

http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af18/maxbereny/TSPP%20Start%20to%20finish/IMG_6525_zpsgnaoctk2.jpg

 

http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af18/maxbereny/TSPP%20Start%20to%20finish/IMG_4978_zpszba1tfth.jpg

 

Above all, it looked pretty sad lit up, which is to be expected considering that these import games were largely games that were decided by operators to be, essentially, no longer worth maintaining.

Stripping the playfield was a surprisingly menial task. The mini playfield came off without too much hassle (except for the huge molex connectors that had to be cut because they were so stuck together), and the rest of it seemed to strip pretty easily. At that point, the dirt was a little more obvious (it was completely caked onto the playfield), so we hit it with nifti and then novus 2 to make it nice and shiny. By that point, it was looking pretty good.

 

http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af18/maxbereny/TSPP%20Start%20to%20finish/IMG_5148_zpstkowzyiu.jpg

 

 

We did have a couple of minor screw ups, namely attaching pieces backwards and then stumping ourselves for about an hour as to what we had done wrong, and also dropping the playfield into the cabinet on an angle and getting it stuck (we honestly didn’t think we were going to get it back out).

By the time we got it back out, we were pretty much ready to apply the playfield protector.

Just to inform anyone curious, these playfield protectors when you put them on for the first time, look like a fresh coat of KBS on the playfield, but their role is to PROTECT the playfield. They do scratch, but they will ensure no more wear on your playfield. Also, before applying one, one must realise that they are not adhesive and move around slightly, so every little dust particle between the protector and the playfield will be visible. To minimise this, take a new microfiber cloth and dab the playfield with it; it will pick up the last bits of dust.

The playfield was looking pretty damned perect; there wasn’t really any damage anywhere.

 

http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af18/maxbereny/TSPP%20Start%20to%20finish/IMG_5213_zpsvhqrnjzg.jpg

 

We fitted new rubbers to the playfield and started reassembling. With our own photos and a collection of others’, we didn’t have too many problems reassembling it. We installed some comet LEDs and could then reinstall the upper playfield. I had ordered a new garage decal from pinballcenter as the original was dead, but it came in completely the wrong colour. It’s a weird purple tone, but hey we had to work with it, so we put some purple LEDs around it to make it look more original.

 

http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af18/maxbereny/TSPP%20Start%20to%20finish/IMG_5198_zpscybmfdrh.jpg

 

 

We also had to make a bit of a homemade LED solution for the upper playfield inserts, as the sockets were parallel to the playfield, and we didn’t have time to wait for flexi LEDs. The solution? Well, we took some flat top LEDs from Comet Pinball (in a bulk pack, they were about 39c each when I bought them), took a hack saw, and made a 45 degree cut on the lens to act as a sort of mirror, redirecting the light to the side of the LED and through the insert. I’ll upload some photos of this when I’m back in Aus, but for the moment I don’t have any photos. We also made a bracket to hold the mini playfield coil in place so that it wouldn’t become misaligned, but this will have to be modified a bit until it works consistently. This is what the mini playfield looks like now:

 

http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af18/maxbereny/TSPP%20Start%20to%20finish/IMG_5202_zpspmzlmo4l.jpg

 

 

The best part is that this is possible with very little actual technical knowledge, and every time you finish a recondition job, you feel more confident on the next, so go ahead and give this a shot if you want to make your machine look a million bucks.

 

The final product is shown below in a test video. I'll take some nice pics when back home. Thanks for reading!

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  • 1 year later...
Any more thoughts to share @maxi? Have you put any more titles on location?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Aussie Arcade

 

Haven't been up to much to be honest Duncan. Going to start devoting some days of the week to restoration. But other projects and work have of late been occupying a lot of time. Hopefully I'll be updating with some nice achievements soon since I have some parts on the way from the US.

Thanks for following!

Max

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Haven't been up to much to be honest Duncan. Going to start devoting some days of the week to restoration. But other projects and work have of late been occupying a lot of time. Hopefully I'll be updating with some nice achievements soon since I have some parts on the way from the US.

Thanks for following!

Max

 

No worries. Life gets in the way of pinball for all of us.

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  • 1 year later...

Well, it's been a little while out of the game for me.

 

With the bar I've been working hard at closed thanks to the virus, getting back into a regular sleep schedule has got me right back into this hobby. Hopefully, with that, getting a bit closer to the dream pinball cave.

 

For anyone who still had hope for the Stern Family Guy I was doing, it stayed disassembled for almost 2 years 🤣but it's back together and looking sharp. I'll post an update for it.

 

Next one:

 

Indiana Jones!

 

I'll be honest, this was not the best buying on my part. I'd always wanted one of these so I sort of ignored the condition. Not a brilliant idea since the price wasn't all that great. Oh well.

 

Cabinet could frankly be a lot worse, not sure how much I'll do to it yet. Playfield is where most of the time and energy will go.

 

The following issues are most evident:

- It's filthy (obviously)

- A big hole (wtf?) next to Marion's head

- Really bad ball swirls. Nothing will get them out.

- Mild flipper drag over Indy's torso

- Big patch of factory mylar

- Early-ish signs of planking

 

 

IMG_7903.thumb.JPG.84cfffb1e506b4b263d8dddd2502194d.JPG IMG_7904.thumb.JPG.31914f7d264640327970132e85a73b9d.JPG IMG_7905.thumb.JPG.92bb4179bcdfa4d7b906301a3b072314.JPG IMG_7906.thumb.JPG.cf6243c1e7e743a5a622d4784286ea73.JPG IMG_8190.PNG.524c733f19fb48784cd461b0a2bdf790.PNG

 

I deliberated for a couple of days about what to do. Most of my touchups, I do by hand. I usually put playfield protectors over the machines to protect the touch-ups.

 

Unfortunately this wasn't a candidate for either of those. The damage was too widespread. The only option is airbrush the large damage areas and clear coat. Having never done either of those things, I am rather nervous. But hey you have to learn somehow.

 

Before I could talk myself out of it, I went online and bought all of the materials.

 

There's no turning back now

 

I'll keep this updated.

 

- Max

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Hi Max,

Good to see you back.

Unfortunately IJ is very prone to ball swirl/ wear in the sling areas and not unusual.:(

Good on you for taking this on as I for one love the game and still am still enjoying a recent IJ purchase.

Plan B might be to send the PF to a professional restorer as PF's or maybe a Mirco one but pretty pricey.

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