# Super Mario Pinball Shop Job: Part 1

**Source:** Cary Hardy  
**Type:** video  
**Published:** 2020-07-20  
**Duration:** 18m 49s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTAT40vyk7k

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## Analysis

Cary Hardy documents the disassembly and restoration of a System 3 Gottlieb Super Mario pinball machine. The video covers playfield removal techniques, heavy cleaning with Magic Eraser and isopropyl alcohol, repair of broken T-nut posts, trough disassembly, and cosmetic restoration of a worn scoop hole using airbrushing and Frisket film masking. Hardy demonstrates methodical shop practices and considerations for whether to sell or place the machine on location after restoration.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Two T-nut posts broke during disassembly and will require repair — _Hardy identifies multiple broken posts during removal: 'This is now the second post that has broken off in the damn freaking T-nut'_
- [HIGH] Magic Eraser and isopropyl alcohol are effective for removing ball trails and dirt from playfields — _Hardy demonstrates cleaning technique: 'This is where the magic eraser and isopropyl alcohol can come in real handy is by getting out these trails, these ball trails'_
- [HIGH] A clean trough is essential because accumulated dirt in the trough will spread across the playfield again — _'This is where all your dirt is going to be accumulating and spreading all over your play field all over again. So if you clean your plate fill but you don't clean your trough then you are just wasting your time pretty much'_
- [HIGH] Thin wood sheets can be used as wedges to safely pry up playfield inserts without damaging the playfield — _Hardy explains technique: 'What this does is keeps it from damaging the play field when I'm prying those things up'_
- [MEDIUM] Gravity-fed airbrushes are Hardy's preferred tool for pinball restoration painting — _'this is a gravity fed now that's it's all about personal preference when it comes to gravity versus siphon fed but I have just found that this gun works good for me'_

### Notable Quotes

> "This is where all your dirt is going to be accumulating and spreading all over your play field all over again. So if you clean your plate fill but you don't clean your trough then you are just wasting your time pretty much"
> — **Cary Hardy**, mid-video
> _Explains core maintenance philosophy: trough cleaning is essential to prevent re-contamination of cleaned playfield_

> "What this does is keeps it from damaging the play field when I'm prying those things up"
> — **Cary Hardy**, mid-video
> _Describes protective technique for safe insert removal using wood wedges_

> "I haven't gone through to get all the little bitty stuff left over behind from the magic eraser This is just to show you what all I was able to clean up"
> — **Cary Hardy**, mid-video
> _Demonstrates iterative cleaning process with Magic Eraser, acknowledging residual cleanup required_

> "this is not going to be a complete restoration machine like I've stated so there's no need to put all that much effort into it"
> — **Cary Hardy**, late-video
> _Sets expectations for scope of restoration work—functional/cosmetic rather than full restoration_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Cary Hardy | person | Pinball restoration technician and content creator demonstrating shop practices on Super Mario Gottlieb System 3 |
| Super Mario | game | Gottlieb System 3 pinball machine being disassembled and restored in this video |
| Gottlieb | company | Pinball manufacturer; Super Mario is a System 3 Gottlieb machine |
| Magic Eraser | product | Cleaning product used extensively for playfield dirt and ball trail removal |
| Frisket film | product | Masking material used to protect areas during airbrushing repairs |
| Cliffy | product | Protective guards that will cover repaired scoop area; Hardy is deciding whether to order them |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Playfield disassembly and access techniques, Cleaning and maintenance procedures, Cosmetic restoration and painting
- **Secondary:** Tool usage and shop equipment setup, Damage assessment and repair prioritization
- **Mentioned:** Machine disposition decisions (sell vs. locate)

### Sentiment

**Neutral** (0.55) — Hardy maintains professional, educational tone throughout. Minor frustration with broken posts ('I'm not happy about that') balanced by satisfaction with cleaning results and repair outcomes. Positive about restored appearance but pragmatic about scope limitations.

### Signals

- **[product_strategy]** Cosmetic repair and protective upgrade consideration—Cliffy protectors being evaluated to prevent future scoop damage (confidence: medium) — Hardy debates ordering Cliffy protectors: 'I'm really debating on getting the clippy protectors for this machine the main reason why i'm even debating it because i just don't know how long it's going to take for me to get the damn things in'
- **[technology_signal]** Use of Magic Eraser and isopropyl alcohol as standard playfield cleaning method; gravity-fed airbrush setup for cosmetic repairs (confidence: medium) — Hardy demonstrates Magic Eraser technique as established practice: 'This is where the magic eraser and isopropyl alcohol can come in real handy'

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## Transcript

Well, the kids have already had their time with this game, I think. I think they're done with it. So, I think it's time to disassemble and get her all cleaned up. And I haven't decided if I'm just going to sell it or put it on location yet. I don't know. I'll make that decision later. Here we go! go. And this is how I work on playfield for the System 3 Gottliebs to get them to where I can access everything without having to remove the playfield entirely from the machine and unhooking everything. Simply just a little clamp on this side and a clamp on the other side as well. gets the playfield pretty much level and really comfortable to work on and access everything when the pinball is all on its legs and everything. So this gives me complete access to everything all around the machine without taking it completely out of the cabinet. So this works out pretty well and I guess we'll start getting our Ziploc bags and getting this thing taken apart. All right, we've got some assembly taken care of, at least this portion right here, all the way down to the flipper. And now I need to start on that side and work my way down and then we'll continue. What I'm noticing so far is that the screws were missing on this ramp. I think everything up there seemed to be okay. Nothing troublesome. Rubbers were obviously pretty old in this game. We got a quite a lot of wear around the scoop. This screw post snapped off on a single twist. Yep, so I'm not happy about that. I'm gonna have to take care of that. I think that is the only issues that we've had so far. Alright we've gotten a little further now. Gotten the castle all removed, the upper playfield removed, and that's where we're at on this. Playfield is right here. Still have to take things off of it but it'll be easier to work with when it's not attached to the rest of this machine. Essentially you've just got these three connectors down right here that power all of the mechanics and lights on the upper play field. And this is now the second post that has broken off in the damn freaking T-nut. So that's two that I'm gonna have to repair and Yep, moving on. And this is just after a just a good wipe down to get all the heavy piled up dirt like that you used to see down here and around this vicinity. Just going over with it, where's that, like this kind of towel right here. This is all dirt and grime and everything. so a lot of the heavy dirt's been cleaned up there's still a good amount of dirt that's gonna need to be cleaned out of here obviously it's not as clean as I'd like it to be so that's why I'm busting out the magic eraser and we're gonna get this thing cleaned up a little bit better. This is where the magic eraser and isopropyl alcohol can come in real handy is by getting out these trails, these ball trails that tend to go around like this. This ring went all the way around and I was able to get that out of there. So I'll just continue doing so. See if we can help a little bit just right here to give you an idea. it's looking better still gonna require some grease and obviously some of the dirt was covering up where even some paint has gone away and so that's the worrisome when it comes to using a magic eraser is that you don't want to be pulling up the paint now if my magic eraser starts turning like blue and stuff like that that what I know I definitely gone too far So we not going to able to get to where it looks brand new but we we are gonna get a lot of this crap out of here though now depending on how deep you want to get these are this is one of the methods I use to get these portions up I just use like these little thin sheets of wood right here depending on that way I'm able to do a certain amount of thickness because some of these are taller than other ones get something in there just use it as a wedge move it over there so it's a lot easier with two hands get up another side move it over back that way again now what I'll do now is add another thing of wood could depending on how deep these things go. They're probably pretty close to coming out, though. Man, those are in there pretty good. So what this does is keeps it from damaging the play field when I'm prying those things up. So I've got to go get another sheet of this wood here, and that way I can get it all the way out. But that's a method to go about doing it. Now, this is after going through this section with the magic eraser and isopropyl alcohol. No, I haven't gone through to get all the little bitty stuff left over behind from the magic eraser This is just to show you what all I was able to clean up I had to pull up the mylar around here because it was really coming up and there's a bunch of dirt packed up underneath there That was keeping it from being able to go back down. So I went ahead and just pulled that whole ring around that pop bumper out and Does I think all in the upper plate feel kind of scrub pretty good? Including the targets are cleaned up pop bumpers right here Now I'm basically going through and putting stuff that took about I'm not getting these to a nice mirror finish, but I did go through real quick and just brush them so that way they are cleaner whenever they go back onto the machine compared to what they did look like, which is worse than that. So it's a little bit of an improvement. This one's got cleaned up a little bit too. But yeah, I'm just going to put those back on. And that's where we're at on this. So once I get this done, which I'm just about there, then I'll start cleaning the bottom half of the play field with the magic eraser and everything. All right, so the play field has been gone over with the magic eraser and isopropyl alcohol. I have not cleaned off any of the residual yet, so it is going to look a little foggy because of the residual from the magic eraser. I am now going to be working on getting this lower portion. You can see how much cleaner it is now, especially this spot right here. I'm going to be taking apart all of the trough area because this is something I do on all my games because a clean trough is a happy trough. This is where all your dirt is going to be accumulating and spreading all over your play field all over again. So if you clean your plate fill but you don't clean your trough then you are just wasting your time pretty much so i'm going to get this all just assembled and get it all cleaned up all right now that we've got this all cleaned up we should be able to just you know freely be able to test all these things where they run the way they're supposed to nice and clean all right let's see if we can do something with this this is obviously um i've seen worse but this is something i want to see if we can just kind of get this cleaned up and make it look a little bit more aesthetically pleasing i'm really debating on getting the clippy protectors for this machine the main reason why i'm even debating it because i just don't know how long it's going to take for me to get the damn things in i might just bite the bullet and just go ahead and put the order in this one's looking that way too this one's not too bad um yeah just that main scoop right here this is the worst one so we're going to try to clean this up little bit and we're able to access this from here so first thing is I'm going to remove this whole mech and solenoid and switch and everything right here take that off and then I should be able to remove this mdf portion right here and then get that all cleaned up and then i can work on up here getting this smoothed out i may or may not do some airbrushing just to give you guys an example of what you can do but then i'll paint some clear on this to lock that in and the cliffies would cover all this up anyways so all right let's take off this portion right here at this angle you can see what we're working with basically just four screws to remove solenoid and then you got four other screws to remove the the wood let's remove those and here we have the portion that used to go right here like that and this looks like a easy fix for down here all I got to do is clean this up and then I'll do a little bit of sanding around here inside that area and then just repaint it black and then I'll even shoot a layer of clear over it just to give it some extra protection for future wear. All right, so I've got this moderately sanded just to kind of help smooth things out a bit. I need to thoroughly clean it up to make sure there's no dirt or debris in this area. And then I'm going to be laying down what is called Frisket film, Frisket paper. Now I have a big old roll of this, but I'm gonna use the rest of this that I bought. I think I got this at Hobby Lobby, yeah. and I'm just going to cut out the portion that I need, which is just a small little area. This is just to prevent me from accidentally getting any kind of spray on stuff that I don't need to. I don't need to cover the entire play field, just the direct area. And then I have a roll of this kind of material that I can utilize to help with any kind of overspray. And once I get it all down, I'll show you what I'm talking about. But just describing it's a little difficult. So let's do that. Here is just a real quick typical setup for something like this. I've got all the extra sheets to control overspray, and this is all frisketed around here. Now you can see the yard, and you think I might be painting that, but I will not be. I'm only going to be able to paint what I cut away using the X-Acto knife around this hole. And that's what we're going to do next. Alright, so I've cut away what I don't want to be painted over, which is just the circle for this hole. And if there's any kind of bleed through around this area that's worn down, then I can easily just use a black paint marker to do what I'm going to do anyways. But like I said, I'm not too worried about this because it's going to be covered up with the cliffy anyways so all right let's get our airbrush stuff ready so here's our supplies i'm going to be using i've got a big bottle of the opaque white because that is a major must when it comes to airbrushing and then i've got a transparent brown now the brush that i'm going to be using is this one right here this is a cheap one i mean you can get this off of a amazon and i've went through a couple until i found one that worked really well for me and this is one that I have found that works really well for me it is gravity fed now that's it's all about personal preference when it comes to gravity versus siphon fed but I have just found that this gun works good for me so first off I'm gonna get it all hooked up and something I'm gonna get down the future is a little pump I'm using my big old air compressor with a built-in regulator but I need to get the little bitty mini pumps so that way I don't have to worry about having to use that. Anyways, I'm gonna get this all hooked up. We're gonna put a bunch of opaque white in here and get our base coat now. What you need to do is make sure that you don't let, you know, excess paint and everything go down into the other stuff underneath the plate filled obviously. So I've got that masked off with some painters tape right there so now I should be able to shoot without worrisome of hitting anything that shouldn't be hit all right so we are ready to start putting in some paint and start shooting we'll see how it goes I'm gonna try to do this with a one hand and be able to record at the same time guys yeah don get too close I don want to worry about any kind of off spray So let me see what I got going so far here One of the perks or reason why I use this paint is that it can dry really quick with heat. So just kind of hit it with a heat gun a little bit and get it nice and dry, then I'll do another coat All right. Alright so let's see the fruits of our labor. Should be able to pull this stuff away now. Like I said around this edge is where I'm going to have the black paint pen. So that's going to be a non-issue kind of thing. and then we get this stuff down right here that's no longer going to need to be there and that gives you a better idea what that's gonna look like and I'll get the I'll go ahead and get the black paint pen over here just so we can make that look a little more appeasing and here we have it this is a quick fix without using like you know a wood epoxy and everything to get it all completely leveled out and stuff like that this is not going to be a complete restoration machine like I've stated so there's no need to put all that much effort into it but and this portion right here which would be like red and stuff it's gonna be covered up by the cliffy so I'm not too concerned about that portion either this was just to give you an idea of options and things that you can do when it comes to making the holes look a little more clean and appealing. Let's get the portion down here taken care of. Alright so we've got the black portion on here after it's been painted and everything. Now something else that we're gonna get cleaned up to make it a little more appealing is all this mess. yikes so let's get this taken off and I had to remove the switch and everything to get just this whole piece all brushed and polished up and everything may have to wait to do this one tomorrow I think I'm done for today all right I know I said I was gonna call it for today but I decided to screw it I wanted to get it cleaned up and be over and done with so real quick brushing of the metal and sanding of the switch right there that looks pretty damn clean especially compared to what it did look like so now we're just gonna get it all mounted up and see what the finished product looked like and there we go I think that it looks a lot better than what it did look like Alright, get this portion right back here, put it back in its slot, and then, I'll get that pushed in better. But, yep, there we go. Outro Music

_(Acquisition: youtube_groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 1fcd693e-faf3-46c1-baba-a351f383ae49*