# Episode 1- Pimp out my Pin!

**Source:** THE PINBALL RESTORER’S PODCAST  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2021-03-06  
**Duration:** 63m 37s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** Buzzsprout-8086801

---

## Analysis

Jeff Miller, founder of a cabinet stencil kit business based in Tampa, Florida, discusses his journey from childhood pinball and woodworking in Columbus, Indiana, through a career in graphic design and CPR (Classic Playfield Reproduction) work, to launching his stencil business in 2013. He covers restoration philosophy, the importance of cosmetic presentation in collector machines, the evolution from screen printing to digital vector-based stencil design, and the labor-intensive process of hand-weeding stencils for arcade cabinet artwork.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Jeff Miller created cabinet stencil kits and has produced over 300 titles in 8 years — _Jeff Miller, directly stated about his stencil business: 'I actually started out with 10 stencils and eight years now I think I'm up to over 300 titles.'_
- [HIGH] Pinball was illegal in most of the United States until 1976, including LA, New York, and Chicago — _Host states: 'it's now been legalized pinball, you know, because most parts of the country pinball was actually illegal until 1976. That's including L.A., New York, and Chicago.'_
- [HIGH] Jeff Miller's first pinball machine was a Captain Fantastic purchased on eBay in 2005 for approximately $1,400 — _Jeff Miller: 'I decided in 2005 that I wanted a pinball machine... my first one was a Captain Fantastic... I remember bidding on eBay... I think I ended up winning it for around $1,400 or something like that.'_
- [HIGH] Jeff Miller worked for CPR (Classic Playfield Reproduction) starting in 2008, with his first project being Comet plastic set — _Jeff Miller: 'I was looking back through my folder, and it looks like I did the Comet plastic set. It was my very first project with them... That was in 2008.'_
- [HIGH] Jeff Miller worked in screen printing from 1990 to 1996 after moving to Florida — _Jeff Miller: 'I moved to Florida back in 1990. 1990 to 1996, I worked in a screen printing business. So I was in the dark room. You work with film, you work with Frisket, lots of vector work...'_
- [HIGH] Captain Fantastic was designed by Greg (Greg Ferris) with art by Dave Christensen — _Host: 'Captain Fantastic is, you know, it's a ballet game. It was designed by Greg over there, and the art was done by Dave Christensen.'_
- [HIGH] A fully restored Evil Knievel machine with high-end specifications can cost over $8,000 before labor when including CPR playfield, new cabinet, and parts — _Jeff Miller: 'by the time you get done, and the price of the machine, oh, CPR gold playfield, plastic set, backglass, the whole ball of wax, you're over $8,000 including the donor machine before labor.'_
- [HIGH] Jeff Miller attended Purdue University from 1984-1989, receiving degrees in engineering, drawing, and computer design — _Jeff Miller: 'I went to Purdue. I got two degrees from Purdue University in engineering, drawing, and computer design. But that was from 1984 to 89.'_

### Notable Quotes

> "I just found these machines fascinating. And, you know, I was always playing when the store opened. If I lost the games, couldn't find any more quarters, it was straight back to the model kits."
> — **Jeff Miller**, early in episode
> _Establishes Jeff's early childhood connection to pinball and how it merged with his artistic interests_

> "It's like the blindfold off moment when their just jaw hits the ground and they can't believe what they're looking at. And there's, I don't do it for the money. I do it for the love and the passion because when those people see it, they're a 12-year-old kid on Christmas and their dreams come true."
> — **Jeff Miller**, mid-episode during restoration philosophy discussion
> _Captures Jeff's core motivation and approach to high-end restoration work_

> "Me being an artist my whole life, I don't, I can't, I can't see two different eras. I have to see it all one way or all another."
> — **Jeff Miller**, mid-episode during restoration approach discussion
> _Explains Jeff's design philosophy and why he restores comprehensively rather than mixing old and new aesthetics_

> "I'm just down here in sunny Tampa, Florida, trying to pimp out as many pins as I can while I'm still able to."
> — **Jeff Miller**, late in episode
> _Summarizes his current mission and the name/theme of the podcast episode_

> "When it comes to decal work, anything, once it's been laser cut, has to be removed by hand. That is not intended to be part of the stencil. And that is a labor in of itself."
> — **Jeff Miller**, near end of episode
> _Reveals the manual labor-intensive nature of stencil production that is often underappreciated_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Jeff Miller | person | Founder of cabinet stencil kit business in Tampa, Florida; former CPR artist; graphic designer with roots in screen printing and vector art; collector and restorer |
| Greg Ferris | person | Designer of Captain Fantastic pinball machine; mentioned in KB as having connections to Williams and Jersey Jack |
| Dave Christensen | person | Artist who created the artwork for Captain Fantastic pinball machine |
| Classic Playfield Reproduction (CPR) | company | Reproduction parts company for which Jeff Miller worked as an artist from 2008 onwards, creating vector art for plastic sets and backglasses |
| Captain Fantastic | game | Bally pinball machine from the 1970s inspired by Elton John's Tommy and his autobiography; Jeff Miller's first pinball machine purchased in 2005 |
| Fireball | game | Bally pinball machine with high-detail backglass requiring 13 colors and 70+ hours of vector work; last major project Jeff Miller completed for CPR in 2013; also had a home edition variant |
| Creature from the Black Lagoon | game | Pinball machine with speaker grill art that CPR reproduced; featured LED mod work by PinBits |
| Comet | game | Pinball machine for which Jeff Miller created the plastic set reproduction; his first project with CPR in 2008, featuring halftones for roof shadows |
| Bob York Power Play | game | Pinball machine for which Jeff Miller created a reproduction plastic set in 2009; one of his notable CPR projects |
| Evil Knievel | game | Pinball machine that Jeff Miller is restoring for a client; example of comprehensive high-end restoration with CNC cabinet, new electronics, chrome work, and premium parts |
| Six Million Dollar Man | game | 1978 Bally licensed pinball machine; example of TV show IP licensing in pinball's golden era |
| Playboy | game | Licensed pinball machine from the era of IP-based game themes in the 1970s-1980s |
| Kiss | game | Licensed pinball machine from the era of IP-based game themes |
| Rolling Stone | game | Licensed pinball machine from the era of IP-based game themes |
| Asteroids | game | Classic arcade game mentioned as a major influence; host has restored mint version; represents game design without end state or pattern |
| Tron | game | Arcade game that host restored from a caboose in Arizona; sold for approximately $3,500 to a comic book collector |
| Paul Serena | person | Owner of Starrcade, a retro arcade in an unspecified location with extensive collection including Tron, Tron 2, Asteroids, and Battlezone |
| Starrcade | company | Retro arcade business owned by Paul Serena; mentioned as having extensive vintage arcade collection |
| Purdue University | organization | University where Jeff Miller studied 1984-1989, earning degrees in engineering, drawing, and computer design; had early Mac computers available in design labs |
| Big Daddy Enterprises | company | Pinball electronic repair products vendor featuring boards and parts; mentioned as podcast sponsor |
| Titan Pinball | company | Pinball parts vendor offering tournament silicone rings, LED bulbs, mylar protection, pin mats, and playfield posts; mentioned as podcast sponsor |
| Pac-Man | game | Arcade game mentioned as example of early-generation arcade design without end state |
| Pong | game | Early arcade game mentioned as reference point for record-setting play and endless gameplay mechanics |
| Columbus, Indiana | organization | Jeff Miller's hometown where he grew up playing pinball at Danner's Five and Dime on Saturday mornings in 1976 |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Cabinet stencil design and production, Pinball machine restoration and customization, Graphic design and vector art in pinball, High-end vs. casual restoration approaches
- **Secondary:** Pinball licensing history and IP themes, Arcade game restoration and preservation, Pinball legalization history in the US, Labor costs and pricing in restoration work

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.85) — Jeff Miller expresses deep passion for his work, pride in his contributions to the hobby, and genuine appreciation for customer reactions. The conversation maintains enthusiasm throughout with nostalgic reflections on arcade/pinball history. No significant negativity, though some practical discussion of business challenges and cost constraints.

### Signals

- **[restoration_signal]** Jeff Miller details the labor-intensive hand-weeding process for laser-cut stencils, requiring art light inspection and manual removal of excess material from 7 pieces (4 sides, 2 heads, 1 front panel) per stencil (confidence: high) — Jeff describes the entire hand-weeding process with art light on frosted glass desk, cutting production of 10x the volume compared to 8 years prior
- **[restoration_signal]** Jeff Miller articulates a design-driven restoration approach that prioritizes cosmetic completeness and aesthetic cohesion over mixing patina with new components (confidence: high) — Jeff states: 'Me being an artist my whole life, I don't, I can't, I can't see two different eras. I have to see it all one way or all another.'
- **[design_innovation]** Jeff Miller pioneered cabinet stencil reproduction through scanning original artwork, contrast adjustment, vector tracing, and digital refinement using original blueprints as reference (confidence: high) — Jeff describes the process: 'I would scan in the actual cabinet and piece it all back in Photoshop, contrast it out, use a nice clean trace program, and then go and clean everything up with the original blueprint underneath it.'
- **[historical_signal]** Confirmation that pinball was illegal in major US cities (LA, New York, Chicago) until 1976, which shaped early game distribution to overseas markets (confidence: high) — Host states: 'most parts of the country pinball was actually illegal until 1976. That's including L.A., New York, and Chicago.'
- **[historical_signal]** Licensed pinball games became dominant in the 1970s-1980s with examples including Captain Fantastic (Elton John), Six Million Dollar Man, Playboy, Kiss, Rolling Stone, Bobby Orr Power Play, and Evil Knievel (confidence: high) — Host discusses Captain Fantastic as ahead-of-its-time licensing, followed by wave of TV and celebrity licenses: 'the licensing and, you know, just like Bobby Orr and the Power Play and Evel Knievel, Playboy, Kiss, Rolling Stone...'
- **[restoration_signal]** Historical context that restoration parts were scarce before CPR, requiring collectors to purchase multiple machines to 'Frankenstein' one complete restoration (confidence: high) — Jeff describes the pre-CPR era: 'you had to buy three machines to Frankenstein one really nice one together. To get a nice backglass, to get a nice plastic set that wasn't yellowed...'
- **[community_signal]** Jeff Miller's stencil business created a secondary market where cabinet painting businesses emerged to utilize his stencils, expanding restoration capabilities across the community (confidence: high) — Jeff notes: 'I get the same repeat customers. And I know they have cabinet painting businesses that they probably popped up on the side because of my stencils.'
- **[product_strategy]** High-end restoration services (Evil Knievel example) exceed $8,000 in parts alone before labor, reflecting a premium market segment for dream machine restorations targeting nostalgic collectors (confidence: high) — Jeff explains: 'by the time you get done, and the price of the machine, oh, CPR gold playfield, plastic set, backglass, the whole ball of wax, you're over $8,000 including the donor machine before labor.'
- **[design_innovation]** Fireball backglass reproduction required 13 colors and 70+ hours of vector work, demonstrating the technical complexity and artistic depth of vintage backglass restoration (confidence: high) — Jeff describes the Fireball project: 'about a 13 color, I think. And it was a little north of 70 hours work over just months and months, just spending two or three hours here and there.'
- **[restoration_signal]** Cosmetic presentation is recognized as the primary visual differentiator in home collector machines, with stenciled cabinet artwork serving as the first impression (confidence: high) — Host emphasizes: 'the cabinet is the big visual component... This is the first thing you see when you walk up to it' and Jeff confirms artwork quality affects perception: 'your eye is always going to see a flat spot in a curve or something that you tell was done by hand.'
- **[content_signal]** Inaugural episode of The Pinball Restorer's Podcast featuring Jeff Miller as guest discussing stencil business, restoration philosophy, and pinball history (confidence: high) — Episode title 'Episode 1- Pimp out my Pin!' with substantial interview content covering Jeff's background, CPR work, and stencil business launch in 2013

---

## Transcript

 Welcome to the Pinball Restorers Podcast. work located down in Tampa, Florida, the man who is responsible for his world-famous cabinet stencil kits. Heck, most of us who are listening have probably used these. So without further ado, the man, the myth, the legend, and by far the most entertaining person in the world to talk to, Jeff Miller. Jeff, literally in a nutshell, how the hell did you fall into this? Well, I think it all comes back to when I was a kid. I originally grew up in Columbus, Indiana, and lots of snow on the ground. And, you know, I went and played these old machines in the front of the Danner's Five and Dime on Saturday mornings. I was 10 years old in 1976 and into art my whole life as a kid. And I just found these machines fascinating. And, you know, I was always playing. the store opened. If I lost the games, couldn't find any more quarters, it was straight back to the model kits. And it seems like I was always building a model and going all the way down to the detail because I had all the time in the world back there when especially six months out of the year, it was usually cold or snow on the ground. So that's kind of where I got into pinball. My grandpa always gave me quarters to play and he ended up being a master cabinet maker. So So my whole life through high school and everything, I was always down in the basement doing woodworking. So that's where I got to that end of the talent, I guess, for the pinball and the cabinets. But that's kind of how it all started back then. I went to Purdue. I got two degrees from Purdue University in engineering, drawing, and computer design. But that was from 1984 to 89. So that's when the first Mac came out. I said, hello. And they were like $5,000. Every single desk on the drafting tables up there had a brand new Mac on them, and I thought that was the absolute bomb. The graphic design and all that, so that's where a lot of the stencil comes from. But that's what I did as a kid, and that's kind of what got me into pinball. Well, our graphics background isn't that much different, because I was so heavily involved in the music scene, because I had a band, and we're going to be rock stars. One of the things you can do in-house for your own success was design your own CD inserts, hold jackets, everything. Oh, I did all that. I did all that back in the day. Yeah, that was what I was looking at. Sometimes the instructor would always look at my projects and be like, you're really, really, really putting your all into this. This looks really good. And I'd be like, well, yeah, because my interest wasn't necessarily at the time, the education. My interest was I need this to look good so I could possibly get a record deal. So the more professional it looked, the better. You had to have it branded properly. Everything has to be done to the best because you never know when the right eyes are going to look at it. Yeah, press kits matter. You probably at one point done those. That was a thing. And so, you know, having the graphics background, as I recall, you did work for CPR. And for anybody who doesn't know what that is, it stands for Classic Playfield Reproduction. How did you get involved in those guys? Well, you know, as I said, I started this kind of was a hobby. I mean, I've been a graphic guy my entire life. From probably 2000, I was doing flash websites, all the way up to 2010, I designed for NFL alumni, celebrities, Samsung corporate. It was just design. It was five days a week, eight hours a day, staring at a monitor, just digital design. So that's what I did. That's where all the vector work comes in from all those years of, you know, from 25 up to, you know, however many years until I mean, I'm still haven't stopped yet. Obviously, I decided in 2005 that I wanted a pinball machine. We had finally bought a house and finally kind of buy a pinball. So my first one was a Captain Fantastic. That's what I wanted. So I remember bidding on eBay. I probably had 12 to 14 people bidding against me for the whole week. And I think I ended up winning it for around $1,400 or something like that. Said it had a new old stock play field. I didn't know what that meant back in the day, but obviously when I got it, I was like, wow, nice machine. And I couldn't believe how the play field survived all those years. Man, little did I know, obviously it was a new play field, but that's kind of when I got it. It's like I saw the best for my first one, and everyone had to look at least that good, if not better. But the cabinet needed done, so I did the cabinet. It was a two-year process. I remember going through the whole inside with all the rails of relays. Every relay got taken off and cleaned. I was not on a deadline, so all that wood was reproduced and all repainted, and it was like a big model kit. I just went down to the screw. And the very first machine I ever dived into, and it was the day it was delivered to my door, was August the 8th of 2005. So that's when it all started that day. So anyway, but when I got it all finished, it was about a year and a half later. I was making parts that didn't exist because back then, you know, there still wasn't CPR. That was two couple years before that. So I was scrounging up parts and trying to make everything, and, you know, I finally got it all, and I was ready to plug it back in, and obviously it didn't work. I had relays out of whack and all that. So I had one of my friends come over that knew about EMs, and he tinkered with it for a week and got it up and running. And here we are 15 years later, and I just played a couple games on it the other night, and she's still playing just fine. So that's what started it. Right. So anyway. A little trial by fire. And for anybody who doesn't know, I mean, Captain Fantastic is, you know, it's a ballet game. It was designed by Greg over there, and the art was done by Dave Christensen. And it was inspired by the movie Tommy, which Elton John plays kind of the nemesis, you know, the pinball wizard nemesis scene. Oh, yeah. They always talk about the games destroyed in it. I actually built the yellow cross, like the T with the silver ball on top, and that's my topper. Nice. That was a little bandsaw paint project way back, you know, 13, 14 years ago, and it's still up there. But I'll probably never get rid of that. I've been offered money over the years, and I'm like, nah, it's not for sale. I mean, it would have to be an astronomical price before I would let it go. So CPR though I was going to say CPR came a couple years later I think and I just remember doing research Because it's like where can I find parts Where can I find parts Everybody that did them back in the day Or that long back knows That you had to buy three machines To Frankenstein one really nice one together To get a nice back glass To get a nice plastic set that wasn't yellowed And an apron and things like that You know they reproduce today And all that but they weren't available So CPR was looking for artists, and I'm like, well, man, all this vector work is what I've been doing my entire life, so I'm a master of it. I'll send them a thing and say, hey, here's what I do. Let me know. So they ended up seeing my stuff and instantly on the team, and I was looking back through my folder, and it looks like I did the Comet Plastic set. It was my very first project with them. They wanted me to take care of that one because it had the halftones in the roof to make the shadows, and they thought I would be the most well-qualified to do that. So that was in 2008. Then I was restoring a Bob York power play for a client up north, and the only thing missing was the brand-new plastic set because I had a new old stock play field, and I had a mint back glass. Everything else was available, but the plastic set was yellowed and scratched. So I said, hey, I'll scan them in. I'll send you the vector art. And that was the second set that I did in 2009. So I've got a master print that's uncut, like artwork for the wall. And I think I got a couple free plastic sets out of the deal. So the next one that I did was Creature from the Black Lagoon speaker grill that PinBits did an LED mod behind it with the chrome mirroring. and all that. So that was a fun little project. And then the final project that I did for them in 2013 was the fireball back glass. So that was about a 13 color, I think. And it was a little north of 70 hours work over just months and months, just spending two or three hours here and there. And it finally got done. And, you know, I'm a master at this and I know what I'm doing. and it just gives you an appreciation for how long it took to do some of this back in the day when Bally was pumping these machines out in the art departments. It just must have been incredible. We'll counter just because of the fact that Fireball also had its home edition, which not a lot of people know about unless you're in the hobby, but there's a three-quarter size smaller with no coin door, just a button. Oh, right. Evil and Captain Fantastic had one too, yeah. Yep. And so that's an interesting part of fireball. I mean, because I do see that one come up. I do see those games come up. And just to touch on this, like in the early, not necessarily early age, but kind of the original, like it's now been legalized pinball, you know, because most parts of the country pinball was actually illegal until 1976. That's including L.A., New York, and Chicago. The reason that these companies existed was they would chip overseas. When you look at the games, pinball has always been like the pulse of what is current in entertainment. And nowadays, that's more true than ever. And so they need that name recognition. And I don't fault them for that. But in this golden era, particularly these older games, even if you think about it, Captain Fantastic is kind of a licensed game. Aside from Elton John signing off his likeness rights, the fact that it was inspired by a film, and the name of the game came from the title of his autobiography at the time. Just those things being taken into consideration, that was kind of ahead of the game. Because what was coming particularly into the mid part of the 80s and then altruistic from then on is licensed titles. And so that is kind of a huge thing. I'm looking at my 78-bally $6 million man with him on the back glass. I mean, that show was popular like 76, 77, 78, probably one of his designs. So they were riding right off the TV show that was a hit back then. I even bought like the little $6 million man doll off eBay that made sure he had the tennis shoes. And he's been sitting up on the corner of the cabinet with the feet off the front edge for the last 12 years, you know. So, anyway. But, yes, the licensing and, you know, just like Bobby Orr and the power play and Bill Knievel, Playboy, Kitts, Rolling Stone, you know. And that was kind of the beginning. Right, right. Well, that carried them through. I mean, they rode that nice wave there, I think, with all the licensing. It was familiar to people. and then all of a sudden it just ended when the video games came out, you know? And then Asteroids came out, and I was completely addicted to looking at my restored Asteroids. The first arcade I ever restored is a Mint Asteroid, and I'll never get rid of it. I put more money in that game, in the arcades, that I probably could have bought a machine with the amount of quarters that I put in Asteroids over the years. Oh, I'm guilty of that as well. There were a few games, and I've been told this by a friend of mine who owns a vintage arcade. For me, because I'm a little younger than you, and it was a Simpsons arcade game, which everybody loved playing, but nobody ever beat because, you know, you'd run out of money. And he said that his advice was, he goes, this is an awesome game. He goes, go to a place where if it's free play for the day, go ahead and do it and beat the game because don't buy it because if you do, you'll never play it again. But just because of the fact that the game doesn't get harder, it's just the beginning and the end point. With games like Asteroid, Pac-Man, these first-generation arcade games, technically with Pac-Man, or sorry, the guy who actually set the records for Pong, the game doesn't have an end. It just keeps moving faster and faster and faster and faster. Right, that's what I loved about Asteroids. It was just random. When you shot, you had to fly around, and it's like, how long can you last? The heartbeat keeps getting in the background faster as you kill more people. So it's all about the whole feeling. I read the article about the two guys that designed the game, and they said it took them like nine months or something like that, I think. And they were having people play it like after work to see all the test games, and they said people just weren't leaving the office. They were staying there all night. They were coming in early. They were playing on their lunch breaks, and they said they knew immediately they had a hit on their hands. And I guess they said the game was designed, you know, in maybe, I don't know, six months, seven months. The purists out there will be on me. But it took them months, I guess, to, like, tweak it to where it felt right. Like when you thrust it, and one of them was saying somebody had a dream of, like, the perfect game of Asteroids. and that's how they adjusted it to make it feel, and that was the addiction, was the feel and the audio. It was just an iconic game that, like I said, there is no pattern. There is no end. It just keeps going, I guess. I've never gotten that far. Well, and I will say this because, as I said, I am younger, and my older brother happened to have a vintage Atari and Asteroids as one of the games, and having been hooked on that in the home console market, that was like, oh, my God. And trust me, I am going to do an arcade edition later. I would love to actually hear about this, particularly for that, because I do have a few friends who, aside from pinball, they all restore the old arcade games. Oh, yeah, I restored a Tron for myself way back in the day, and that's a great story if it came out of a caboose in Arizona where it was dry like a shed. The back, the coin or the complete manual was still on the back door in the clear pouch. Like, it was just completely preserved. So I restored it with the full Phoenix Arcade kit years and years back and it was absolutely gorgeous absolutely gorgeous i i actually i actually sold it for around 3500 to a uh a comic book collector about a year back so i had it forever and i just didn't play it anymore and it was just kind of a piece of artwork to me so you can't keep everything but i finally let go of it but yeah they're they're really tough to find now i mean that was in really nice condition at the bottom and on the side it almost looked like you opened up a museum piece and maybe i'll regret selling the thing one of these days if you ever actually managed to get up here i will i will take you to my friend's uh business uh paul serena who owns uh starrcade it's a retro arcade but he has that he has he has tron and tron 2 as well as vintage asteroids battles you name it he's got it and his wife uh apparently called the hobby hoarding but it's now turned into it's this kind of it's kind of turned into his kind of you know pet project dream business well i think i think what it is and it was kind of like we were talking about this evil kenevil that i'm doing for guy out west um yeah there's a call where it's just they want they want i mean and it usually is with almost all the machines that i do i get the call and if somebody wants their dream machine it's the it's the machine that they walked past at the union in college and put a quarter in and played every day. Now they want that memory. They want it in their office. And they don't just want an old beat-up one because, you know, the wife doesn't let you bring the beat-up ugly stuff inside. Oh, hell no. Trust me, I know. My stuff had to look good back in the day to take it in. So when I'd restore it, I wouldn't get any problem. It was like going back to a museum. So these guys want the same thing. It's like it will be an heirloom in the family. It'll get passed down, so I'm not going to hold back. That's why I'm going to do 1,500 in chrome. That's why I'm going to do a brand-new cabinet CNC-routed off the original plans. That's why I'm going to do all electronics and new LED displays. That's why, I mean, it just keeps going and going and going, you know, with new stuff. So by the time you get done, and the price of the machine, oh, CPR gold play field, plastic set, back glass, the whole ball of wax, you're over $8,000 including the donor machine before labor. So, you know, but... And there's nothing wrong with that because... I mean, they go down to the screw. So when you build them back, you're building a one-off machine, you know, down to the screw. So it's not only a pinball machine, it's a functional piece of art that you just walk up to and just look at like, my God, you know? it's like you don't know what you're looking at because you've probably never seen anything that looks on a level like that so that's what they're having done I understand it I get it it's easy for me to go do one for myself but I see the appreciation when they come and usually pick them up in person it's like the blindfold off moment when their just jaw hits the ground and they can't believe what they're looking at and there's I don't do it for the money. I do it for the love and the passion because when those people see it, they're a 12-year-old kid on Christmas and their dreams come true. Yeah, and that's one of the things. When it comes to the restoration business, me being more of the apprentice, new to the game, but definitely all in. And I look at your work and then with even my own projects, it's like, okay, the bar was set here. That's where I'm going. And people have to respect that pricing. And that happens hand in hand because just like the classic car world, yes, I can get a 68 Camaro running again. You bring me one that the engine sees. We'll farm out the block, get that redone. We can get the engine back to running, stuff it back in the car, clean up a little bit of the bodywork, and you can enjoy that for what it is. But if your plan is to bring this to, you know, like Meckham, Meckham, however you pronounce it, auctions, or like Barrett-Jackson. Right. Oh, yeah, no, no, that whole body has been gone through an acid bath to remove all rust. I could make these machines 25,000, 30,000. I could do multiple coats of clear with iridescence and metal flake. I could spray everything with lasered-out stencils so you get underspray, just like the factory if you wanted to pay me enough to do a one-off. It's all possible. But at what point is somebody going to say, you know, I'm not spending that kind of money to just do one. I guess that's where it gets, I guess, with labor and cost. I mean, anything can be done, but at what limit to how much you're going to pay to have it done. And I can't do everything. Other places have to do stuff for you. Like I said, Chrome's got to get sent out. What if you wanted to Chrome every single piece on that entire game? It'd probably be $3,000. So, I mean, it gets to a point where, yes, you're showing off, and you look at it at the same show with mirrors all over it, but you're probably not playing a game on it. It's just truly a piece of artwork at that point. I'm just down here in sunny Tampa, Florida, trying to pimp out as many pins as I can while I'm still able to. Well, yeah, and that is what separates, like, you know, your average routine maintenance tech. And trust me, there are a lot of amusement companies out there, you know, operators. who employ a whole fleet of guys who know how to fix these things that's the difference between being one of the guys that you know because we have to actually do dual duty we have to know a how to fix it make it work again but when you're dealing with the restoration is okay these machines some of them what we get and trust me it is literally like all right well we're driving out to the middle of nowhere here's the barn that we're going to pull this out of because you know the grandkids the grandkids now want to join right yeah and so we have to look at this and be like oh good lord the whole cabinet needs to be redone repainted fixed back last shot all the electronics don't work yeah we were talking about like plan of attack on machine i mean you got to make sure you have all the you know you got to have all the pieces the play field the back glass the plastics you know stencils are available now thanks to me that was kind of a missing part but you know Oh, yeah. So, yeah. Well, no, and that's the thing is then when you approach this, you start to realize the entire network of companies and sources to get what you need done. What happens, too, is a lot of these guys over the years, I'm saying the problem is they used to want to, like, nickel and dime. They wouldn't want to spend $100 to put brand-new side rails on the cabinet. They just paid a couple grand to get painted. They just wanted the, it's like, are you kidding me? So you'd run into that kind of stuff, but it's like you can't, I'm not one of these people where I can just swap a play field to play it, but then the cabinet is still beat up from 40 years ago. You see both eras, and that doesn't, me being an artist my whole life, I don't, I can't, I can't see two different eras. I have to see it all one way or all another. So if I was going to clear code stuff, I would just take everything off an original machine and just clear, candy clear it and seal it all in with a patina and all, and then just put it all back together and go, there you go. You know, so it plays perfect, but it still looks like, I don't know. Everybody's got their taste of how they like machines, you know, vintage, patina, whatever. I just like storing them and bringing them back to brand new or better. So it's just my style, you know, it's my art, my whole art side of it. So everybody gets to their own on how they want to do their pinball. That's what's cool about them. You can powder coat rails any color you want. There's so many mods now. So, you know, everybody can personalize their own thing and to their own taste, which I'm cool with that. Yeah, and the big thing is that it still keeps those old games relevant. And, you know, when people ask about, like, what's the difference between, like, you know, just kind of bringing it back, are like those terms like resto mod restored and then better than new you know i could say restored you know triple a plus like i mean hemmings does but i don't do that because this is a different market we're not classic cars um when when you look at the machine it's like what is your level of you know from a client base it's like what's your level of expectation you know at the end of the day yes i can fix this and make it work you know okay but like do you want it's your point If the cabinets beat the shit, you're going to show. Some guys want to crack a beer and have their buddies over, and they just want to bang on an old pinball machine and go back in time. And I get it, man. It doesn't need to look great. It might be sitting out in the garage and back in the corner. Who knows? But that's the cool thing about it. It's getting played again, and somebody's enjoying it. So it's cool that they make electronics and boards and things like that to keep all these old classics running. And, you know, without that, without the brain, these things would just, they're just an elephant sitting in the room, a nice big box piece of artwork standing on legs, you know, that a blast. Ooh, that looks like that came from back in the day. Well, yeah, that's where, like, you look at shows like American Restoration where there are projects he's had where it's just make it look good. It's never being used for what it was again. And the example I'm using of this is he actually had somebody brought in a dental x-ray from the 1930s. They said, under no circumstances are we making this functional. Right, right. But nobody wanted to see that. And for all of us who love, we love the game. We love the game. We love new games. We love old games. And when I look at that, I always think to myself, God, this is reliving a piece of nostalgia. And then when I picked up my own projects and started doing this, it was like, okay, I'm bringing this back. And that is how I ended up actually getting a hold of you. Can you just stop talking for like two seconds? Please support the following businesses. Who's your daddy? Big Daddy Enterprises, your source for pinball electronic repair products featuring boards from Flip, Rotten Dog, Alltech, and more. wiring parts, e-proms, replacement displays, flipper rebuild kits, and more at BigDaddy-Enterprises.com. Wait for it. Wait for it. Titan! Titan Pinball, your source for Titan's tournament silicone rings, LED bulbs, mylar protection, comfortable pin mats, and playfield posts, all at TitanPinball.com. Hi, this is Matt Lister. I'm sorry I can't come to the phone right now, but please leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Dear, I just checked our checking account and noticed there was $1,000 missing. I swear, if you were out buying another goddamn pinball machine... Ladies and gentlemen, now back to the show. Now, this is where I'm going to actually go into your stencil business. Right. Because the cabinet is the big visual component. because unlike in an arcade where these were all lined up together and you never saw the sides. Right. This is the first thing you see when you walk up to it, right? Yeah, when it's in your game room. It's your first impression right there. It's like, does that machine look beat to hell? Or like, damn, look at that thing. Obviously, you have the artist background, and you figured out how to do the stenciling process. First off, I'm going to tip my hat off to you, and I mean that. And most guys would because of the fact that that was a need, and you filled it. I get a lot of calls from customers, same with emails. And they, you know, hey, first and foremost, I'd like to thank you for what you're doing for the hobby, man. And I know there's a lot of people out there that appreciate it. I know there's guys out there. I get the same repeat customers. And I know they have cabinet painting businesses that they probably popped up on the side because of my stencils. So don't get me wrong. I understand. I appreciate it. But I had the talent. I had the passion. I wanted to restore my own, so I just figured I'd bring my precision and my perfection and do the stencils right, because they weren't quite right before I got involved. So I launched that back in 2013, right after I did the fireball for CPR. I think they were doing some more in-house work, and I was just kind of ready to move on. I thought, let me just try the stencil business. I'd gotten so many calls over the years where I'd put my pinball pimp site out there. A lot of people, I use it as a portfolio, so a lot of guys would see my work and see my close-up cabinet shots, and they'd call and say, how do you get your cabinets nice? And I would always say, well, you know, the first thing you see is artwork. You could be the best painter in the world, but your eye is always going to see a flat spot in a curve or something that you can tell was done by hand. So a lot of these games, I look at it and I'm like, well, I used to do that back when I moved to Florida back in 1990. 90 to 96, I worked in a screen printing business. So I was in the dark room. You work with film, you work with Frisket, lots of vector work, everything had to be designed in vector. So I was kind of going back to my roots on this, where I would scan in the actual cabinet and piece it all back in Photoshop, contrast it out, use a nice clean trace program, and then go and clean everything up with the original blueprint underneath it. So, you know, that's me using my art talent with traps and bleeds and and you know once you have the stencil perfect it's it's a master cut file and you never have to change it again so i actually started out with 10 stencils and eight years now i think i'm up to over 300 titles so there's a lot of uh there that artwork's a lot of a blur to me i don't even remember doing a lot of it here's one thing i do want people to understand because I have another hobby. I'm a huge ATV enthusiast. Part of my club, we had decals made because guys wanted to put these in their rear view mirror of their truck and stuff like that. One of the things that I don't think a lot of people understand, it's not just, all right, I'm going to sit down here. Here's the printer. Hit the enter button and mail it off in a tube. When it comes to decal work, anything, once it's been laser cut, has to be removed by hand. That is not intended to be part of the stencil. And that is a labor in of itself. So that's why I I have to make the stencil, right. So I have to sit there and look across an art light. It's an art light on a glass frosted glass desk, and the light bounces across, and I can see where the cut lines are. So I have to weed the entire stencil and pick out every single piece, and then I cut four sides and two heads and a front panel, so seven pieces for each stencil. So I used to cut probably two. It seemed like I used to maybe cut like two a week back when I started out when nobody really knew about the business, and people weren't restoring games back then. I'd say now I'm cutting ten times the amount of stencils than I was eight years ago. Do you have a stencil set for this? And I'm going, that was a game back in the day that I wouldn't have even walked across the street to get because it was like a C, D-level game. like nobody wants that and now these guys are buying these things up and they they act like they have a holy grail just because they were able to actually find a pinball machine it's insane I was buying these old classics back 15 years ago for four and five hundred dollars maybe kiss would be seven or eight hundred dollars max and now they 3 fathom Fathom is for a donor machine It just ridiculous Well, yeah, and you have talked about this before. Roger Sharp made a point. In the heyday of pinball, there were 2.5 million machines in operation in public places around the world. And pre-COVID numbers, keep in mind, he was estimating this pre-COVID numbers, to quote him. he was saying that 150,000 are in current operation. And we talk about the fact that, oh, pinball is in its renaissance. There's all these companies putting out these games. Like, these are not nearly the numbers that were once put out, you know, in the heyday. But out of that 2.5 million, you're saying there's only 150,000 in operation. Well, 2.35 million games are in the possession of private people. and knowing that knowing that as from a restoration aspect these games all have a shit load of history they have a ton of stories behind how they were developed, the artists, everything I love restoring these old classics but I migrated then over to the WPCs, I fell in love with all those games too I've put decals where I rip everything down to the bone, it's an empty cabinet it gets sanded, it gets complete glossy enamel. It gets buffed out like mirror finish. And then the decals go on wet. They're done properly. They're all razor cut before I even put them on the machine. They would all get lined up and then I would mark and I'd take it off and put a ruler and cut the littlest sliver off you've ever seen. And everything was positioned and then would go on wet. There's no cutting when it's on the machine where you're going through into the paint, that kind of stuff. So I was You wanted on a meticulous detail so you couldn't, you know, rip your finger. But the WPCs, they've completely blown up in price, too. Fun houses, Adams families were $1,000 back in the day, and now they're $6,000, $7,000. It's ridiculous. I'm looking at my Toten here, which I'm going to put decals on and sell, and that could be a $10,000 game. It's unbelievable what they're getting for just the pre-2000 games from 90 to 2000. or not even 2000. There's pinball 2000, but what, maybe 90 to 98, that eight-year zone. There's some top-of-the-line games like Medieval Madness. You were talking about that. They used to bring 12 to 13,000 for a really, really nice original. We're talking 10 years ago. So that's why they remade it, I guess, because everybody, people were, I'm not going to pay that much. In the past, it was operators that typically bought these, and certain numbers of these titles were a hit when they initially were pushed. And with time going on, certain games become a slow burn. In other words, they become more popular as time has gone on. And there are a lot of designers, you know, from Barry Osler, Pat Lawler, and George Gomez, or like John Papadiuk. I love his games. I'm not going to say I'm trying to make him a fan above everybody else. Right. I love Theater of Magic, okay? I'm sorry. in a circus bolter i love it for quite a while before i sold it yep so what this comes down to and this is something that i've had to talk to some other guys who do restoration and they were wondering like companies like bg resto and stuff like that and and trust me i love their work this is there's no digs in anybody but like when people don't understand why i can't just click and buy it off of eBay or like, why can't I just click and buy this off of Amazon? You have to understand, somebody holds licensure. Somebody owns the rights. And so for us as a restoration business, if they bring you the game with the back glass, I can take that back glass and have that reprinted by anybody because I have the physical original. When you don't have that, you now have to pay the piper to whoever has the licensure. and I'm not judging anybody who has it. That's just the rules. Right, it's just with the Valiant Williams, right, it's just you pay the royalties and you put that holographic sticker on all your products. One has to go on, you know, everyone that goes out. Okay, so Jeff, I have a question for you. What is your favorite game? What is the one game that you sat down, and it doesn't have to be the first one you ever did, but it could be even a recent one or a historical one. Like what was the one game that you're just like, God, I just really enjoyed the game? And it could be a guilty pleasure, too. It could be one that people call crap. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, I've often thought about that, and obviously other people have asked me the same question. It didn't come – it's not like something that I remember playing as a kid, oh, that's like, ooh, it's Evel Knievel, or it's one of these other kids or something like that. But I'd say the one that I just – I'd go back to, and there's no way I would sell it either, and it's not captain, believe it or not, it's fishtails. I don't know what it is about this game. I had a buddy that had a collection, and we'd go up on pinball night, and we'd make the rotation, and I always hated playing that game. I'm like, God, I hate fishtails. This game's so stupid. There's no open play field. See, I used to party down in Ybor City, and to get a little of my buzz off, I would stop by the little bowling alley down there, or I'm sorry, at Billiard. had billiards and they had an attack from Mars all the way back in the right corner. I used to fish a $5 bill in there and I'd beat on that machine for probably an hour to kind of sober up. And it just had that nice open play field. So then here I come to fishtails and there was that boat ramp and it just felt so closed in and I hated the game and I didn't understand the rules. So obviously over the years you get them in and I think I had three of them at one time, but I ended up restoring a really nice one or as much as I could play, or not a play field or anything, but I, like, fell in love with the game, and it's just simple, and I don't know. It's got the crazy country bumpkin, you know, fishing music, and I don't know. That, to me, is just one of my favorites. Fun houses, you know, that's a good machine. I love my Lucy. I bought that new out of the box, but I don't know. I've played every single one of them. they've all got their own you know special little things and the way they look so it it's tough to find a a favorite like for me it is no no no and i understand that my personal favorites i have quite a few is pinbot because that was the first game just based on my experience gorgor had the first sounds you know voice sound right but for me being you know i'm 40 so being eight years old in this little arcade attached to a gas station. Pinbot was in there. And that was the first game that ever talked to me. That's your callback. Yep, that's your callback right there. Yeah, and then when games got more complicated, and trust me, everybody has their love of titles like Elvira and so forth, and I do like Adam's Family. Please move on from that game. I love that game. Don't get me wrong, but there were so many others. Hey, I bought one for $1,200. I put about $300 in it. I played it for five years and sold it for $5,000. So, hey, that was seven years ago. No, no, no. And I understand it. But for me, like, one, and it is a John Papadiuk design. I love the theater of magic. And I think it's just because of the rotating chest. I think that was what sealed the deal. Well, you were talking about InBot. That was probably the third machine I ever restored. A buddy of mine bought one, he said, for like a couple hundred bucks, and it wasn't working. and he asked me if I wanted to mess with it. I'm like, sure. I thought something a little newer, you know, more fun. This is probably 07. And I bought it. He just gave it to me. Here, man, get up and run and we can play it. So that's where I did the cabinet scans, and that's where the PinBot stencils come from that long back. But I ended up restoring that, and I had the play field clear-coated. CPR had already done a plastic set. So it was like mint. And I think back in the day somebody offered me $2,500, and I took it. and I could probably get 7,000 for it now if I had it. Well, trust me, I keep my eyes off for it. I have a storage area filled with these machines, and if that one comes home because my wife is aware, because she does listen to me, you know, even though I ramble on about the hobby, she does listen. If that one shows up, she knows that that was the price of a used car. So she has her eyes out. And a cool thing about Pinbot is I had a separate conversation with Barry Osler, and when him and Python did that game. Python actually came up with the, the game was designed around a sketch of him out with the fingers and that was how the game came to fruition. As time has gone on, we've all gotten older, Python did pass, and just a moment of memorandum there. But it is awesome the fact that most of the guys who created these games are now back in the industry. and a lot of them are passing the torch. They're mentoring. And so that's where I look at that. And so, you know, time moves. And I love the fact that you continue to restore those. I was going to say, you were talking about time moves. I mean, I'm not getting any younger. I've got about another 10 years and I've been sitting on a climate-controlled unit of a couple Kiss machines, a Fathom, a couple 8-Ball Deluxe, a couple Star Treks, a couple Globetrotters. I think there's a Surf Champ in there. You mentioned that earlier. Yeah, the first one I ever played. Yeah, Fire Queen I'm going to restore for somebody. There's an 8-ball. Now, the cool thing is I have CPR Gold and or new old stock playfields that I've had automotive cleared for every single one of these machines. I bought every plastic set. I've acquired mint back glasses for every one of these, and anything proprietary like a pop bumper cap or hot stamp targets. I didn't know back when I bought a lot of this stuff wasn't that available. So it's like, man, if it's available, I'm going to buy it now. So some of this stuff could still be available, some not. But I'm sitting on about a dozen full-blown, you know, restorations that are probably going to be the end of my legacy, probably the last ones I'll ever do. So I'm going to do them to a level which is, like, completely off the charts. And, you know, somebody will buy it. There's probably only a couple of them left, you know, and that's it for me. Well, I'll say that your legacy will live on a little bit longer because one of the things many of the listeners have probably ordered from you. So what do you feel like is the, you know, we've all talked about how the market's heated up. Your take on the hobby, you know, the current state of it, the refurb movement is a thing, but the pinball maker movement is another part of it. Have you been open to doing original work? I know that you're busy as hell. You know, like you make the joke on your Facebook post, Cut and set is week. You were going to ask about the movement. Yeah, I mean, to me, once again, I'm into 15 years of doing this. When pinball, you couldn't give one away until now, which I always say that the hobby is just completely blown up. There's so many facets of it now. You've got the people like me that have been around for 20, 15, 20, 25 years. We've got collections of 20 on the wall from full WPCs to EM machines, maybe full EM collections, that's all they're into is that certain time. Then you've got, I mean, with all the new Sterns that are out, that have been out for the last decade or longer, you're getting a lot of people that have just jumped into this and have bought, you know, five or six machines over the last three to five years. So they're starting their own little collection. It just happens to be all new games. So, I mean, you've got people doing podcasts, obviously, like you. There's a lot of guys out on Twitch that are playing the pinball games, and I guess that gets the younger generation. I'm on a bunch of Facebook groups, and I'm finally recording a lot of this Evil Knievel Restore, and I'm going to try to edit it down more like a reality-type show, you know, on Discovery or something with kind of a little script to it so it doesn't get boring. But I should be putting some of that out on YouTube. Should have been doing that 10 years ago, but you know how camera technology, and it wasn't that easy back then, And so at least it's better me doing it now than never. But, you know, I think pinball just, it's expanded so much. There's so many different facets of pinball. I'm just one of the little, you know, restore guys. That's just kind of my bag. You know, everybody can do whatever they want, but I'm just one little piece of the puzzle. Well, then I'll ask you this. Have you ever thought about designing your own game? You have the knowledge to take, for instance, any all-tech board and put together something. I thought about designing a game back when I started CPR. Look how long that's been. So those projects never come to fruition. You get too busy with your business, and you're always two days behind. But, yeah, I've often thought about taking older games. I don't want to destroy something that's really nice, and you take a supersonic or something. At least there's a drop target unit. You can always re-theme some of these games. I know CPR has a custom service now where, like, let's say you could take a skateball. They've done a skateball play field. So I think you can either send them your play field if you've done art, or better yet, if they've done one, you could just redo the art for that, and they'll reprint a new play field, a couple plastic set, and a couple back glasses for around $3,000. I think that's what it said the last time I was out there. So obviously that's got my mind thinking. It's like I could do all that artwork and create stencil art. But, I mean, I can't even fathom how many hours that might be. For me to do it to my level, that could be 300, 400 hours of art. I don't know. And then you have to go rebuild the whole machine. And then you're going to want one of these boards that has the sound capable of the switches in these old classics. So you can drop in MP3s that randomize, and you change the whole game if you're going to do it. So that's how I would do one, but I've never done it because I just don't know where the hours would come from. So that's my problem. Being creative, you see it there, but you can't do it because you're limited. Like I said, especially the stencil business is seven days a week, 365 days a year. It never closes. so I don't have a nine to five job time to start hiring some people oh no oh trust me um at a certain point if even my own shop um because come May I actually am building a new shop for me and that part of that was because of personal hobby because I do restore classic cars motorcycles anything old I just like old right right but at some point like because the fact that okay i fell in the pinball hole and it just kept going so i went down the drain no point i've been there for 15 16 years no i know and if anything by all means i'll always keep a keep a working relationship in that regard and so maybe i can take some of that work off your hands not in a bad way not no oh no no maybe oh i know just like more like a more like a pass the torch more like a pass i would hate to just let everything go at some point i'm probably going have to sell the stencil business or I'll look into partnering with somebody. But I'd still like to have a little hold on it just to make sure that none of the quality gets lost. That's the thing with me. Everything is about quality and customer service If you don have that you don have a business That the way I look at it I old school No no and you right No and you right And here something about the pinball industry as a whole I not just going to sell the business and say I don care I don't care what the next person does. They can screw those files up. I got my money. I'm out of here. That's not me. You know, it's like, no, those are my master files. Almost like if you decided to take the stencil business from me, I might still actually create a new set of stencils to add to the library. You're just the production side of it. You understand what I mean? So every once in a while, these stencils have to be made. I'm still doing the work, right. I just laugh because I can see it. I can already see it now. My wife would be like, Jeff called like 10 times while you were at work. Oh, dear Lord. You'd be like, hey, Jeff, here's the artwork I did. How does this stencil look? And then I take a look at it, and it's like looking at, I'd say, probably 90% of every other artist that sent me stuff over the years of Samsung and NFL, where you zoom in and it just curves, have straight lines. It's like, nope, it's just not good enough for me. It can be done right, and it's not that hard. No, I know, and that's why I've really appreciated actually having the opportunity to actually talk to you, aside from just this episode, but just in general, because you've actually kind of opened my eyes in a way because I do take restoration seriously. And so, like, I look at you as kind of the bar, not to put you up on that pedestal. Oh, there's guys out there that are probably. It's the level of passion. It's the level of passion. Yeah, no, there's guys out there that are doing stuff even more high end than me, you know, with clear coat when you have the right facilities and stuff like that, just some really insane stuff. So, like I said, with my stencil business now, it's like it's literally 90%. I can come out here once every, for like three hours, once every three days to work on a restoration, where it used to be eight hours a day, six days a week. So you understand, like, to me, it's frustrating. That's why I said if I'm employed, that I'm, to get me to get out here to get back to work, because I'm realizing now that I'm getting older, you know, how long these things actually take. But 15 years ago, I felt like I had all the time in the world. But, you know, somebody pulled a rug out from under me. That's kind of how I feel right now. The business is blowing up. I want to get T-shirts available, merchandise. And to me, there's just enough hours in the day. So, you know, that's kind of where Pinball Pimp is right now. But I hope to, I mean, it's all going to get sorted out, and I hope to take it to the next level soon. You were talking about shows, like covering, you know, shows coming up. I did set up a booth at Texas a couple years back, and I was asked to speak at the Chicago Expo this past year, which never happened, so I did a little virtual video. It's out on my YouTube channel, Pinball Pimp. But, no, I mean, unfortunately, I had hotel reservations for Texas Pinball Festival. Obviously, I guess, what, next month? But, you know, we know that got canceled, so I was going to set up a double, you know, a nice big booth this time, just, you know, meet and greet people, But, yeah, it's killing me, man. I want to get back out there and see some people. So I'm hoping that when these pinball shows come back, I plan on attending a lot more of them, getting out west, you know, and just meeting some of the fans. No, and by all means, I'll be heading out there as well. Aside from just getting to talk to you, I'm looking forward to actually being able to just check out your booth. When people have asked, like, and both me and you are part of, like, the same Facebook groups, and when somebody's asking, hey, I need stencils and decals, I'm, like, the first one. Blip, this guy I need to go to. And I'm not trying to swamp you. Keep that in mind. Oh, no, and I appreciate it. I think it's one of those things, if you've used a set of my stencils, you know, you get it. Or if you look close enough at the artwork, you see the detail and the precision of it and the chamfered corners and the way everything peels and doesn't tear at points, there's a reason and a design behind all of that. I'm just not getting lucky. You know, if you zoom in at 50 times on my thing, you'll see a curve, not a point on the end. But when you zoom out, it looks like a point. That's all when the blade turns, it doesn't just snap on a point. It can't swivel in a millisecond of time. It has a little bit of a curve, so it has to jitter the servo. So that's all part of the design of my stencil. It goes down to the detail that most people, it goes right over their head. No, I know. No, I'm aware. And you, Tim, right? I mean, you know, once again, I'm sure my first cabinet that I painted, well, my first cabinets I painted, I didn't even use stencils. I sat there with an X-Acto knife and would cut out, like, poster board for, like, until my wrist was going to fall off, like, eight hours later. Oh, I do airbrushing. I've done that with brisket. Yeah. I've done that with brisket. But I didn't have the plot. I didn't have the means. So I had a friend of mine that lived in Orlando that restored a lot of arcade machines, and he had a plotter. And I asked him what he used, and he had cut me a set. I think I might. I don't remember what game I designed, but he cut a set for me. and it's the first time I ever used it. And I just remember using a nice oil base back then. It just peeled like precision. And I was like, oh, my God, like this is the greatest ever. And, you know, I looked on the back and I saw the Oracal 811. So I've used it ever since. I haven't found anything better that works, you know, any better. Like I said, it all kind of depends on the paint that you use. You can't let some of that paint dry real quick because it dries along the edge and then it tears when you peel. So some of these UX paints, yeah, as soon as you spray, you almost have to come back in and peel. You can't let it sit for two hours and then, you know, oh, I'm going to go peel it now when it's dry. You know, it could be a mess. And just as a disclaimer, because both of us deal with, you know, these types of chemicals, I'm going to throw this disclaimer out there right away. And it does come with your stencil kit. But for the love of God, do not use a lacquer-based paint on this. Oh, no. It eats the decal. It soaks in and turns it. It's almost like acetone. It just marches. It'll get soft, and, yeah, you'll have a mess. It soaks all the way through and releases the, you know. I made that mistake one time trying to use some specialty metallic on something I was doing. It wasn't even a pinball. I cut a stencil for something else and I sprayed it on and it started to wrinkle up. I'm like, uh-oh. So that's when I decided I better go put that out there in the instructions. So you just got to look and make sure you're not spraying lacquer on something. Yeah, no, and that is a common thing sold by O'Reilly Auto Zone because a lot of us are going to move to automotive finish because it's easy, it's thin enough to go through the guns. I always start up at a corner, you know, where you're going to see a break, and then I always have an X-Acto knife. So I cut it. So I split it right there. And I'll go all the way down along the side and I'll cut another little slit so it tears two inches between the next part of the stencil. And you just have to kind of work it down. But you always got to be cutting pieces off. You never want to try to pull it up in one big piece or sometimes it'll fall back in. And I think that's the mistake. Some people just try to do it too fast. If you just take a little time and just cut around the stuff, If you have enough time to peel it, I mean, you can see half my machines out there on my pinballpimp.com side in the gallery. I mean, a lot of that stuff is done with a Rust-Oleum oil-based spray. Now, I don't know about rolling. You'd probably have to use a really, really tight, almost like a foam, you know, something for rolling like clear where you don't get all the bubbles or something. I don't know. You know, people are going to go, and I know a lot of people do. I mean, you can go, I say in my instructions, the Rust-Oleum in the original white can is more of an oil base. That gives you more of a high gloss. It levels itself. It doesn't give you all the tiger stripes. And you get a really precision peel. When it evaporates, it feels like it's three times thinner than vinyl. And, I mean, it's a perfect edge. It's really nice. You can buff it out with some Novus and put some Carnuba on it. and people think there's a clear coat on it because you're buffing out all the nanoscopic overspray or whatever off of that, and it's just slick as snot. So if you're not going to automotive clear and use special paints, you can achieve that. The 2X and the Krylon works good too. It's just when that stuff says dries in 12 minutes, that's the stuff that you have to be careful that you, once you spray a side, you bring it back in and you almost get ready and start peeling because it's already drying to the touch in 12 minutes. So you want to get it before it gets hard and it's still tacky. The trick to stencils is when you're painting the actual stencil itself is you want to go, I mean, you're taking three and four passes of this stencil. You're not flooding it. You're doing little wispy passes just to kind of fill in as you move down, and then you go back and you repeat three and four times until you just get the stencil covered from edge to edge, and then you're done. You don't need to overspray it because that's when you actually start peeling it, and it can get stringy on you, and it's gummy, and you get those edges because they've laid it on too thick so it skins over on the top, but the bottom's still wet. And I think that's what happens sometimes is just people put too much paint on the stencil. It's not your base coat. You can lay that on and get a really nice base, but you can't do that on a stencil. I think you want to put the devils in the details. And that is a true thing, and that's true with what I, you know, like my... I mean, at the same time, I don't want to scare somebody away where they're saying, oh, my God, there's no way I could use those stencils. Trust me, they are not that hard. You just have to watch... Oh, my God, they're idiotic. And you just have to watch how to lay them down. It's not... You don't peel the whole back off and have your buddy suspend it over the other side while somebody tries to burnish it and it gets a wrinkle and it all bubbles up. I mean, I cut a lot of pieces for people that mess a piece up. Hey, I messed up the left side of the cabinet. Can you cut me that? So, you know, everybody, nobody's perfect. I mean, I'm sure I messed up a piece back in the day. So that's why I'm available to cut just a piece. But, you know, don't think that, oh, my God, I'm never going to be able to do it because they're fairly easy. You just, you know, if you've got a little spray paint, I guess, talent, you know, it's not that tough. Just take your time. I always say, well, my grandfather always told me when I was a kid, when I was working on a lot of this woodworking stuff, he said, be your task, large or small, do it right or not at all. When a task is once begun, never leave it until it's done. So, you know, I figured if you're going to do it, do it right. You know, take your time, enjoy the journey, enjoy restoring the machine, you know, be a kid again, because when it's done, it's done, and then you're probably going to fall into the hole and buy another one and then order another set of stencils from me. and then restore that one and fall in love again, and then it just keeps repeating over and over and over and over. No, and kind of in closing here, I was just going to say, I do actually have something to send you, and I'm not going to reveal what it is. Oh, cool. I have something coming your way. Here's why. Because it was a two-hour conversation with you that then I, this is my thing. and that's okay you know what i really i really appreciate you having me on the show i'm glad to do it yeah no no i i owe it all i owe it all here and and the pinball community has been more than nice and i really appreciate that because with everything that's going on and just this is my closing but with everything that's going on it is really nice to have a therapy to me it's been a form of therapy because you can't get out you can't necessarily do all these things but it's nice to just get lost and fall into a project or fall into something and you know my wife has made the joke that you know most people that you know during lockdown that happened you know it's covid whether you agree with it or not what i did you know what most people do is get fat and watch netflix and what i did is i i built a well this before the pinball machines it was i built a screen printer. Oh, there you go. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. A friend of mine owned a bar, and I felt bad because I did come from the service industry. And he had a small bar, and it was marketed like it's a working class bar. It's not located out in the boons where it probably should be. And where most of your guys are sportsmen, mechanics, kind of like those guys, more blue collar. and I was like, why don't you sell a shirt for this place? You have a loyal fan base. Right. And so I got bored and so I'm like, well, screw it. So I went on the internet and learned how to make a, you know, I learned how to make screens and using, you know, you know, photos, you know, the photosensitive chemicals and so forth. Oh, right. I know. I screen printed back in the day and did all the screens and the emulsion and everything. I know exactly what you're talking about. So then going back to incorporating art, I ended up doing that. And next thing you know, over the summer, I did two volleyball teams and four businesses worth of shirts. Oh, nice. No, you were talking about, you know, just the people, you know, with the COVID going on and people, you know, around the house sitting around. I mean, I didn't know last year, you know, how the stencil business would go, but it did very well. And I guess that's because people were sitting around staring at those pinball projects that they've been putting off for a couple of years. And they're like, I got plenty of time to do it now. So I guess I'll go order a set of stencils. So I appreciate your business, everybody. Hope your machine sounds great. But, yeah, I was busy. I mean, I never, I was like afraid that I was two days behind. Like, I don't know how there's more orders coming in than I can produce. It was there for a while. It was kind of scary. But like I said, I made it through the storm, and I appreciate the business. Well, knowing that, at the end of the day, if anybody wants to work for Jeff, you've listened to the show at this point. I'm trying to make it the pinball empire, man. I need everybody. Everybody, you know. Oh, man. It was great talking to you tonight, man. No, no, and I appreciate it. As I said, thanks again, Jeff, for everything. Oh, absolutely. Thanks to everybody out there, man, for keeping these pinballs alive, baby. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our interview with Mr. Jeff Miller, the pinball pimp. I love talking to that guy. He's just passionate about what he does. He's furthering our hobby. Please check him out at pinballpimp.com. Look him up on YouTube because Jeff is a character, and I love getting to talk to him when he's unrestrained. but until next time keep it flipping pinball pimp your source for museum quality restoration maintenance as well as jeff miller's world famous cabinet stencil kits for williams valley as well as other manufacturers all available at pinballpimpstencils.com this has been a ruby butt production ruby get out of the litter box

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

---

*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 203e7961-f1d6-42a1-a044-0495626e471b*