Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

The Addams Family Pinball Restoration - FINALE

Cary Hardy·video·46m 28s·analyzed·Jul 2, 2020
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Cary Hardy showcases complete barn-find Addams Family restoration with new playfield, cabinet rebuild, and quality mods.

Summary

Cary Hardy documents the complete restoration of a heavily damaged 1992 Addams Family pinball machine purchased for $1,200 at a barn find. The machine, which had been on route until 2003, required extensive cabinet work, a new Marco playfield, complete electrical rewiring due to rat damage, new flippers and plastics, and numerous quality-of-life mods. The restoration took approximately 16 months and involved careful sourcing from multiple aftermarket vendors, with the final result being a fully functional, cosmetically excellent machine that Cary's friend Jason completed as his first ground-up restoration project.

Key Claims

  • The Addams Family machine was purchased for $1,200 after initially being offered at $4,500 by the seller

    high confidence · Cary and Jason discuss the negotiation process and final price paid for the machine

  • The machine had been on vendor route until 2003, with a 2003 vendor sticker as the last evidence of commercial use

    high confidence · Jason states: 'This machine had a 2003 sticker on it. It was the last vendor sticker.'

  • Rats had chewed through the secondary transformer wiring harness, destroying approximately 90% of the electrical wiring

    high confidence · Jason explains the rat damage and obtaining a replacement harness from a flood-damaged Getaway machine

  • The restoration took from February 2019 to November/December 2019 to substantially complete, with final speaker mod work done by July 2020

    high confidence · Cary states: 'February of last year' (2019), and 'This machine pretty well was done in November to December of last year'

  • All boards in the machine powered on successfully on the first power-up despite extensive rat damage

    high confidence · Jason: 'every board in this game worked when I fired it up and I could not believe it'

  • The original playfield was extensively damaged with cracks, a screw hole through the back, and worn Cliffy protectors

    high confidence · Jason discusses the damaged original playfield and why a new Marco playfield was necessary

  • Marco's playfield drilling was nearly perfect with only 2-3 holes needing minor adjustment

    high confidence · Jason: 'There may have only been two or three that I knew just a tick. But for the most part, this play field was spot on'

  • Cary chose to use custom gold vinyl artwork rather than the standard blue artwork for personal aesthetic preference

    high confidence · Cary explains: 'I went with the gold because I like the purple and the yellow contrast and I like the gold lightening better than the blue lightening'

Notable Quotes

  • “I sent him the phone number to the ad. I was like, this is the number for the ad. If you want it, call him.”

    Cary Hardy@ 1:54 — Establishes how the barn find project began as a casual joke that turned into a serious acquisition

  • “This machine was trash. I mean, it was just one step away from needing to go to the landfill.”

    Cary Hardy@ 3:02 — Emphasizes the poor condition of the machine when purchased and justifies the restoration approach

  • “When you have a title like this, you need to do it justice.”

    Jason@ 11:08 — Explains the decision to do a complete restoration rather than quick fixes on an iconic game

  • “Thank goodness for your harness.”

    Jason@ 18:06 — References obtaining a replacement harness from Cary's Getaway flood victim machine, solving the critical rat damage problem

  • “The worst showstopper that I saw was I knew the secondary transformer wiring harness. the rats had gotten into this machine and they had chewed that secondary transformer wiring harness up”

    Jason@ 15:50 — Describes the most serious challenge encountered during restoration

  • “I'm super impressed with Marco and all their dot dimpling for all the screws. There may have only been two or three that I knew just a tick.”

    Jason@ 18:27 — Praises Marco's manufacturing precision and acknowledges the quality of the replacement playfield

Entities

Cary HardypersonJasonpersonAddams FamilygameSorcerergameMarco SpecialtiescompanyCPRcompanyPinball Lifecompany

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival 2019 used as reference point for acquiring parts and sourcing ramps/toppers

    medium · Jason obtained Starship Fantasy ramps and topper at TPF 2019; these aftermarket vendors exhibit at major pinball events

  • ?

    community_signal: Extensive discussion of aftermarket parts ecosystem (Marco, CPR, Pinball Life, Planetary Pinball, Kama, etc.) enabling restoration of otherwise unsalvageable machines

    high · Jason: 'the good thing about it is thank goodness we have vendors out there making aftermarket parts for these machines now. We didn't have it 20 years ago.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Risk of over-modding pinball machines, particularly with purple accent lighting, reducing original aesthetic appeal

    medium · Jason: 'when it just comes everywhere, people can over purple everything. Just be careful. Purple is a big hit with a lot of people.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Preference for cool-white LED lighting over warm-white or incandescent to preserve playfield artwork color fidelity

    high · Cary discusses choosing cool white LEDs because 'it brings the colors' and avoids the color-washing effect of warm whites

  • $

    market_signal: Addams Family machines retain strong secondary market value and demand despite restoration investment

    medium · Jason: 'I'm still money ahead in this game' and Cary: 'There's a lot of people that want this title. Especially that looks the way this one does. It's a well-sought title.'

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.139

0:00
All right, what's up guys? Welcome back to my channel where I talk and do everything pinball. And here it is, finally, the finale for the barn find for last, not last, I just did last action hero. So for the Adams family. So here I am with Jason. Jason was looking at this video. We went, and if you have not seen this video, which I'm pretty sure you have. It's probably one of my most seen videos that I've had put out there. And the whole, how this started in general was pretty funny. Because I sent you a message as a joke.
0:51
Hey, here's you a sorcerer machine. I didn't think he would actually hook, line, and grab and go on with this, but I'm glad he did. But it was one of those things, I did not anticipate this to happen from a single text message. And as a joke, I send this image to my buddy Jason, and I'm like, hey, here's your good project machine. For all I was expecting in return was a simple LOL. That's really as far as I thought that that conversation was going to be going. Little did I know that he responds back with, Tell them we'll come and get it if they have it and want it gone. Driving right now, can't look at a computer. This is when I say, Dude, the bottom is falling out, the back is caved in. I sent this as a joke. It's a sorcerer, man. No, it needs a sorcerer in order for it to live again. They have a board over the back glass. Playfield has got to be good on it. CPR is making a playfield for sorcerers right now. Now you're scaring me because I'm starting to think you're serious. It may have a better coin door on it. Could swap it out with my black knife. I sent him the phone number to the ad. I was like, this is the number for the ad. If you want it, call him. So it turned into us going out there to this guy's house that we did not know. We did not know where we were going, what we were in for, or anything like that. All we knew was that there was a possibility that there was going to be pinball machines and this was going to be one of them that was there. So that alone was enough to get her excited enough to go out there and see what we're dealing with. And out of everything there, you got this. We got this. We got that $50 store for a little bit of trash. What did you even get off of that? There was a few actually that was very cool parts that I needed. No, not the coin door. We bought an arcade that was laying on its side. I had the Williams coin door in it, but I wanted it for the Black Knight, which I haven't got to yet. Got it for $25.

  • “Every hole I've illuminated on this game, I've got an amber and red here so that they both flicker.”

    Jason@ 19:48 — Details the thoughtful LED mod approach with color matching to the theme

  • “The best mod that you can do that I feel that you can do to an Adams family, by far, for gameplay. Not for looks, but for gameplay is in the trough of the swamp. You need to put an angled piece of aluminum in there.”

    Jason@ 20:31 — Provides practical gameplay improvement advice specific to Addams Family machines

  • “I'm an incandescent fan. I started out in 1980 on that black knight. That's one of the first pinball machines I played. It was all incandescent. This Centaur over here was all incandescent. I grew up with incandescents, but I really love the LEDs.”

    Cary Hardy@ 24:19 — Explains the philosophical shift toward LED lighting despite nostalgic attachment to incandescent bulbs

  • “The only thing that's original is the wire form and a bunch of your wire, you know your original stuff.”

    Jason@ 25:16 — Demonstrates the extensive scope of parts replacement in the restoration

    • Planetary Pinball
    company
    Kevin Mooreperson
    Code DMDcompany
    Lee's Modscompany
    Titancompany
    Kamacompany
    Northlandscompany
    Chris Royaltyperson
    Pinball Platingcompany
    Starship Fantasycompany
    Getawaygame
    Texas Pinball Festivalevent
    Centaurgame
    Black Knightgame
    Iron Maidengame
    Jurassic Parkgame
    ?

    community_signal: Jason's first ground-up restoration project demonstrates methodical approach: cabinet work first, then playfield assembly, extensive parts research and sourcing

    high · Jason explains his process: 'Did the cabinet first. And then you did the plate building. That's the method I tend to use as well.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Marco playfield drilling precision and quality exceeded expectations with only 2-3 minor adjustments needed

    high · Jason: 'I'm super impressed with Marco and all their dot dimpling for all the screws. There may have only been two or three that I knew just a tick. But for the most part, this play field was spot on.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Modern LED lighting technology enabling preservation of playfield artwork color while eliminating heat damage from incandescent bulbs

    high · Discussion of LED advantages over incandescents: prevents insert fading and color bleaching while improving visibility

    • 2:47
    We got this machine for $1,200. Now, I didn't want to say something. That sounds like a steal. And it really is for an Adams family, but this machine was trash. I mean, it was just one step away from needing to go to the landfill. $1,200. It was one of those things where both of us had, I had at least a couple of grand on me. I don't know what you brought with you. I brought two. Yeah, I think we both had about a couple of grand with us just to see if we could get one machine or whatever. So whenever it came to us looking at this machine, and on the video there really is not much of the back and forth price-wise because there was a negotiation involved. It wasn't just like, I'll give you this and he accepted it. It was more of, what do you want to get out of this? And he was wanting like $4,500. Well, it looked to me like they were going for $4,000, $4,500. And I really said, this game is not going to end with that. Yeah, so we were able to, I think at a point in time, the guy was in a pretty desperate motivation kind of way. He was looking to get rid of this stuff because... This was all his best stuff that he had here, and he was overwhelmed with all the stuff that his dad had from the routing. His dad had multiple routes in the 80s and 90s. This machine had a 2003 sticker on it. It was the last vendor sticker. So it had been on route up to 2003, and it's sitting there. We got it in 2018. Gosh, has it really been that long? It's been that long, man. No, it's been until the 19th. No, I'm sorry, the 19th. Yeah. We got it February of last year. Yeah, February of last year. So February 2019, he got this machine, and now it is almost July of 2020, and a lot of this has been just us not being able to get it at the same time. This machine pretty well was done in November to December of last year. The only thing that I hadn't finished was doing the speaker mod. I've got some Rockwell-style D5 and quarters on both sides to help balance the sound. and then I did the LED around the speakers in a color DMD. The majority of all the mods and all the restoration of this machine was done by November, December of last year. I waited on the DMD to get the $50 off special because I was planning on taking this to TPA in 2020, and then we had this growing virus crack here, and it pretty well wiped out all plans for this year's TPA. So they still honored the $50. They shipped it to me for free. I appreciate Code DMD for working with me on that. And I told them next year, if 2021 occurs, they're more than welcome to put their appetite on this machine for what they did for me. I'm even not going to the show. They still held to their show price special. I'm getting pissed the more I look at this machine because I'm trying to find errors. I'm trying to find where something that he might have missed, but everything is so damn clean that it's hard for me to find anything because these corners are just perfect and everything is just flat and got a sheen to it. It's a marvel. It's definitely great to see that you were able to resurrect this, but I'm wanting to know you get it, we bring it back to your house, you drop it off inside of this right here. You did a lot of work inside right here. So what was your initial, like walk me through what you did first. First thing I want to do is I want to get into the cabinet and just see how bad, what all needed to be replaced on the cabinet.
    6:33
    The front panel was trashed. It had a big lock bar coming across. It had a big hole over here, a big hole over here.
    6:41
    The surface was peeling all around here on the veneer. So I wound up just replacing this whole front piece. I mean, I took the old piece off. made this new piece from scratch and put it on. The bottom, anything that was MDF on this machine was shot. So the bottom panel is brand new, been replaced. And the MDF back panel on the back box is all new.
    7:08
    And I've got to say hats off to Kevin Moore for doing the silkscreen on the back of it. He did a phenomenal job. It looks beautiful. I'll have that definitely in the video for you to see that it looks standard factory, brand new, like it just came off the line. It is spot on for the silkscreen. So like, you didn't redo the entire back box, just the MDF portion? Just the MDF portion on the back, and I reworked every corner of every corner on this pinball machine all over the place. Because every corner had been knocked off, chewed off, rat chewed on, I don't know. Every corner was rounded off, knocked off, so I had a ton of time just in the cabinet and the back box before you could start on the plate building. And that's what took a lot of time to get this cabinet back around. So essentially you did the cabinet first. Did the cabinet first. And then you did the plate building. And that's the method I tend to use as well. And that's what I'm doing with my project is that I make sure the cabinet's all good to go. You know, one iron in the fire at a time. All right, so turn the AC off so hopefully the audio will sound a little bit better. So where we left off was that you do the cabinet completely done first. Is that including decals? That's including the vinyl and everything, yeah. New vinyl all the way around. This is an Adams gold vinyl. I went with the gold because I like the purple and the yellow contrast and I like the gold lightening better than the blue lightening. There's going to be some people that want it to be the standard, you know, wrap. I prefer the gold so I went with it. This is not a gold. This is not a gold edition Adams family. That's going to be a standard edition. A lot of people are going to ask that. They see the gold and they want to know, is it actually a true gold machine? It is not a true gold machine. If it was a true gold machine, there'd be another button right over here that you could pop a quarter in and get one extra ball. You could buy a ball right there. And there's a lot of other subtle differences between a gold and a standard, more so than I realized. So I was not going to try to convert this to make it look like a gold. Either way, either artwork that you would have gone with, I think it would have looked good. But this is a personal preference. Like you said, you like the purple with the gold. This is just my personal preference. I like the gold look with the purple and the yellow more than the blue lightning stinger. It looks damn good. So after the cabinet's done, now it's time for you to start working on the play field. So what was your task and how did you go about tearing this down and figuring out what all that you're going to need to purchase and everything. First thing we knew when we looked at this machine, we had a screw sticking up out of the plate fill on the back side of the bookcase,
    9:53
    the rotator bookcase, and we had a couple of cracks in the plate fill up in here. So we had some mortgage in the plate fill going on, and we inspected this and we went and looked at it. I knew right away that it's going to need a plate fill.
    10:06
    Your choices are CPR. are your choice is a Marco I saw the Marco glitter gold fell in love with it and that's the one I chose to go with that's almost what we paid that's almost what he paid for the whole machine right that's why we had to get this machine so cheap because it was trash. But he had the planking like you said and you had the screw hole. Yeah, the screw hole. Someone tried to run through the backside of the plane field with the entire plane fuel.
    10:41
    This machine was heavily routed to say the least. If you want to see the original plane fuel, I can show it to you right now. Yeah, if you got the original plane fuel, yeah. And the thing is, guys, he could have easily just done some quick fixes and had a playable working Adam's family. He definitely had to redo a lot of the wiring and stuff like that, but he didn't necessarily need a new playfield. He didn't need a lot of new things on here, but when you have a title like this, you need to do it justice. And so here we have, we'll have to raise it up a little bit so we can live here. Future original playfield. Definitely our Cliffies are blown out, especially the chair. Cliffy is shocked. On the back side of this play field there was so many screws trying to hold the solenoid on the back side that shoots that ball back up through the Cliffy from the chair and it was just chewed up There so many little screw holes that were just tacked on they were added It was not original Just whatever the operator could do to keep the solenoid and the screw from falling through the backside, he was trying to make it happen. So there was a ton of extra screws on the backside of this play field just trying to hold all your trough shocks, you know, solenoids, to where they didn't fall down. So this play field was a disaster. This play field was heavily routed
    12:07
    Obviously you can tell it. I mean it is a doubt. It looks like something chewed it up And that's just from being on the rest. You need to end up on the wall man I got my getaway with the clear inserts on the wall right now Definitely wall art. You know you can see we got my wall art coming across here, but there's cracks And there's an actual crack right there. There's a crack right there Where's that screw hole that we had? I think it was a right here. Yeah. Right in front of the bookcase. When I saw that I was like, what? It was a no-brainer in my head that it needed a play field right off the bat. So, a lot of wear to it. It definitely made the operator plenty of money through the years. I'm sure he definitely got all his money back from all the wear and play on that right there. But it's good to see that it's been resurrected and it looks better than it did. I'd say yeah definitely a lot better than it did on the showroom floor. Well the good thing about it is thank goodness we have vendors out there making aftermarket parts for these machines now. We didn't have it 20 years ago. It was a disaster trying to do something like this. the parts just weren't there. So kudos to all the guys, CPR, Merco, and then all the support guys that are selling parts to bring these things back, you know. It's just amazing how the pinball world is still going. You can list off everything. I ordered parts from so many different vendors to get this thing back together right. So, you know, it was a ton of parts ordered. But it was an Adams family. It really deserved to be 100% in my mind. Oh, yeah. Without a doubt, it's definitely a game that I wouldn't mind having. I just don't want to pay the heavy price for it. But I was willing to get this title if you were going to pass on it. If you would have offered, I don't know, $1,200 and he wanted $1,400 and he would have backed out, chances are I probably would have been like, I'll take the $1,400 for it. I was letting him have it. I was like, I'm going to let him have this because this will be your first D&D title. This is my first ground up full restoration. Yeah, so I was like, I wanted you to have it. This is my first ground up full restoration. Yeah. I've got nearly 250 hires in this machine. Yeah, we've done playfield swap and centaur, playfield swap essentially in black and hardtop, and then we'll playfield swap and centaur. But this is your full blown entire cabinet, everything done restoration. So in one of those words, I really didn't want you to get this game. So I'm glad that you were able to get it. I just didn't know how long it was going to take you, but you definitely had the motivation. You got it done. You were knocking that out, man. Yeah. It took some time, but it was worth it. I probably went more than what we offered, but I wouldn't have gone a whole lot more because I knew I was going to have a ton wrapped up in it because of all the stuff that needed to be changed out. Like I was ready to pounce at a moment where you were like, no, I can't do that. And then I'm like, well, I'll do this much kind of thing. But I definitely didn't want to be like, no, man, I didn't want to take it from you. I wanted you to have it because I already had projects anyway, so I didn't need this. I really did not want it because I was like, man, I've already got so much other stuff I've got to work on. It was a month before Texas Pinball Festival, so I really didn't have the time to get it all worked out. So once you got your new plate built in, what were basically some of your trials and issues that you had with this assembly and then reassembly? What are some of the things that were very much a showstopper for you that really stick in your mind? The worst showstopper that I saw was I knew the secondary transformer wiring harness. the rats had gotten into this machine and they had chewed that secondary transformer wiring harness up thank goodness you had that getaway that you got that was a flood victim out of Houston I think yeah down there yeah and you used the play field out of it yeah and I came over and said dude I need a harness bad what about that getaway I looked up the numbers and the numbers are exactly the same between the getaway and the Adams family so I was like okay let me call Carrie see if he's got that harness We got that harness, luckily he had it in the game, thank goodness because that was 90% of the electrical that had been destroyed wiring wise on this game by the rats. So got that in, fired this thing up, I had to make a couple of small harnesses like for the hand flipper that controls, there's a small board in there that goes from that secondary harness up to a special small board for this flipper to operate automatically without you touching the button when it does the hand flip. Yeah, it has the opto right here. It makes the opto, the hand flips across to the swamp trough. So when that happened, all that harness is just like four black wires, maybe six. All that I made, no big problem. Every bit of it was completely chewed up, though, and that was my main worry. So when I fired this game up, I was scared to death that something was going to knock the board out. Yeah. Thank goodness it didn't. every board in this game worked when I fired it up and I could not believe it. Really? Every board worked. That's definitely when you have the smoke test. You remember the guy standing there, he goes, Why don't you all plug it in and see if it works? We were like, there's no way. I'm putting fire on this game and seeing what I saw. Well, we can plug it up. No, no, no, no, no, no. No way. I see nothing good coming from that. Thank you. Yeah, thank goodness the harness on the play field, there was only four wires and I had to repair. I mean, I could not believe that the harness in that play field was perfect. Four wires, that's it. So this game was really, turned out to be better as far as not having to do wire harness repairs by far than what I thought I'd have to do. Thank goodness for your harness. Okay. What about mechanically? Was there like, as anybody that's put a brand new play field into the machine knows that usually the holes are not typically where you'd like them to be. Where were some key points where you think that the cutting was just like a millimeter or two off or anything like that, any issues with that? Yeah, spot on. Really? I'm super impressed with Mercado and all their dot dimpling for all the screws. There may have only been two or three that I knew just a tick. But for the most part, this play field was spot on. I mean, I was impressed. I was really surprised. I was like, they did a good job. Thanks, Marco. Because I had some issues with my getaway where I was like, that doesn't even make sense. I remember that.
    18:52
    Yeah, I think it was on your kicker. Yeah, my kickers and the dimpling. There's certain things where I'm like, no, that wouldn't work. But, yeah, I got it to go. So what are some of the mods that you've done for this title game? The mods that I've done for this game, I had my son paint the chair custom.
    19:12
    All right, William got me a $7 polar bear. Put me a $7 polar bear on there. Is that the usual one? No, that's just a net on. Where'd you get that from? I got that from Northlands. Just some... $7 polar bear moth from Northlands. All right. Of course, I don't need the plexiglass for it to bolt to and all that. Okay. So, less than $20 in my polar bear. Mm-hmm. I bought the bookcase from the guy off of Pennside. This is a 3D printer. Mm-hmm. Took about an hour for him to make it. I think it's 25 bucks. There you go. It's a beautiful mod for the green bookcase.
    19:48
    Every hole I've illuminated on this game, I've got an amber and red here so that they both flicker. I've got my green here, and I've got my gold back here for the representing the gold in the vault. I like the gold off-color.
    20:03
    Got my twin barrels right here for the swamp with LEDs in here. I just use a couple. I don't think I've seen this ever before. So this is probably like... I saw this on pen size. Some guy had done something close to this. Okay, all right. I went ahead and painted my barrels to make them look green. They were originally black. Just kind of missed it on some green. Kept the original writing showing the radioactive and caution writing on it. I didn't want to cover that up. The best mod that you can do that I feel that you can do to an Adams family, by far, for gameplay. Not for looks, but for gameplay is in the trough of the swamp. You need to put an angled piece of aluminum in there. And I think Lee's Mods or Mods by Lee is where I got that, I think it's a T6061 piece of bill of aluminum and it's a wedge. It's cut on the wedge and what it does is when that ball goes in that swamp trough, it gets it over there fast to the lane to make the switches. So it doesn't delay gameplay. These games, the Adams family has got to be level. If you don't have that wedge in there, this game has got to be so perfectly leveled for it to work right in this swamp trough. There's a lot of problems that occur with delayed switch activation in here. So definitely check out that mod. I think it was another $25 or $30. Not very much. These mods I did myself for the lighting, I was at like $15 a piece. Those were from Kama. We did the flex strips. Yeah, that's from Kama. Cross flex strips from common. Got rubbers from Titan. All gray, right? All gray. This game is grayed out. It's got so much color on this play field. The gray just doesn't rob anything away from the play field. I'm very pleased with the gray. And that was Titan's recommendation. Eric recommended the gray and I think we were both kind of like, aren't you sure? He was like, trust me. Alright, let's try it. Let's see. Very pleasing. Great, turned out really good. Just because it's subtle doesn't take anything away from the artwork of the play field. It's just kind of there but it doesn't scream at you. And one thing I did want to do was just totally purple this thing out like some people do with Adam's family. I'm sorry, some people like purple. My preference is not just purpling out an entire Adam's family. Don't go crazy with the mods. There's a ton of mods for this game out there and you can mod the heck I just went with a few subtle mods, didn't want to throw a ton of stuff on it. It's just got a few simple ones. And this is custom pinsteadings though, right? These are custom pinsteadings. I made these about two weeks before the fusions came out. And I tested, played around with some of the aluminum channel. I wound up going with a little J channel in the end, and then I wound up putting a 30 degree break on the J channel so that it would cover up the LED strip that's in here. This is the LED strip that's got the... You not going to see everything look like zebra stripes in here from just LED lights reflecting off This is just white This is white and it in that full frosted strip So the whole thing looks like a fluorescent lamp down through there It's a cool white. I think all your whites are cool whites. This is a cool white. I tried the soft white, and it just made everything in the play field look too goldish. I didn't like how it looked. A lot of people are praising sunlight, and I personally like the cool white better. I like the cool white because it brings the colors. This play field just screams with colors. You don't want to change, but to me, I didn't want any off-colored stuff, you know, messing with the playfield colors. Because you have the purists that go, oh, this game had incandescents. It needs to have incandescents. I tell you what, back in 1992?
    23:57
    Yeah. Yeah, and they would have had cool white LEDs. I'm pretty sure they would have been using those because it would have brought out the color of the game. It would have brought the color of the game. It wouldn't have cooked all the inserts with all the heat from the incandescents. There's drawbacks to incandescents, and I agree with some of the purists. I'm an incandescent fan. I started out in 1980 on that black knife. That's one of the first pinball machines I played. It was all incandescent. This Centaur over here was all incandescent. I grew up with incandescents, but I really love the LEDs, and after seeing the inserts get just cooked and faded because of the incandescents, go with your LEDs. Save your inserts. Save the color. You don't want to bleach out your colors. What is all new? So you've got all new plastics. New plastics from CPR.
    24:43
    And, of course, new flippers. Every flipper was shot on this game. So new flippers, all flippers rebuilt. Between pinball life and planetary pinball, they probably got the majority of my business. Marco, I mean Marco, not Marco, Marco. Those three guys, I probably ordered 85 to 90% of what's on this game new that I needed. I mean you got a lot of new. All switches are new. I'm trying to, it probably is a smaller list for what's still original on this game. Yeah there is. The only thing that's original is the wire form and a bunch of your wire, you know your original stuff. I just polished all those out on a polisher. I did steal a 90 degree kick plate right there. I put that on this side to protect it. That came off of the sorcerer that was trapped. So there was a few, there was like four or five parts that I put on this game from that old sorcerer play field that we got out of it. So it panned out, it worked out. Sweet, especially with the price you had for it. Yeah, 50 bucks. That machine was dead. It was not coming back to life. Cost-wise, there was no way that somebody would have took on that task. It was way worse than this machine was. We were very upset. we went to the tent on that go watch the barn find video there were some games that we would have loved to have saved to the pin bot the sorcerer man I can't even remember the games there was a couple of godly I think it was what is that I can't remember but there was all kinds of games and we were like oh we can take this but it's not worth it I mean because it was so waterlogged to me they were too far gone to be cost-worthy and you can bring it back. Rat's Nest. That's when it comes to the theme, guys. And this is the reason why this is the only game that we took there besides the other games that he snagged just for parts. It's because this one, and after all the work and money that he's thrown into this, this can still be flipped and sold to recoup his investment.
    26:52
    I'm still money ahead in this game. Raven. There was a Raven there. There was a Raven? Yeah, I could have bought a Raven. Let's say a couple of hundred bucks. But the amount of money that I had to put in for a new cabinet and new parts and everything. Do you think anybody's going to want to buy a Raven for all the money in there? Even if it's fully restored. There's not a lot of people that want a Raven. Now, I have to say there's a lot of people that want this title. Especially that looks the way this one does. It's a well-sought title. It always will be. It's one of the better pinball machines I've ever made in my mind. It's a four-flipper game. There's shots at every flipper. And I'm going to say, the later model Stern, Iron Maiden is still one of my favorite football machines. But you haven't played Jurassic Park. Because it's a four flipper machine that can shut off every flipper. You haven't played Jurassic Park yet. I don't want to hear your shit.
    27:44
    Once he plays Jurassic Park, he's going to shut up about Iron Maiden. He still wants to buy the dinosaur. I'll take my dinosaur and my turtles. I've got to play it. I shouldn't be bashing it. Yeah, exactly. You'll probably change your mind. But anyways, so basically you've rebuilt the entire inside of the game. Pretty well. A good chunk of the cabinet. You've got, although you said don't purple, you do have purple under the playfield. I do have purple accent underneath and purple on the playfield. But no purple inside the playfield area. A lot of people like to light it up way back here. And it does look good if you light it back in here. but when it just comes everywhere, people can over purple everything. Just be careful. Purple is a big hit with a lot of people. I know it gives the machine a mood, and it's good. Just be careful with the purple. Yeah, a little goes a long way. It does. And for me, I think, without a doubt, one of my first machines, it was Spyhunter. I think my Hologi guy was bright blue. Yeah. Because I thought it looked really good. I was like, blue all over. It looks great. little did I know, it looked okay.
    28:57
    But my next 500, I did a lot better. But like, yeah, so when it comes to lighting a machine, obviously to each their own. Right. But we prefer the cool white because it really brings out the color of the game. Right. So.
    29:14
    I did go with CPR back glass, but it just came out, and I was tickled pink because I wasn't going to have that trashy looking plastic trans light in a beautiful machine. When CPR announced this, I told Kevin more about it. I said, you want one of them? You both got one, yeah. Yeah, order me one. I said, okay. I put it in order. We'll split shipping it. So we both got our inked and mirrored back glass from CPR. It was absolutely beautiful. So you got the new ramps at TPF 2019. Yeah. Starship, Fantasy Starship is who had the ramps and that's who had the topper. I didn't care too much for the stickers kit that came with the topper, so I peeled the original stickers off ever so slowly off of my original and put it on this new topper because the ink was so much better. It didn't look washed out. So that's your old stickers? Those are my old stickers on a new cloud topper. And then I stuffed... That's pretty amazing. Yeah. I was afraid I was going to rip one of these. I took my time. What did you do? Did you get a heat gun? I just slowly went cold. Are you kidding me? I went cold, and luckily I did not rip a single one. Wow. Transferred stickers. It looks a whole lot better. How did you ever get the stick back down? It did. What? All the sticky transferred from the plastic and stayed on the sticker longer than I. There you go, guys. I got extremely lucky. And you got, what, cotton through all? Yeah, I've got like pillow stuffing up in here so that when the blue glass light up for the lightning, it kind of fills the whole cloud.
    30:48
    Color name D, speaker light kit. Yeah, I put my eyes on the homemade speaker light kit. I think I got $9 in it. As a matter of fact, I've got one over here. I'll show you what I used.
    30:59
    And you did all chroming through Chris Royalty at Pinball Plating? Yes, Pinball Plating. Pinball Plating did the chrome on what all pieces? Side rails, lock down bar? Side rails, lock down bar, the legs, new bolts, U-channel, new H-channel.
    31:18
    I believe that's it. A lot of chrome. But it's a black cabinet. It's like a Harley. Black and chrome.
    31:30
    Black and chrome all the way. So, yeah. I love the chrome. I wanted to go with the chrome just because of the black size and the black cabinet color.
    31:38
    Anyways, $9. I think I got that at Walmart. Oh, so this is like the stuff that you see in the end cap for your TVs. Exactly. You see the back of your TV, that's what's inside your speakers? It's cheap. That's what's inside my speakers. I had to make spacers in there using half-inch MDF, and then I slotted the top of them, and then I just basically run that around, run it across, run it around the other one. The power supply is over here in the corner with the remote.
    32:08
    Nice. So nine bucks going in two hours of work. Yeah, two hours. That's where it comes in. How much work did it have to go into it? So I'm trying to think of what else that we need to bring up that you had to work on. Is there any, basically, when it comes to those that have this tile and they want to work on it and they want to do a playfield swap or anything, what are some things that you wish you would have known before doing all this? When I first started this playfield swap, I thought I could just throw this playfield on the rotisserie. This machine has large cutouts, big holes. in this play field and there's so much weight from all the mechanisms on the underside of this machine you really need to set it up on a flat table and then block it up in the middle so that you can support the middle because after the first three days this play field was already bowing three quarters of an inch and i'm like oh my gosh i need to stop right now and i need to get this off of the rotisserie i need to put it on a table so i worked one side at a time and the whole time but I did that after I'd gotten it off the rotisserie messing with just some of the wiring harness I started throwing the max on there underneath I started weighing this thing down be careful with your playfield on these animals families because right across here not a whole lot of support that big hole right there you're uh toting yeah toting you got to be careful with it because you got a big chunk missing out there and this thing was starting to bubble and I was like, oof, wait a minute here.
    33:40
    Fixing to get in trouble. So this is like your new one was starting to bow. My new one was starting to bow, yes.
    33:48
    And it's just because of the weight. These gangs from the mid and early 90s, they are stacked with toys in here. So all this stuff weighs a lot. So besides the weight issue and making sure that you have good stabilization when working on this, what are some other things that you wish you would have known about?
    34:06
    I wish I had realized how much metal there was to polish on this machine. It felt like I polished metal for 60 hours on this machine. I mean, a lot of metal everywhere on this machine. So not so much that, you know, I was going to do it no matter how much it would have taken, but I just didn't realize how much more metal there was on this machine with the ramps and the rise of the ramps so that there was a whole lot more metal guys on this machine by far than what that Black Knight and what that Centaur has over there. If you took both of them and put them together, that's probably about how much metal there is to polish on this Adam's family. Damn. You don't see half of it. Well, yeah, you've got five pop bumpers. There are five pop bumpers here. There's a lot of metal to polish on the top side of this machine. It worth the time but it just takes a lot of time Just like these metal ramp entrance flaps these are stainless steel These are cut out of 10 thousandths thickness stainless steel feeler gauge material. So the ones that I got were already starting to rust. You know, they had the blue that had the, I can't think of the name of it, but anyways, they were already starting to rust. They'd been in this shop for one month and they were already starting to get surface rust. And I was like, these are brand new ramps, man. This is not going to work. So I made sure that I changed these to stainless steel. Stainless steel on the shooter ramp, stainless steel on your plastic. That's crazy. Yeah. You got me all concerned about the ramps I've got in my game. because I've gotten my games back.
    35:41
    You need to worry about it. Well, luckily they're in a climate-controlled environment, but still it's something to definitely be concerned about. So all your targets are brand new. All my targets are brand new. All right, just so you guys know, those targets with the diode are usually about, what, eight bucks a pop? Somewhere around there. Yeah, eight to ten bucks, depending on where you get it. If you've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Yeah, around a hundred bucks. Yeah. Like your getaway has to be a little more. Getaway. There's a lot on there. I think it's about 120 bucks on all new targets. That's the main target usage zone again. Mm-hmm. It's got more targets than any other game I know of. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, everything's pretty well new in here except for all the metal. All LEDs are from Komet, I believe. No, some of the LEDs are from Komet, but most of them are from Cointaker. Oh, that's right. The Cointaker came from T-P. That's right. T-P. Okay. Yes sir. Let's try to think, is there anything else? The speaker lock here, the buttons right here, is this a kit or did you do this on your own? No, it was a kit. I bought the kit at TPF last year for like 30 bucks. I bought the bookcase. This bookcase actually has a vinyl overlay on the bookcase rotator. And then the actual book itself has a vinyl cover on it. It does pretty well. Most people do this to an Adam Stanley. All that's $20, $25, $30, $35. This thing will make one down the hill out of you. It will. But like I said, I didn't put a ton of mods, but I just wanted a few tasteful mods, but nothing just crazy and overblown.
    37:22
    And I'm happy with the game the way it sits. I'm not planning on putting any more mods on this game. So I know a lot of people put the, you know, with a light bulb on there. My boy painted the chair making it look really good on the thing. I don't want to cover that up, so I'm not going to go over the fester sitting in the chair with the light bulb in his mouth. Yeah, and seeing that now you've got a little bit of an extra relationship with the machine because a member of your family, your son, has contributed to this. So that adds a little bit more of a... Right, it's got a little personal touch to it. So that's pretty cool as well. It took a lot of time. So how many hours estimated would you say that you threw into this game? Over 250. Over 250 hours. But that was being slow and meticulous. Yeah, when you've got a restoration like this, how many hours just to polish the metal? Ah, 60 hours. God damn.
    38:19
    Almost half your time, or not half, but like a quarter of your time was polishing metal. and I polished a lot of metal on the getaway too a lot more time was spent in the cabin than what I anticipated I was going to spend but I was trying to make all those corners perfect I mean every corner to be perfect so it was overkill on my part but that's just me and a lot of people have this mentality of just like it's a game just play it but I think I don't know me it's like I want to be able to play it but also be completely aesthetically pleasing at the same time. I guess that's the both morals. To be able to take a game that is over almost 30 years old and make it look like it just came off the showroom floor,
    39:12
    that says something right there. It just took a lot of time. Be patient is the best I can say. Be patient. If you're going to burn yourself out, walk away from it. Walk away from it and then come back to it. Just make sure you take plenty of pictures and plenty of video before you start tearing stuff down on the top and the bottom side.
    39:33
    Just document everything that you're fixing to do before you unbolt it. We learned that the hard way. That is the biggest issue, I think, when it comes to doing a restoration is being impatient. Because, like for my getaway, for instance, I played the hell out of it just so I would no longer have an urge to play anymore. and what helped out is that I got a getaway on location that I was able to go get my getaway urge on playing it over there. So you get to a certain point where you're like, man, I'm almost there and then you're going to start rushing and then you're going to start making mistakes and then you're going to always see those mistakes. As someone that restores this particular machine, I'm sure there's things that I'm not seeing that he may know about because he himself has done all of this. that's the thing for us restoration guys is that when we have done all the work we know what all is possibly just not the way we'd like it to be and we see it every time we look at it or a lot of the laymen or even fellow restorers will not see it because we ourselves did it I'm not going to mention things that I did on my getaway but trust me I know there's things you're your own worst critic you know all your flaws All right, guys. Well, this is the Addams Family finale from the barn find from rags to riches.
    41:00
    So if you could, could you tell people how much money, estimation-wise? I'm not going to disclose what the final figure is. Okay. But I can make money on this machine if I sold it. Okay. All right.
    41:17
    I'm not going to get to her. His wife is watching this video. I would get broke if I was trying to do this for a living. Yeah, that's for damn right. You got to love the hobby.
    41:29
    So we're now going to play the hell out of this game. Guys, by all means, if you have not already, hit the subscribe button. That way you can be notified whenever I upload new content for your viewing pleasure. If you like what you've seen here, by all means, hit the thumbs up button. And if you have any questions or anything about Adam's family and this restoration process of what Jason has done, then put it in the comments section below. I have informed him to keep an eye on it, and he can answer your questions accordingly.
    41:59
    Until next time, guys. Peace out. Possible Addams Family Texas weather. Don't know how long it's been sitting in there.
    43:36
    But we're going to find out. 10 to 12 years. God. That's 10 to 12 winters, 10 to 12 summers.
    43:48
    These things are not going to look good. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey What a freaking nightmare. Yeah.
    45:36
    Well, dude, you got yourself an A-list game. It's not perfect and needs a lot of work. Outro Music