What's that sound? It's For Amusement Only, the EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. Welcome back to For Amusement Only. This is Nicholas Baldridge. It's been a productive two weeks. I know last time I was talking about cutting stencils and kind of the job that was involved there. Well, in the past two weeks, I've painted the game and accomplished quite a bit on the hardware side. So I just wanted to go over a little of the trials and tribulations of painting the game. This was not exactly like painting any other game because I took stencils, which were already created for wood rail bingos, which have entirely different dimensions, and enlarge them to fit this late model bingo cab, one of the largest produced, in fact. So in doing so, this changed the dimensions of all of the elements in the stencil. Most notably, on the left-hand side, I used the stencil for United Circus, which has a lion, a seal balancing a ball on its nose, and a clown. And then on the backbox, there's a giraffe's neck and head. The giraffe's neck has quite a few spots. And in the enlargement process, the spot got larger, and the space between the spots got smaller. Well, the problem here is that overspray exists, and there's no way to perfectly weight down all these tiny little areas in the stencil. So there was quite a bit of overspray on the spots on the neck. Not the end of the world, but it's certainly something that I noticed. The other thing, as I mentioned, is I enlarged a wood rail stencil to put on a metal rail cabinet. This is something that should have been throwing alarms for me, but I am too dense to have realized it. And part of the stencil is actually covered up by the rails. This is most disappointing on the right-hand side of the cab, which came from Bally's Beach Club. and the problem there is one of the nice little elements on the bottom cab that I think gives it a little bit of perspective. On the backbox you have twin palm trees which are extending up from the base of the cabinet all the way up the side of the backbox and far off in the distance you can see three seagulls flying out over the ocean. Well, those three seagulls locked in flight underneath the side rail. So there's no way to see them at the moment, which is unfortunate, but it's not the end of the world. Another couple oddities. The measurements for the cab were spot on, and the measurements for the backbox were spot on. But in the enlargement process, one of the clouds for Beach Club didn't extend quite as far as it should have. So if you look closely at that stencil, especially near where the backbox joins the cabinet, you'll notice that a cloud disappears partway through only to rejoin on the backbox. that again is something that I would have noticed had I put the game together during the painting process to check my progress but that's not the way I did it so aside from that on the front of the game I used stencil from United's Nevada Nevada has a desert theme being Nevada and And on the front of the game, I found it particularly appealing because it's one of the early United games that has the letter U, or I guess the middle United games, that has the letter U on the coin door. And the reason I like this is because on Nevada, it's worked into the artwork such that the letter U is centered on the coin door, which itself acts like a sign in the middle of the desert, which I think is just a cool effect. there's also a stenciled lady in a bathing suit with a towel draped around her neck that's waving no idea why she's in the middle of the desert but there she is and I certainly don't see a pool or ocean anywhere nearby so hopefully she's flagging down a car or something getting a ride because I'm a little concerned But what I did with that stencil is modified it. I took it and changed the coloration with the help of my wife and Ryan Claytor, comics and pinball artist Ryan Claytor, and got the coloration to be consistent across all three separate stencils. my idea was to make it so that it was less jarring to go from left to right, even though the base colors and the speckle on each of the three sides is actually different. I wanted to give some sense of consistency, and seeing the entire thing put together, I have to say I think I succeeded, at least in my own eyes, which is where the game's going to reside 99.9% of the time anyway, So I have to look at it most of the time. And I'm pleased. So I think it turned out pretty well. On the front door, there is some overspray again. And a severe lack of overspray in one area, which is driving me a little nuts, but it's not the end of the world. It's, I've got to say, a pretty attractive game now, so I'm liking it quite a bit. During this time I also painted the drawer that my friend Steve made and taught me how to do And that is painted The wood which resides inside has been sanded, stained, and shellacked. I taught my daughters how to shellack the wood, and they were excited to do a little craft project and help with the game, so that was very good. so hardware wise what I've done is cut some wood blocks to go inside the game in the cabinet and those will hold the screws which are supporting the drawer and at lunchtime today I drilled the cab got the drawer installed and that works exactly how Steve and I had envisioned, so that's pretty awesome. It pulls out just the right amount. The mechanics inside will be hidden appropriately, unless I want to take the drawer out, at which point I can access all the mechanics. I'm going to cut a hole in the bottom of the cabinet to feed the Jones plug and all the wires through. and what I'll do when I want to take the game apart is actually move that Jones plug back up into the cabinet and then take the drawer off and I should be able to cart it around or take it apart and dolly it or whatever I need to do. I also painted the legs, bally bingo legs, when they switched to metal rails were mostly red. There are some, especially late model games, that use silver legs, but those also are painted, from what I've seen. You know, I'm struggling to remember now. The 20-hole game that I had, I don't think the legs were painted. I think they were just flat metal. So it could be that they went through two or three different revisions. But the most iconic period for Ballybingos was probably the Magic Screen era. That's the one that most people remember fondly. That's the type of bingo that most people think of when they see a bingo, except for six-card players and other varieties which were common in different locales. So the Magic Screen games, many of them, not all of them, but most of them, had those red legs, and they're very attractive. I also redid the button surrounds and installed those. They look beautiful as well, gotta say. So it's very exciting, and I'm really resisting the urge just to slap the game back together and get to playing. I want to resolve some of these last hardware challenges so that I'm ready to take it to York again this year. So, as far as hardware challenges, I've already talked about the drawer a little bit and the wood that resides inside. Each of two sets of lock bar pieces will be inset into this drawer such that the player can push on them and get different effects from the game. Right now, all my games are programmed to use the complement of standard pick-a-play buttons and magic screen buttons, so the left, right, and R. This works, but I will say it's mighty confusing for games like Miss America or Sun Valley or any of the games where you can rotate every number on the back glass that used every button from A through F. so I have to play all kinds of tricks with the time tree in order to make it so that those buttons stop responding in the way that you expect and instead start a new game or what have you that will go away because I'll have the actual buttons in place for you to press and you'll have to pull out this drawer in order to make your moves push it back in, shoot your next ball, pull it out make a move again if you choose, push it back in, shoot your next ball now, when the drawer is pushed in, it's inset from the cabinet so you can actually tuck a knee under the cab and give yourself some leverage there that's something that Steve does, and was something he was very concerned about, was being able to have the room to do that that is there. It'll work just fine. So, let's talk about buttons. I've got A through F. I've got even and all, which are the hold buttons for Palm Springs, Ice Frolics, and Surf Club. I've also got D and R for the 76 cards, double or nothing. And then I've got a multi-purpose button. This button, I haven't decided if I'm going to attempt to find a new old stock bikini or bounty button. These are small circular buttons, which are actually fairly long, and are used to start your Futurity game or to start the skill shot feature. But right now what I've got as kind of a placeholder is a Magic Lines knob from like a big time or a gay time gaiety. And I got a couple of those which were heavily used from a game The arrows are almost worn off on a couple of the ones that I have So I thinking of taking those and grinding them down and grinding down the bottom of them to make them just a regular push button. There's probably a more elegant way to do that, and I'll think about the best way to do it, because I'm not sold on that idea yet. but it's an idea anyway. The other thing I could do is take a rough button surround that I have and install that, you know, install a regular button, like on Bounty for the white button or Lido or CanCan. So I'm thinking about that, and we'll go from there. But the other thing that I need to do is take a piece of aluminum and grind it down or have it laser cut so that it will cover the space in the lock bar that's occupied by these buttons. But the other thing, the other purpose that that piece of aluminum serves is to actually hold those buttons in place. meanwhile there's a corresponding piece of metal that is underneath again I have some aluminum stock that I'm going to use the original is steel I believe but I figure aluminum is easier to cut even if it's some kind of robot that's doing the cutting but the piece underneath holds a retaining clip and also allows the button spring to have something to flex against. So there's a spring that's attached to the button shaft. These buttons are two and a half or three inches long, and there's a large square or rectangular top that you actually interact with as the player. But underneath, there's a spring that allows the button to return back to its previous position. And underneath of that, there's that metal retaining piece. And then there's an E-clip or something similar which holds the button in place. It keeps it from shooting back out of the lock bar at the player. So I need to have those cut. and I'm thinking about redoing the primary lock bar. I have some new old stock buttons, magic screen buttons, left, right, and R, which I'll install. I've got a coin entry plate, which I've already got installed on the lock bar that I have, but I'm thinking about putting on my instructions for how to return to the menu in that lock bar. And that would free up some space on the apron of the game to allow me to do something else, which might be pretty cool. But right now I don't have the space to do it. So I'll figure that out. But at the moment, I'm pretty excited because things are coming together pretty well. Now I mentioned not wanting to throw it back together, and that's partially so I can get this drawer installed properly, as I mentioned. But the other problem that I have is my playfield and cabinet wiring. There were certain wires that I ran towards the end of my wiring frenzy, which were ill-conceived, you know, not bundled with the rest of the wires, real hacky type stuff, and wires which are not the right length, all that kind of junk. I need to go through and clean that up, which I am going to do. I'll go through and relace those bundles and push them back through the cab. I've already done that on the cabinet, but I need to do it for the playfield. I believe I mentioned last episode that I broke the connector which powers one of the screens. so I've got some replacement connectors in and I'll see if I can make that work. We'll have to see. I found out that the screens that I was using are out of stock and it's questionable if they're still being produced. That's a bit of a problem, but I'll roll with it, whatever happens. And then cosmetically, the game will almost be complete except that I would like to do something about the back glass. Right now, the monitor that's in the head is 32 inches. It's a 32-inch TV, basically, and that's fine. It certainly fits in the space okay. It doesn't completely fill the space, and a 36-inch TV would absolutely fill the space required unfortunately they're not made in that size any longer so I've got to make do with what I've got I've talked with a couple of Chinese firms through the website Alibaba and they will happily produce something that has a unique bezel which would fill up the space but that's not what I'm looking for I want a screen that actually fills the space so I've resigned myself to sticking with an off the shelf part there and retaining that 32 inch screen this means that I need to figure out kind of a permanent plan for the bezel that surrounds the screen and I've got a really cool idea and I'm going to see if it's feasible so before I announce it I'll check and see if it's something I can do. But one thing I can do, I have foam core mounted all around that is basically providing a visual buffer for the screen. And what I'm going to do is take a piece of wood, paint it black, and tack it to that foam core all around the screen so that it less apparent that you looking at foam core And then I going to do something with the actual back glass frame And as I say I announce that if I can get something figured out here I've got a couple of friends who are helping me with that, and I'm pretty excited. So that's bingo news. I've got code stuff to do. I've got physical stuff to do. I've got a lot to do, but I'm very excited. Things are coming together. It's really nice to have the cabinet painting and refinishing done. Dennis Dodell helped me out. He sent me a new old stock coin door for my game. Mine had been punched or kicked at some point in the past and had flared out and disintegrated on the edges and I had touched it up but it wasn't perfect. So thanks to Dennis for that and now let's talk about RoboFrenzy. I've had a lot of questions about RoboFrenzy and that's certainly fair. As I mentioned before this game is one that I'm building. It's a brand new EM arcade game. Now, RoboFrenzy is something that both Ryan and I are doing in our spare time. So, it's something that's happening in our hobby time that isn't being taken up by other hobby stuff. So, right now I'm kind of focused on the multi, and Ryan is working on about a million projects. But soon, I'll be back on to RoboFrenzy now I have collected every part that's needed and made a handshake deal for the last thing that's out there that I need so I'm pretty excited about that and I'm about ready to start wiring up I need to order some new wire while I'm thinking about it because I've used some on the multi here recently and need to get enough to do my game, but I'm excited to actually start wiring it up and make use of some of these parts which are laying around. I've got a few boxes of parts which will become RoboFrenzy, but just waiting on the right time here. So soon enough, soon enough. that's pretty much what's going on I've been doing work around town again more solid state stuff I've been answering some questions some good stuff has popped up that people have been asking me I had somebody ask about fuses I was just talking with someone last night about fuses actually and they asked what my opinion was on fast blow versus slow blow on a bingo. And the games came with fast blow, unless you're talking solid state bingos. But there's generally very little harm in installing a slow blow, so I will do that if I don't have any fast blows on me. And the only thing is it'll take just a little bit longer to blow, but it'll still blow. So it's certainly okay to do that if you need to. The other thing was about fuse blocks themselves and where you can best go to get a new fuse block. And I use Pinball Life for that. They have a great fuse block that you can snap off to the appropriate size. It's inexpensive, and it's a good product. I use it quite a bit. So what I'll do is order much more than I need for the game, and then snap it down to five fuses for a bingo, and start soldering. And remember, if you're changing out the fuse holder, move over one wire at a time. do not desolder the entire fuse block and then solder the new one in its place. First of all, it's time-consuming, but most importantly, it's really time-consuming to troubleshoot a fuse wiring error because the entire game is going to start acting real crazy and stuff's going to blow or not. Lamps are going to blow. Coils might fry. You never know. So why take the chance? Just do it the easy way. And you should be good. And then, other than that, I've got to get back to work. As I say, there's a lot to do. I'm really excited for this year's York show. Show off the multi and all the progress that's been made. There's still a lot left to do. I'm guessing that I probably have another year before it's really at a place where I'm very satisfied with each of the games but at the moment it's exciting to be able to play all these different games and it's exciting to go down and look at the new cabinet art it's exciting to pull out that drawer and imagine what it's going to be like to control the game using those buttons in those ancillary foot rails. It's exciting. An exciting time to be into bingo pinball, I think. There's a lot of excitement out there, people getting their first games. I'm talking to more people every day who are getting games or have games or are thinking about making a move into bingos. It's very cool. and welcome everybody. All right, well, that's it for tonight. Thank you very much for listening. My name again is Nick Baldrige. You can reach me at 4amusementonlypodcast at gmail.com, or you can call me on the bingos line. That's 724-BINGOS1, 724-246-4671. You can listen to us on iTunes, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, VRSS, on Facebook, on Twitter, at Bingo Podcast. you can follow me on Instagram also at bingo podcast or you can listen to us on our website which is for amusement only dot libsyn dot com thank you very much for listening and I'll talk to you next time