Welcome everybody. So what we're going to do here today is look at a presentation on what do I do with this EM pinball machine. Let's get this going. And if you could please cue the slides. Thank you. Well, yeah. First things first, and that is safety. Anytime you're doing anything with these machines, of course, the physical safety of the moving and such. but also the wires can carry high voltage including line voltage which means basically sticking your finger in a plug outlet don't do that in the wall use protective gear follow safety practices and by all means use your best judgment right and now as we see all right the presentation is what do I do with the CM pinball machine my name is Paul Patti I'm from Nashua New Hampshire a little bit more of a neutral later on. Feel free to contact me anytime. Let's get this working. We talked about safety first. What's our agenda? Well, the introduction, yes. We're going to talk about what you have. Whether you find a pinball machine by the side of the road. I've had that. People tell me that. Not happened myself, but maybe someday. Whether you buy it from somebody, whether you want to buy it from somebody, whether you find one at a show you like to play and want to find one. Whether you inherit one from your uncle. I don't know. All kinds of things. We're going to talk about assessing what you have and what to do with it. What you want to do with it, what you could do with it. And then kind of the smartest way to go about that, some suggestions. Is it a complete pinball machine? What is a complete pinball machine? EMYs, electromechanical. What is electromechanical? We talk about all these things. We'll talk about the condition. A lot of what you find. Is it worth restoring? Is it even worth picking up if it's on the side of the road? Almost always yes. But what can you do with it? What do you want to do with it is really the question. How do you transport it? How do you move it from one place to another? Do you want to repair it, or do you want to do a full restoration all the way through? And then we'll have a bonus section, too, with some extra things for us. And reserve some time there for Q&A as well. And last but not least, a few resources to leave you with for, I'll say action items, but things you might want to explore after the presentation. So first off, an introduction. Oh, there I am. I'm here. Okay, cool. I don't have to look up here. I can look over here. Actually, I'm going to come over here if it's okay. Can you still hear me, yeah? Yes. Okay, great. Cool. Thank you, Jillian. All right. I don't want to mess up with the camera or anything. So yeah, I split my time kind of these days between Nashville, New Hampshire and a place in Calabash, North Carolina. It's near Myrtle Beach. Anybody been to Myrtle Beach? No? Yeah? Okay. It's cool. I mean, I've... not as many pinballs down there are kind of interesting. But they're around. I've been at RepairTech for a long time. Started pretty much in 79 at CB Playland down in Cape Cod. I've been to CB Playland on Cape Cod back in the day, the barn of fun. was fun too. But before that, I used to go to antique shops and beg my parents to like buy me a pinball machine for Christmas or birthday. And they did, one year. And that was 1975. But anyway, I get only 11 machines. I say only, these things are like rabbits. And many of you all have happened to get, made the mistake or the good fortune of getting two. Before you know it, you'll have three and before you know it, you'll have more than So, it just happens. I'm out of room. I keep saying I'm out of room and they keep coming. So, which isn't a bad thing, right Alex? So, what do I do in real life? IRL, I'm a computer trainer really. I started teaching intro to computers back in the late 80s. Of course, nowadays that's kind of not a thing anymore. Everybody knows about computers. So, moved on to computer security. What happens, can I do this? Yeah. What is your, I want to go beep with a badge, right, kind of thing. Who are you and what does this get you into? You know, not only doors, but, not only doors and things, but what files, what things at work can you get into is controlled by these systems and that's what I teach. Favorite thing though of all, rule sets that keep you coming back for more. If you find a machine that has a rule set, never ending rule set. I found a couple of machines like this per- and it's personal to you, right? You know, which one is it? That's your-that's your-it's for you to decide. But it's fun finding out. I found a couple, two or three that, you know, kind of machines I'll never part with, deal. And it's a fun journey, I think. And one that doesn't end. It's kind of cool. All right, let's do this. Yeah, great. Polls. Want-wants this to be a kind of a participatory session and how many of you all have electrical, electronic or mechanical experience? Woo, woo, great candidates. How many of you want to have electrical or mechanical experience? Then you're in the right place, right? And this is a great place to start. It was a great place for a 14-year-old kid back in 1975 to cut his teeth, not literally, but on low voltage electronics and cause and effect, what causes things to happen. You know, 50 years later I'm still figuring that out, but it's okay, it's cool. One more, two more. Come on. Whoa, that was a surprise. Let's try that again. Yeah, did I, let's try it again. There's another question. It's all right. Do you already have a machine, yo? How many of you already have a machine you found and are figuring out kind of what do I do with it? All right, cool, good stuff. So if so, yeah, so do you know what to do with it? And one more. Oh, the session is designed to help you inform your decision. I don't know everything, right? I will never know everything. You and I together know a lot and that's what this is all about. It's about helping us come together, help each other, and go forward and have fun, right? Safely, of course. All right, first off, what do I have? You know, a friend of mine called me up a while back and said, hey, a couple of years ago and said, I've got this Skylab pinball machine sitting in the storage unit. The money's due in the storage unit. I don't want to pay the money anymore, basically. And do you want this machine? I don't know. It's a three-hour drive. I don't know, six hours, right? Because you've got to, you know, back and forth. A day, because six hours of a thing, right? Now you get the whole day pretty much shot. Do I do this or not? Well, Skylab is a sentimental kind of title for me. A lot of them are. I played this in Methuen Mass back when I was 13. And my grandfather and my dad were there. I remember my grandfather said, you know, where is your son, Johnny? You know, my Italian grandfather. My dad's like, oh, he's over in the arcade, dad. Oh, what's he doing that for? He doesn't need to be doing that. So that's this machine. So that's the only memory I have of my granddad and pinball together, even though it was who he was, and that's cool. But it turned out to be one of the greatest things ever that I could do, and he was kind of like poo-pooing it, but hey, that was grandpa. Different era. So what do you have? Well, what I found was, oh, this is a different machine, actually. Since then, remember I talked about rabbits? So another one popped up for sale a few miles away. Do I do it? Do I not? Do I, you know, take over the downstairs living room and turn it into a storage room? And what's my wife going to say? It's a big thing. Another one, yep. So I did, I did it. This is the pinball machine in its native state. in a, oh, how do we say, kind of like Marlon Perkins with his loyal assistant, Jim. All right, well, I film from above, you know, wrestling the wild alligator. This is how it looks when you find it, basically, in a basement. And I went over, the guy's like, you know, I listed it for X dollars, what do you want to give me for it? I just want this thing out of here. So maybe that's what you'll find. You might find that a lot. Anyway, that's actually on deck next because this one was the one before it that I redid. So there were several more than I thought, and thank you Dave, and oh, and I forgot, I'm remiss. I forgot to say thank you to Dave Marston and Gabe also for having me here, this, inviting me, and for you all, for investing, all of you all, for investing your valuable time here. There's a lot of other things you could be doing. I think this is a really fun way to invest some time. Here are the four, I'd say most common, right, pinball manufacturers of the last 70 or so years, or 80 years now, I guess, more than that. But Gottlieb, Williams and Bally, and Chicago Coin. These are the big four, as it were. And there, but there are many others you might find. United, Genco, Exhibit and so forth. Keeney, I always wanted a Keeney. I haven't found one yet. So... Uh-oh. Actually, this, truth be known, this Royal Flash, the Chicago coin Royal Flash here, was an acquisition from, I never had a Chicago coin. Oh look, there's one tied with another game I need parts for. Yes, I'll take that too. Remember I talked about rabbits. You see how this is going, right? So hope you have an extra room somewhere if you look into things like I am. Anyway, IPDB and Mr. Pinball price guide are actually at the end of the, one of these actually, and you can just Google the other, but these are sources that you can find more information. Can we move on that slide a little bit? Oh, sure. It would be good if we make the slide full screen. We all need another version of the screen. Right? It's going to be on the screen. Thanks for the, thanks for the recording, yeah. There we go. Yeah, that's how I kind of wanted it to show too. Cool. That's how I kind of wanted it to show too. Cool. Yeah, we got Skylab, as you can see, IRL right here. MiniPool, which Dave, that was a great high score. A couple years ago at Saratoga Springs, I brought that. Royal Flash, that's my rabbit, the latest rabbit. And of course, this is the parts machine I got for the deal that I got these two. I needed a back glass. Bought the whole machine. Because I had another high deal, swapped the back glass, and then sold the one with the cracked back glass. of deal. These are the kind of things you can, you know, you can do. Next. So what makes a great game? That's up to you. There are some common things among the collector hive, as it were, that, you know, everybody agrees on. These are, and it's usually, for that, we usually use a scale of one to ten as terms of, you know, is it playable? Is it as good as the old days on location. And then at the top of the 10 is like, you know, is it museum quality as good as it came off the factory? Probably even better at the 10. Most games are not a 10 in all areas. Usually play field, cabinet, and back glass or head is kind of the three things you grade typically on a machine. But what can make this a great game? I talked about earlier, one I talked about, you know, what do we say, cat out of the bag. I talked about rule set. I love a rule set. It keeps you coming back for more. What do you think? What makes a good game? Layout. Layout. There you go. And your name is? Eric. Eric. Thanks, Eric. Yeah. Eric mentions layout. Anybody else? Drop targets. Drop targets. There we go. And you are, sorry? David. David. You got it. Drop targets, yeah. Nate, spinners. Nate, spinners. The spinners are, for those of you who haven't looked them closely yet, on the front they have a picture and on the back they have a picture that doesn't get exposed until you spin it. So sometimes it'll be a guy kicking a football, right, and the guy will be like this in the front and then there'll be like a football in the back. And when you spin it, you know, you get the guy kicking the football repeatedly. It's pretty cool. Anyway, they had to do a lot back in 1950s, 60s, 70s, something because we didn't have a lot, you know. These are our webpages right here. You're looking at our webpages from 1970s, right? Everybody, color, color on something, good luck. Color on TV, not until like 72 or 73, right? For a lot of, most people, 76 for us. Anyway, yeah, awesome. Artwork, back glass, play field, cabinet, right? You like the picture. You like the colors. They go with your room, I don't know, you know? But lots of reasons. set. Sorry. My favorite, of course. Rarity, Dave, right? What is a rare game? One they haven't made many of. One there aren't too many left of. One that usually commands a higher price, but we'll talk about that in a couple slides. Personal story and history. Oh my gosh, I got a lot of them. You probably have a lot of them too, right? Where were you when? If you played these back in the day, welcome back kind of thing. You know, can help loop the time together from now back until then, and here you are, which is kind of cool. A little bit like time traveling. Sounds, the funk, the pop of the re- there's nothing like the pop of a fill-in-the-name-your-favorite manufacturer, you know, the pop of a Gottlieb, peck, you know, kind of like, or the pop of a Williams, cluck, or a Bally, cluckle, you You know, there's different sounds that make this so come alive. And a nice addition to your lineup. I saw a guy for sale about, what, five years ago? You might have seen it, too, where he had all of the Flipper games, the Godly Flipper Clown, Flipper Fair, Flipper Flipper, Flipper. There was like five of them, and he was selling the whole lot. And remember Rabbits, right? So, no, I didn't buy them. I applaud the person who probably did, but I don't know who that was. But anyway, yeah, lots of reasons. So to our title, right, what do I do with this game? You know, Dave and I kind of sat down a few months ago, quite a few months ago, and talked about what would be a good topic. And we could go a lot of ways. You know, from what we've presented so far, we could go down the cell. How do you buy a pinball machine? How do you negotiate a pinball machine? How do you, we could go way down many rabbit holes. So we're gonna keep to this, right? We're gonna keep to, what do I do with the game? You found it. There's another one I had picked up. This is a target pool that I restored, one of the earlier restorations. I say restorations, fixing uppers. It depends, right, in terms of level. How much work? What's the cost or benefit? Do you want to go full-blown museum work, like Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda, California? Anybody ever been there? Yes! All right, a couple people. And there are some more, I'm remiss for not doing the others but we only have so much time and that's one that I've been to. What's your motivation? Do you want to just sell this thing? Is it a quick sale? I just want to flip this. I want to do like on Pawn Stars and flip an Odds and Evens. Anybody see that? Anybody see the Pawn Stars about eight years ago, ten years ago they have one on there? They found it in Bally Odds and Evens which isn't a very, I wouldn't say it's a rare machine but they flip it because they're pawn people, right? And that was their goal, and they did. What else? No cost playing practice. While you have this thing, if you fix it yourself or have it fixed, you get to play it as long as you want until you decide to sell it. So do you want to hone your pinball playing flipper skills? Do you want to have it for the family, right? To play for a while and maybe get tired of it, get a different one. Like I said, a lot of rabbit holes here. And this is the restoration complete. Complete as I got, right? With this one, the inserts that you see here where the ball rolls, there's a lot of them. And they were all cupped to some degree with the plastic. And nowadays, you can come up and see this after the presentation, I actually filled them in now and have a little bit of a method. It takes too long. I don't like doing it, but I do it. And there you go, right? In the end, I like doing it, because otherwise I probably wouldn't do another. But I do. This one I left them cupped for the sense of time. So it's not really a, I wouldn't call it a restoration, but it's a bringing back to average quality. And that may be enough. This is a Gottlieb Ace High from 1957 that I picked up, oh goodness, about 20 years ago. And I still haven't really restored it. I decided to leave this one the way it is. The gentleman that I bought this from said, hey, you know, you can just get some antique white and put it in here. And I could, right? But every time I tried to do it, it just wasn the right white You know how many shades of white there are Oh my goodness right So and 20 years on it probably would have faded differently by now So it like you know what I just left it and hopefully I'll find another. I kind of have an idea of where there's one. And I like the machine so much. It's my favorite. It's my favorite rule set. And I'll probably acquire that one and sell this one. But restoration costs. Yeah. What interest time, fix, restore yourself or pay somebody else. Well, this session coming up here where we get some more slides, it's kind of designed to inform you so that you can have an idea, you know, if you could call somebody, are they really, you know, is this really what the deal is? And are they not just telling you stories that aren't true about your game? Yeah, the restoration cost might exceed the game's value. I'm going to close a little bit here. It might exceed the game's value, sure, but your intrinsic motivation might override it. You know, you might really want this game and really want it to look nice. So could I swap my white game? Why? I went to Pintastic and played a game I like better. Found a deal I couldn't pass up. Remember Rabbids? Some people just want an EM machine and the title doesn't matter. So nobody would ever want this. Well, it's It's a pinball machine, you know. It's a car. It'll get you to work and back, you know, kind of thing. And where? Lots of places nowadays. You've got the internet. The collector community, sure. Friends. And you might even find, be able to swap here at a show. So what is a pinball machine? What does an EM, specifically a pinball machine, look like? What are the parts? Is it all there? This was Skylab before. And as you can see, all of the inserts that are the lighted plastic indicators of something, whether it's points or something to shoot for, had fallen out basically. And it was my job, should I decide to accept it, to put in all these things. And I'm still working on the best way to do this. I used wood filler. I think going forward, I'm going to start using a more permanent type solution to put them in because I wanted to be able to put them out if I could, if I needed to. And that, it worked out okay as you come up and see that later. But yeah, that's something that is then clear coated with polyurethane actually. But back to the pieces, right? The cabinet, and this is where I start pointing at the machine. Whoops. Yeah, this one. So the cabinet, right? We've got this thing right here. The play field, this right here, of course, being the play field. Inserts, as you can see, there are missing. And as you can see here, they are in place and polyurethane over nice and smooth. The ball rolls. The ball doesn't have a problem. Plastics, we see the plastics here, which are one of the things you want to look for when you find a machine. Are the plastics there and are they complete? And are they not burned out? Like, did lamps not burn out the plastic and make it all brown so that now you gotta get a new set of plastics? They can be kind of expensive if you can find them. They can run about a hundred bucks a set or more, depending on the game and so forth. Question? Question? So, his legs. Like, thank you, Dave. I was just about to, yeah, the legs, whoa, this is actually a, this is actually a magnetic thing too to pick up things, right? So that's why it's kind of sticking to the leg, but yeah, multi-use tool. All right, so those are the parts of a machine, oh, forgot one, coin door on the front, shooter plunger actually and that is pretty much the anatomy of a pinball machine. Yeah. So is it all there? Are those parts all there? And then the second question of course is, are those parts in decent shape? Are they in enough, good enough shape that you'll want to take this on or if you've got this thing, what do I do with it? Is it worth fixing or restoring? This was a Yukon that I bought, sorry, this was a Klondike, I believe, that I bought a few years ago. Had a very interesting problem here with the reels that I documented. No longer have the machine, but I do have the video, and maybe we could do something on that sometime, like problems and how to fix them. That would be kind of an interesting thing. But is it worth fixing or restoring? Are the parts available? Mechanics that make it work, almost always yes. Or you can fashion something, typically. But the more cosmetic you get, the more chances there aren't going to be parts. Especially for something physical that's cosmetic. Like a certain type of post on the play kit. Would you be happy replacing that with something else that's modern? That doesn't look like the old one? Some people yes, some people no. No, I mean, I played this in 1970 and I want it to be just like I played it. Sorry, you know. But somebody else, hey, it's still going to work. It's going to look fine. Nobody else would even notice. Again, it's all up to you. Where can I source them? Supplier shows, right, like here. I believe we have supplier Mayfair Amusements is here. I go online to, not online, I go on phone, actually, to PIM. Yeah, I'd be remiss if I didn't for 40 years, no, almost. Steve Young, Pimball Resource out of Poughkeepsie, New York. of their owners, sure. They may be tired of their machine. And if that's your Braille game, which is like the, you know, the one that you, Holy Grail, that you've always been looking for, you might be in luck. They might want to part with it. Who knows? Another thing is you might want to get a donor game. And this gets into a whole other avenue of, like the high deal that I bought to get the Backlass. You know, Backlass was going to be $300. I saw the high deal, it's like, yeah, it's like $650, okay, I'll buy it for $650, I'll swap the glass, and then there's my $300, right? And I can take the crack glass and put it on the high deal. Maybe I only get $500 or $554, but I don't have to spend the $300, right? So it's a little bit better outcome. And the person who gets it is like, well, I want a high deal, but I don't want to pay a lot. And if it has a crack glass, I'm okay with it. So these things kind of can work out. Oh yeah, playfield, other things, the playfield head and motor board are often parts of the game that get swapped, that like, or backlash I probably should have put there. But this playfield isn't as good as the one on this other machine, so I'm going to buy them both and I'm going to swap playfields and then I'm going to sell that one. That is the way it can go. Oh, and motorboard. What's a motorboard? We're going to talk about that in a few minutes. Condition. One more shot of this without the inserts of the Skylab play field. This is what really, we talk, We don't say too much here in the presentation about the value of a game. Again, that's a whole other avenue, right? But in general, the condition that's in the cabinet, the plate, the white box, and the legs, these are things that you can look at and say, hey, is that in decent shape or not? And it really plays a large part in the monetary value. You can find a machine that's very rare, but it has been infested with termite. Now what do we do? My first question would be, did the termites get to the play field? Because a cabinet can be swapped. A cabinet can even be repainted to be of the same era for that machine from a machine that was more common. Same thing with the backbox, especially on Gottlieb's webbeds. So it's possible to restore a machine into a condition that's more valuable, possibly? But anyway, no matter how you slice it, deficiencies represent restoration cost and time. Your time, like you're investing here, they're not making any more of it, time. So how do you want to spend your time? Do you want to spend your time doing it? Hey, that's great. You'll be learning, you'll be moving forward, you'll be doing things you want to do. Maybe just getting away from everything is a great thing for time. Or is it going to become laborious? Is it going to become a, is it going to become something that you have to do? You know, is it going to turn into a job? Which may not be a bad thing, but is your, is your fun hobby going to turn into, now I have to, I had a job reconditioning cars for a week back when I was in, right out of community college and it didn't go well, right? About the third car had stopped being fun and that was just like the first week. So I didn't, I didn't last very long. But the fun thing I like to do with my own car, polish it and make it look nice, turned very quickly with three iterations turned into not fun. So yeah. What else? How do we assess? Well, first off, the cabin, right? And I'll pop this open. We can get the camera in here. took the ball out. And what are we doing? Cabinet. So the thing with the cabinet is that kind of thing, right? But if you look down here in the front, and this is common, somebody in this machine has, at some point in time since 1974, has broken to get the money out at some point. So now what do you do? Well, what I did was, number one, it's It's not cosmetic, you wouldn't have known that unless I told you, right? Or unless you looked underneath. As I just took a, oh, sorry. I just took a piece of wood, not this one, but I just took a piece of wood, cut it to fit and put it underneath the, put it underneath right there. Yeah. I'm sorry. Put it underneath where you just saw. There you go, yeah. I just put it underneath right here. So the cabinet, what else? We talked about the playfield. Is it here? Is it in good shape? Well, playfield in good shape is really all about, it's about the bottom, yes, but it's also about the top. This is where you'll be spending a lot of time in refinishing or making a nice, yes, they make, and I've not done a lot of this, like I said, I don't know everything, no way, but I've heard of people who buy a plastic, they take everything off, they clear out the playfield and they put like a piece of plastic down that has the printed playfield layout on it. Anybody heard of that? Yeah, what do they call that? Hardtop. Hardtop. You could do that, right? And that, I don't know which games that's available for. Certainly not all of them, probably not a lot of them. But that's an option. Sorry, that may be an option. So you know, what is the playfield condition? What is the head condition? We'll talk about that too here. I've got a couple slides coming up. I just wanted to show you those things live. The back glass here doesn't look too bad from the front, but we'll take a peek here at the slides. And if we could go back to those, please. Thank you. So what kinds of other things? Water damage, pests. I had a machine once. I was a super flight, Williams, 1974, too. It had little holes in it, in the side, little tiny, itty bitty holes. And I'm like, oh, all right, well, holes, I'll just patch them over. after I bought this thing and I would notice like little dots on the ground and I'm like, what's all that about? So, patched it over again. A few weeks later, I look underneath the thing and there's some little dots on the ground again and I'm like, how's that happening? Thing had bugs and I couldn't get them out. So I had to, it was one of the few times I've ever had to, quote unquote, junk a machine cabinet. Anyway, yeah. I probably could have tried harder. I probably could have put it in plastic bags and all that kind of chemicals and what not. I didn't do it. It's just like, I'm not going to mess with it at some point. But pests are, can be a problem. Paint, of course, correct stenciling, fading, or yellowing is a bad thing because it usually, usually means a repaint. It could be cigarette smoke and you might be able to get off with some light intensity cleaner, but, you know, if you see fading, yellowing, plan on possibly having to repaint. Wiring, Critters like to, with their nasty biting teeth, right, like to chew things. And so do humans. Maybe not chewing, but humans have ways of getting in and experimenting or in good, how do you say, well-meaning, right, trying to quote-unquote fix things, which that's how I learned. You know, that's how a lot of us learn. I'm not putting that down at all. Yet, sometimes, when you find a machine, not yet, but if you find a machine that's been experimented with and not successfully, then you gotta undo the do and get it back working again, which can be fun. I can't be all right. Just something to expect if you see wires that don't look like the factory wires. The plunger can have a mashed tip on the end where it strikes the... I don't have it up here. Where it strikes the ball, at the very end, it can, what we call mushroom, that's usually, my experience with that is that's like about a three minute fix. Pull off the rubber end, hit the grinder, go around about two times or so. That smooths it out. Put the rubber tip back on and it's good to go. So don't let a mash tip keep you from buying a pinball machine is what I'm trying to say there. It's a thing, but it's not, you know, It's not going to stop, it's not going to be a show stopper. Playful, oh yeah, so this is the King Rex that I was fortunate enough to acquire a few years ago. I had played a King Tut back in 1976 and remembered it. And this is its sibling, this is its Adaball sibling. There are replay games and, you know, replay games versus Adaballs? Am I speaking your language? If not, the replay games are credit games where you actually get, you put a quarter in and you get two plays. And add a ball, you put a quarter in, you may get two plays, but you can't add replays, you add balls to the existing game. It was kind of a way in some states to get around gambling laws, things like that. Anyway, this is the King Rex, which is the add-a-ball version of the King Tut that I played back in 76. And I was fortunate enough to get two playfields. The first play field, this is the donor play field that came from the machine. It had warm paint, faded, planking. Planking is what we see right here where the natural, as a tree grows, the capillaries that carry the water from the bottom to the top and the skin is how the tree lives, right? And the, and those actually of the wood start to concave after years and years and up goes the paint. So that's what's happened here to this King Rex area and way here. This is laminating, delaminating of the, what was the, I'll say probably not polyurethane. Back then it was probably the other clear stuff, coat. I'll give it in a minute. Yes, thank you, shellac, yep. Anyway, angel wing flipper marks, this doesn't have it, but these guys right here, when these become out of adjustment and they start to droop, the end of this will start to wear an angel wing, essentially, in the play film. And those are pretty hard to get out. Not impossible, but they're hard to get out because it requires sanding and filling and sanding, polyurethane and yeah, it can take a while. Is it worth it? Grooved ball arch and shooter lane, yeah. Almost every machine has this grooved arch from the ball rolling here. And what will happen is the ball, instead of going up, bouncing back and going down, the ball will go up and hang and it stays right there. So a simple fix solution that is not very detectable, it's all detectable, right, but is to sand the top of that arch, especially if it's bare wood, and then shellac it. That can be a really quick fix way to stop the ball from hanging at the top of the arch. The fix I like to do, of course, is to sand this all equally at the top, and then polyurethane it Yeah and then polyurethane it So it a as you can see as you can see you don have to show this but uh I played a little bit on our system. Just some, no worries. Just a little bit of dust in there. But yeah, that one, the ball arch is gone because I did that. So you can check that out later if you'd like. The bumper skirt surrounds, those will also, those will also wear. where the bumper comes down and pushes the ball away, that constant will wear the wood. Even if there are plastic mylar circles around, which in most bumpers, around, let's say most, a lot of machines have the plastic mylar on the playfield to prevent that. It doesn't always work. And then the pop-out hole landing areas. There's none on this machine, but machines that have pop-out holes where the ball lands, constant will wear that away. Here it is done. Here's before, and here is after. And it came out pretty nice. This is a little bit of a trick, though. This is the second play field. So this was the donor play field that was not that great. I took a few parts off of this, I think maybe even the plastics, to make this. But essentially, this was like that pretty much, just a little bit better. And that took about three or four months to get it like that. The light box, the head, this is what the back of this pinball machine looks like. This is the Skylab, I believe. It is structure and the paint quality of the back glass. Actually, paint quality of the box itself, as you can see here with the bubbles, is pretty good on this one. The back glass, we'll see in a minute. Wiring, is it intact? And who knows what these are called? Does anybody know why? I don't have the answer, I'm sorry. I don't have the answer. I need to look that up, right? But, sorry, I didn't mean to let you down there. Howard Jones? Don't leave your life in one day? Okay, okay. Now I got that. Yeah. Oh, man. Anyway, now I can't get that song out of my head. Yeah, so the wiring, these can break. In fact, they are broken on Skylab at the bottom because the bake-a-like becomes brittle, but they work. That's not going to keep them from working. If they snap in half, the pins are still in the holders, and that's what matters. Don't break them, right? Oh, good, now I can break them. No, don't break them, but they can be broken and still work. And yes, cleaning one of these things is one of the hardest things. We'll see in a minute why. Power through because we've got time. Oops, time of our counting. Okay, thanks. Want to leave time for Q&A? So yeah, here's your back glass, or here's this back glass, actually. We can see here, fading, flaking, what could possibly go wrong? Your back glass cracks, visible. like on my high deal. Repair, challenging if at all possible. This is an exercise in futility. Anybody ever try to restore a back glass? It is not fun because you're painting on glass and there aren't very many paints that you can paint on glass. But it's not just painting on glass. You have to have the light from behind it shine through the paint you're doing, Maybe, if it's one of the lighted areas. Gottlieb, early 1960s, score reel area is one of the keys because it crackles usually around the score reels. And getting that like an old gaucho or something, good luck. It's really need to find or replace the glass. Where? New old stock, a machine glass that never got installed in a pinball machine, got produced, put in a warehouse for the last 50 years, and you're lucky enough to find one. used, probably, right? It may not be perfect, but it's better than the one you have. That's how it usually goes for me. I usually find at a show that somebody has a glass or knows about somebody that has a glass and I find them that way. Also, repros. There are various companies. I haven't done it yet. I probably need to on this one. I want to say, is it BG Resto, I think it's BG Resto is one of the, there are other companies that do that too. Reproduce glasses, right? I've not dealt with any of them, so I'm not endorsing or saying no to any of them, but I need to do that, figure it out, because I need a glass for this. And here it is. So this on the back is this. And here's the problem, right? The problem is these translucent, I think the word is, when light shines through, areas, you can touch this up with white paint, but you're still going to see the crack because your white paint isn't as exactly as translucent as what's next to it. So it's an exercise in futility. Unless, now the good thing about the one redeeming quality is, it's a good side to everything, right? The good side to that is you're going to block the exact pinpoint of the white from the bulb. So it helps. But is it going to be, is it worth the time? Probably, for a stop gap. Or permanently. Again, I keep saying this, but it's true. It's all up to you. But that's, in terms of the Skylab here, what you see. Not very visible in the front until you light it up. And these are the cracks that you see right here on the space sky. And the lunar module back there. Legs. There they are. So legs are interesting. Legs are not a bad thing. Legs are a good thing because there's something you can relatively easily source from a supplier. And the supplier can be a great wealth of knowledge when it comes to legs. Are they the proper length and color? Does color matter? I thought they were all silver. No. The earlier legs, like on the Ace High that I mentioned, were originally red. Sometimes they'll be wooden, like someone will put wooden legs on instead. Maybe. You know, it's hard to say. 60, 70 years later, right? But the thing to note about the legs, are they rust-free? And do they have the levelers and feet? Oftentimes these levelers and feet will be so rusted that they don't adjust. You adjust these levelers' feet by turning them in or out. There's also a nut usually on the top that you undo. Or sometimes it gets put on the bottom. Still holds it. But anyway, you want to do the nut wherever it is and then twist and turn this to make it higher or lower to properly pitch the game up or down and left and right to adjust for floors that aren't right. That's the idea. The game is always correct. It's the floors that aren't right. So yeah. The good news, the great news here is if you talk to your friendly supplier, most legs are available new. So you can get new legs, reproduction essentially legs, that will be quote unquote, I don't say pristine, but new. I don't know. I've not tried to do that. I would think so, but Dave, have you? Yeah, oh, there you go. The question is, what about reproduction with legs? And there have been a couple efforts. Doesn't seem to be enough of a steady market. They're usually maple, so hardwood. And go on Pinside and ask, because when you ask, that starts some momentum, and maybe somebody else will step up. but there are also still wood rail games that are being turned into parts games, so that might be a competing source for those wooden legs. Thank you, Dave. Great info. All right, let's get moving, and I do mean moving. Transporting your pinball machine. Very important, because if you dump it on the highway, it's all over but the crying, as my old friend and boss Darrell used to say down in Louisiana. So, oh, here we go. I said we'd be seeing it again and there it is. The Jones plugs, that's important to unplug them. Don't try to take the head off before you remove the plugs, otherwise it'll stretch the wires and possibly rip something apart. Also, remove the ball as you transport it because the ball getting loose, ask me how I know, when you You tip the machine up and not right then, but as you go over 1100 miles of highway from Franklin, New Hampshire to Atlanta, Georgia, you can smash the glass and when you open up your U-Haul trailer at the end, you'll see like your smashed glass and say, what happened? So, yeah, that happened. Keys and bolts, put them somewhere you'll remember. I don't have my, yes I do. I have my handy dandy bag, right? a good thing to put things in. One more, come on. Yeah, there we go. So transport, plastic wrap. Anybody ever deal with this stuff? This is what you wrap a pinball machine with or anything that you want to keep dry out in the Carl Weathers. And you wrap it around, overlap it several times, top and bottom. Helps if you have a friend handy nearby. for the head and the body and the legs if you want to. What else? One more bag of tricks thing here. Yeah. It's like barrel of monkeys. Anybody have barrel of monkeys when you were a kid? The red, the yellow, and the green, they all kind of hung on together. I know I had a strange childhood, but yeah. your, your, can't do it, yes I can, your thing here, right, to tie down your, tie down your pinball machine two ways, three ways if you can, four ways if you can. The more you can tie it down, the better off you are in terms of security. Come on, thing, monkey. Where's my presenter? Here it is. Next slide. Next slide. And then we'll move on, we'll scoot ahead a little bit here because we're kind of running out of time when we get back to the slides. Okay. Oh, no worries, Jillian. Hey, Royal Flush. Yeah. And Jive Time. No, it isn't. It's Expo. No worries. Out of sight. That's okay. We'll talk about these in the meantime. So yeah, Williams, oh, Gottlieb, and whatever that was on the right, right? So, oh, non-EMs, right? Non-EM, non-electronic or solid states here. EM, Captain Fantastic, Solid states here. So what we're going to talk about here coming up in the last bit of this is just a bonus section on the different things that comprise an EM. What are the different parts once we get back to the presentation? In the meantime... Transport. Yes. Don't forget the schematic. When you leave your place of, when you leave the place of where you pick up your pinball machine, ask them if they have the schematic because sometimes they forget. And they'll keep it and throw it out because they don't have a pinball machine anymore. And you'll be looking for a schematic and paying 20 bucks at the next show, right? So hopefully, if you can even find it, that kind of thing. Sorry? Okay. Some schematics are available online, like on IPDB, but others are copyrighted and not, so. Okay, repair or restore the rewards. We talked about these already. Motivate your kids, nieces, nephews, and so forth. Meet people in the hobby. Make friends like with all y'all, all of us. And the game you can bring to the next Pentastic. Yeah. Bring your game that you find in the store here and have people play it. It's fun, right? This was the King Rex that you saw the play field for earlier that was here last year. What else? Skills you have and would like to improve. We talked about all these already, but we'll say it again. Troubleshooting, painting, metal work. Yeah. All of these things in miniature. So you're not going to be doing, you know, you're not building like a Starship or anything. You're doing this in a very small, contained environment. So you know, it's a great place to get started with things. And parting out a game, this is a motor board that we'll be talking about later. When the repair's not practical, of course, you want to sell it as a parts game. How do you get trustworthy judgments that a game has gone too far? Yeah, that game doesn't look good, I'll take it off your hands, you know, kind of thing. Want to buy a watch? Kind of, you know. Oh, yeah, and those are the ways. Pinball friends, excuse me. forums, yes, kind of. You don't know, you know, of course, as we all know, right, you never know who you're talking to online, really, almost, unless you really know the person. So that's kind of a real iffy. But show, and show conversations. So, yeah. Next, bonus section. Ten minutes, if that. Okay, good. Great, because I like a lot of bonus. I want the bonus to be at 15 for you on a Bally, or is it 19? 19, I think. And 15 on a Gottlieb. Yeah. And a Williams, how high does it go? 19 usually? Depends. But I want the bonus to be at the top for you. Let's take a look. What are some EM components? And this is not Skylab. This is a, Skylab is a Williams machine. I probably should have said that before. But Skylab is made by Williams Electronics. This is a machine made by D. Gottlieb and Company, Another manufacturer, major manufacturer as well. We're going to look at each one, the bonuses, we're going to count down from, you know, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, to six, to five, to four, to three, to two, to one, like we would in an electromechanical pinball. The transformer, now this is a Williams transformer. In fact, it's the one right in here. I took all these pictures, much as I could with the skylight, I think. Distributes electricity, not something to be scared of, but something to be cautious of, right? Because it does take electricity from the wall and distribute it among the different circuits, usually three or four, depending, in the pinball machine. One's going to run the lights lower, usually 6 volts. One's going to run the coils and flipper and bumpers and things that move. And then another one's going to run another part of those, kind of like a different circuit for powering other things. The machine on-off is something to really be careful of, like, rest your hand in the machine. Don't put your, like, elbow on the on-off switch when you're inside it, because that on-off switch commonly carries wall voltage. And again, it's just like sticking your finger in the outlet in the wall. Don't do it. Fuses. Common fault, common places things fail in a machine. The idea behind these is if there's a short, if something touches something else where it shouldn't, oh, by the way, there's two major problems, not to dive off into problems, but there's two major problems in an electromechanical pinball machine. Things that are touching when they shouldn't be and things that are not touching when they should be. That's it. Those are your problems, electromechanical pinball machines. Almost all problems, that and physical movement, right? Almost all things can be traced down to the touching or not touching. Yep. These guys are really here to provide fire protection. If too much current, amperage, right? Amperage is like water. Too much water goes through. Now, voltage is the fast, right? Voltage is how fast the stream is flowing. Amperage is how much water is going through. So if there's too much water, electricity, not water, but if there's too much electricity going through, this fuse will blow, quote, unquote, separate and stop the flow. Beautiful, No fire. That's what we want. Unfortunately, a lot of times, previous owners will overfuse. They just put something in there and it works. It should be a 10, but it's a 30. So it lets 25 volts through 25 amps not volts 25 amps through which is enough to heat up the wire and cause the wire to start to burn and a fire inside the pinball machine So always make sure you fuse your put the make sure the right fuse amperage and it right on the metal of each of the fuses, right? But more commonly, well that's pretty common, actually. Just as commonly, this one. The fuse holder no longer holds the fuse tightly, and it makes it like it's blown, and it's not. in valleys of the early 1970s for this. And the solution, anybody run into that already? Solution is you can buy new fuse holders or you can buy a block, great, but I've only been able to buy them as single and replace the block with that, anyway. Switches, on-off physical states that implement logical configurations. Touching or not touching, we said before. Blades have points or contacts, that's these things right here, that touch or don't touch, and then when the relay coil pulls in, they either go off or they go on. And it's normally closed, normally open, that's what it means. And that runs the whole machine. That's the logic. That's, if it were a solid state machine, that's inside the IC chip that you can't see. And they're still used, they're used on, sorry, the place contacts. Yeah, they're grouped together in the switch stack as you can see here. We call that a switch stack when they're together like this. And that's the Williams lock relay inside the Skylab. . Everything should be doing something. Yes, exactly. If you have something together and that relay pulls in and it doesn't do anything, that's 99.99999% a problem. Yeah. It's 100%. Probably a problem, yeah. I hate to say 100% because, you know. So a relay, sorry, that's the switch stack and the switch. This is the switch part of the lock relay, which is this whole thing. So the relay is that whole thing. And here's another type of relay, which is a, I don't know what we call it, lock-in relay. Because when this coil pulls in, these two switches, this one closes. I think this one opens. and that one opens too. I can't tell. Actually, it's the other way around. But, point being is these all go to the other state when this lock relay pulls in, and it stays there because this armature, we have a whole anatomy class here, this armature is locked into this other armature until this coil pulls in, and then it goes the other way. They call that a lock-in relay. This one back here is a momentary relay. When this coil disengages, everything goes back to the other state. This one, when this coil disengages, it stays locked in, hence the name lock-in relay. And this one is actually a tilt relay. Is the game tilted or not? And that's not a got lead. What's different from a Williams? Your solenoid coils, they make things move. How do they do that? Well, the coil of wire that's wound around hundreds, thousands, probably hundreds of times. I have a friend who winds these things. I haven't asked him. But literally, sending electrical current through that around something metal makes that something metal pop up or pull down depending on the winding, I think. I don't know about that. Audience member 1 in audience member 2 What about the orientation? Yeah, orientation. Thanks, Dave. Orientation, yep. So, a flipper unit. How do flippers flip? The title of this should have been Giving Away Secrets, so if hot pinball machines work, we should title it like that. But how do flippers flip? That's how they do it. This is how they do it. Isn't that the song? But the Williams chime unit, ding-ding-dong, there you go. are plungers inside this thing that will pop up. Think. When a, here we go, when a thousand points is made on the thousand point relay, one of those fingers, closing, sends electricity to this coil, goes around a few hundred times, and makes this metal plunger go, think. That's That's how a pinball machine makes a chime sound. An EM, electromechanical pinball machine, makes a chime sound. A common issue here is you put these on in the wrong way so the machine doesn't sound right. It sounds clink for a thousand and chunk for a hundred, which it should be the other way around. So I did that on this last week. It's like, why doesn't it sound right? What relay is not working right? Like, no, just put the chime back on the wrong coil. Score motor, oh boy. Yeah, these are so we've talked about on and offs so far There's a lot of on and offs, but what do you do? How do you keep? What if you want to do timing? What if I need to count one two three four five? What if I need to step down one make a bonus step down one bonus step down one make a bonus Something has to provide timing and it can't be a it can't be an on off Otherwise, it would all happen at once so various manufacturers come up with different ways and They all pretty much agree on a score motor, some rotational gear system that's going to engage and disengage switch tacks as it rotates. And this is a Gottlieb, which is an axial type. Forgive me if I got that wrong. The other one we'll see is Williams, which is a radial type, which is a straight up and down and a valley. But, yeah, reset sequence, score reels, relay banks, coils, scoring, count 500, bonus counts, specials, multiplayer. If I want to advance to player two and stay there, and then advance to player three and stay there, I could have a really involved series of relays, or I could do a score motor controlling a stepper unit, say player one, player two, player three, player four, and that's how it's done. Oh, and number match, too, by the way. Matching the last numbers on the back glass. Oh, it doesn't shine. How about that? Matching the last numbers on the back glass gives a replay on electromechanical machines, usually, if it's turned on. Score motor controls that, too. Solidite coils. Okay. Score motors. Here is that radial, or rather, vertical. Sorry. Yeah. Last one was horizontal. and this one, Gottlieb, and this one is radial, which is Bally and Williams. Cams rotates, which is open and close. Pulses count, where you see these little gear things here. This is going up 1, 2, 3, 4, as this thing rotates. We're given 1 point, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, 5,000. And then in this Williams over here, we'll give a 6,000 right over here. It's a combination of 5 on this and 1 on this, and one rotation gives you 6,000 points as it's counting down a bonus, as you can see in a few minutes. If you get a machine and it's running too fast or too slow, it could be because it's a game designed for Europe or Asia because their electricity out of the wall runs slower. Stepper units, these are the things that count, things that matter. No, things that actually count in terms of how many replays do I have, how much bonus do I have, and such. And as we already talked about, these coils engage with electricity, pulling in, activate a ratchet on these gears that advance this from zero, one, two, three, four, five, and so forth. Score. That's how an electromechanical pinball machine keeps score, is this engaging of a ratchet to move those gears around for the points. What else? Oh, over there. Questions? Because I'm out of stuff. I don't think there's anything else. Make sure we're living on time. Is there a language printer working on non-American electromechanicals? Ooh, good question. And your name, I'm sorry again? Nate. Nate, thanks, Nate. Only on the play field. No, actually no. It's a common language. Only on the play field and the schematic. But even the schematic, you can look at the wiring diagram, and there's not going to be a language difference there. There might be in the terminology of normally open or normally closed. That might be a different language. But most of the manufacturers have been made in the U.S. So, machines made in the U.S., so, yeah. And on the play field, what's something supposed to do? It might be in a different language. Oh, the coin door, like five spiel, like five games. Hi. Any recommendations on how to go about learning, like the best way to go about learning how to read a schematic? Oh, thanks. Sorry, your name is? Jonathan. Oh, thanks. Jonathan. Oh, Jonathan. Okay. Sure, Jonathan. Yeah. Yeah. A friend of mine has a book from the 1970s, and I hope he wouldn't mind if I call him out. Dave, what's the name of that book that you have? Well, there were two for electromechanicals. It was the Henk de Jager book and the Russ Jensen book. It's got a yellow cover. That's one source that I'm, and I'm sorry, I didn't remember. So, yeah, sorry Dave, I'm in a, yeah. Okay, Hank the Yeager. Oh yeah, you're going to get some websites in a minute. Yes. Fun with pinball.com. Fun with pinball, yeah. Markets. Actually, I can get that for you at the end of the, I have a right in my email, so I just got to, I don't want to be on my phone in front of everybody giving presentations. So, Jonathan, thank you. Anybody else? Questions? I wanted to add to that. Dave, please. There are YouTube videos that Okay, YouTube. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah, and for specific questions, another thing you can do is go on inside there. Mark Gibson and a few other dedicated EM fans are ready to just pounce on any question. Usually within two hours, they'll be asking you the follow-up of, here's the next thing you need to look at to diagnose the problem. And most of those guys own a lot of schematics, or they grab them online just to answer your question, and they will make the excerpt of only the part of the schematic you need to see that involves your problem. So between that and the YouTube videos, whether Mike Hale or your other favorites, some people like Joshua Clay Harrell. So you'll have some, and then I guess you're going to give some website addresses. Sure will do. And I'd like to put a plug in. Well, I don't want to say plug, but there is a free YouTube site from some gentlemen in Australia who have something called the Goat Shed. If anybody's run into this yet, Kim Oswald and Graham McGinnis. I've been online with them for a few years now. Maybe some of you all have too. But if you Google Goat Shed Pinball, they have a lot of very instructional, educational videos on disassembly and reassembly, rebuilding a stepper unit, rebuilding a score motor, I think might even be in there. They have a lot. And oftentimes, if they have a Facebook page, Goat Shed EM Pinball, I believe it is, and they're up at night because where sleeping is supposed to be. So if you're working on a machine late at night, it's cool that you can post, and a lot of people on that site will possibly answer. And plus the EM Pinball Facebook page, too, is another. And, of course, IPD. I'm coming up on that right here, too. actually. Let's do that. Of course, the resources, Pentastic, absolutely. IPDP, I go here a lot. The Internet Pinball, how many of you all have found IPDB? You find that helpful? Yeah. What do I have here? What kind of machine is this? That's probably the first place I go, you know. How many did they make? How old is it? That kind of thing. Does it make the top 100? Does it make the top 100? And I'm always kind of interested as to what people are looking for with that, like, yeah, is that, yeah, kind of like what makes a game great. I always like to hear from people what that, what they think. Pinside ratings in chat. Pinside, yeah, huge site, hugely helpful site. A lot of great people on there. Really, I mean, if this is, you want to get into the machines and how good are they, how are they, what are they like to play, this is the closest thing you can get. will put on there and actually write about their experiences and what they like the most about the machine, what they may not like about the machine. It's on there, you know, and lots of opinions on, it could be very helpful on pin side. And the Goat Shed EM repair as well, tutorials and videos. Other questions? Yes? I'm curious, in your collection, your games are set up in any talent state or are All EMs. All EMs. Yeah. Why is that? Well, the rabbits hatched before I had a chance to really add any of the other kinds of rabbits. So, yeah. Oh, you know why? I know why. Price. I forgot to talk about it. I didn't say anything about this. And I probably shouldn't. But EM pinballs, historically, I can say that, historically have been lower priced than their solid state brethren or sister or people. And there's something you can get for a couple, a few hundred dollars and tinker away with it in a good way toward fixing it. Or learning, sure. That's the lower, I guess that all boils down to lower point of entry. If I were to drop a wad of cash on a solid state, what am I looking at? Probably more than a few hundred dollars, right, nowadays? Probably add another zero to that. So that's why I think VMs, they're not as fast. They don't have as complex rule sets. There's not as much flash in them, kind of. They don't have multiple levels of playfields, usually. but they have some really neat and unique features that can keep you coming back for more. And even the ones that don't, they have the beautiful artwork, some of them. There's something you played back in the day that you never thought you'd ever have one kind of thing. Oh my gosh, I can't believe I actually own a pinball machine. It's kind of, you know, a really cool thing. This pinball machine that I played in the pizza parlor back in, you know, whenever, if that matters to you. There's a lot of good reasons, I think, to get into EMs. and get into solid states too. I'm not saying don't do solid states, right? Because they're a lot of fun too. They're a lot faster. Everything happens faster in a solid state. Well, except for the mechanical things, like flippers and the ball rolling. The ball's not going to roll any faster in a solid state. Well, that's not true. Because it will, because the things that propel it will go faster, right? But the laws of physics still apply to laws of physics. You can't, oh, it's a solid state, so now the laws of physics go this way. No, no, no. No, but the things do propel things faster, so therefore the ball can go faster. But if you just drop it and let it roll, it's all physics, right? Same physics.