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Episode 2: The Classic Pinball Podcast- Pintastic Best in Play

The Classic Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·50m 35s·analyzed·Jul 1, 2019
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TL;DR

Classic Pinball Podcast covers Pintastic Best in Play winners and restoration craftsmanship.

Summary

Episode 2 of The Classic Pinball Podcast focuses on winners of the Pintastic Best in Play contest, featuring interviews with restoration artists and custom game builders. Hosts George and Dave discuss restoration techniques, sourcing parts, and the craft of bringing classic and custom pinball machines to competitive condition, with particular emphasis on playfield restoration, cabinet painting, and the knowledge-sharing culture within the community.

Key Claims

  • Ryan McQuaid won three Best in Play titles at Pintastic with Bally Playboy, Black Knight 2000, and Roller Coaster Tycoon

    high confidence · George and Dave interview Ryan McQuaid directly at Pintastic event

  • Black Knight 2000 playfield restoration took approximately two months of manual labor instead of purchasing a $1,000 replacement playfield

    high confidence · Ryan McQuaid describes his restoration process and cost decision

  • Mark Seiden built a custom Metroid pinball game using a half-populated Jurassic Park playfield and a FAST Pinball board, taking approximately three years from concept to completion

    high confidence · Mark Seiden interviewed by George and Dave about custom game development

  • Steve Ritchie played Mark Seiden's Metroid custom game and said 'he did not hate it' but noted the game was too dark

    high confidence · Mark Seiden recounts Steve Ritchie's feedback during interview

  • Benjamin Miner works for Mark Hankowski at Mystic Pinball in Turner's Falls, Massachusetts and has restored multiple games including Black Knight (1980) and X-Files

    high confidence · Benjamin Miner describes work arrangement with Mystic Pinball arcade operator

  • Vid1900 is credited as a Pinside expert who publishes restoration guides and responds to personal messages same-day

    high confidence · Benjamin Miner discusses Vid1900's contributions to pinball restoration knowledge

  • Classic Arcades playfield overlays use vectorization which loses detail compared to original artwork

    high confidence · Ryan McQuaid explains why he rejected Classic Arcades overlay for Bally Playboy restoration

  • Mark Seiden is a programmer by trade, which enabled him to program custom code for his Metroid game

    high confidence · George notes Mark's programming background as significant differentiator for custom game building

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm entirely self-taught. I learned almost everything I know from YouTube videos, vids guides on Pinside, shout-outs to him and all of his amazing knowledge, and personal help.”

    Ryan McQuaid @ ~6:00 — Illustrates how community knowledge-sharing enables restoration craftsmanship and democratizes expertise

  • “Instead of spending $1,000, I spent roughly two months on scraping off all of the existing decal art, scrubbing the play field down until it was absolutely beautiful, clear coating, doing water slide decals for the inserts, airbrushing touch-ups”

    Ryan McQuaid @ ~8:30 — Demonstrates labor-intensive restoration philosophy and cost-benefit decision-making in playfield restoration

  • “Metroid is a game that lends itself to pinball because one of the very first, literal first power-up you get is the ability to turn into a ball.”

    Mark Seiden @ ~30:00 — Reveals thematic connection driving custom game IP selection and design concept

  • “Steve Ritchie played the game. He said that he did not hate it. That's good. That's positive. Yeah. Also, he said it was too dark.”

    Mark Seiden @ ~32:30 — Notable feedback from industry legend validates custom game work while identifying specific improvement area

  • “The key to good EM play is good restoration not high tapping or red dot flippers or whatever.”

    Dave Matrando @ ~50:00 — Philosophy statement about restoration priorities that emphasizes craftsmanship over electrical shortcuts

  • “Vid1900 is the mystery master lord. He's the guy who has published these wonderful guides on every subject from rebuilding your flippers to restoring your play field.”

    Benjamin Miner @ ~44:00 — Recognizes anonymous community expert as successor to Clay Harrell's knowledge-sharing legacy

  • “I got a lot of free time. Yeah. And I decided, well, I'll just treat this as my job until I find a job, a real job, a paying job.”

    Mark Seiden @ ~28:00 — Reveals employment circumstances enabling intensive custom game development and CAD skill acquisition

Entities

Ryan McQuaidpersonMark SeidenpersonBenjamin MinerpersonDave MatrandopersonGeorgepersonDavepersonWhitney McQuaidperson

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: Pintastic hosts Best in Play contest (renamed from Best in Show) that judges machines on both aesthetics and playability

    high · George states: 'it's the new version of the Best in Show we're not only... judging people by the looks of the game but also the playability'

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Restoration artists employing labor-intensive manual restoration of damaged playfields as alternative to replacement playfield purchases

    high · Ryan McQuaid spent two months on Black Knight playfield restoration to avoid $1,000 replacement cost; used scrapers, water slide decals, airbrushing techniques

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Multiple parts suppliers (Pinball Life, Marco, Bay Area Arcades) now available for custom game and restoration work, representing significant improvement over single-supplier era

    high · Mark Seiden sourced parts from Pinball Life, Marco, Bay Area Arcades; hosts compare to earlier era when 'all you had was Pinball Resource'

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinside platform functioning as primary knowledge repository with expert contributors like Vid1900 providing detailed restoration guides

    high · Ryan McQuaid: 'I learned almost everything I know from YouTube videos, vids guides on Pinside'; Benjamin Miner: 'Vid1900... published these wonderful guides... and made himself very available'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Custom game builder Mark Seiden selected Metroid theme specifically because ball transformation mechanic aligns with pinball ball mechanics

    high · Mark Seiden: 'Metroid is a game that lends itself to pinball because one of the very first... power-up you get is the ability to turn into a ball'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.152

0:00
Hello everyone and welcome to the second episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George. I'm one of the co-hosts of this program and unfortunately I'm not joined by Dave. Dave is still at Pintastic. It's Sunday morning. I've been editing all morning trying to get this program prepared and in doing so, well, we're going to break the first rule and that is we're going to have to break Pintastic into two episodes. So this first episode is going to concentrate on the winners of the Best in Play contest and if you don't recall from episode one, it's the new version of the Best in Show we're not only, or Dave is not only judging people by the looks of the game but also the playability and you will hear Dave and I interview all those folks in doing so, we had to do it in the lounge because there is no real quiet area at Pintastic, and Dave and I were not staying on the property, so we had to try to do the best we could. So please excuse the ambient noise, especially you'll hear one segment. It's very short. It's under a minute. That's quite loud. But other than that, I think it came out pretty well. I think you'll enjoy some of the content, specifically all the different people and all the different reasons why they got into the hobby. So sit back, grab your favorite beverage, listen for close to the next hour. All right, so we're at Pintastic. George and Dave here. We have a Triple Crown winner. I was in charge of the Best in Show or Best in Play this year. And we have Ryan here who took for three titles this time. So tell us a little about the games you won and what went into them. Absolutely. So, hi, I'm Ryan McQuaid. I'm from Franklin, New Hampshire, a little bit north of Concord. I'm a private collector and restoration artist or whatever the heck you would call me. I'm entirely self-taught. I learned almost everything I know from YouTube videos,
2:38
vids guides on Pinside, shout-outs to him and all of his amazing knowledge, and personal help. I brought three of my five finished restorations to Pintastic this year. I bought Bally Playboy, a Black Knight 2000, and a Roller Coaster Tycoon.
2:57

Dave Matrando typically wins Best in Play awards at Pintastic but his winning streak was broken at this event

high confidence · George notes Dave's typical success and comments that his record was broken this year

  • Tradewinds (1962 Williams) was restored with proper flipper rebuild and maintenance rather than using high-tap modifications

    high confidence · Dave Matrando discusses restoration approach emphasizing good maintenance over electrical modifications

  • “When I, with a kind of repaint, I'll like run my hand along the side of the paint on the side of the cabinet, and typically I'll feel an edge. But on Dave's, I don't.”

    Benjamin Miner @ ~56:30 — Describes quality benchmark for cabinet restoration work that approaches factory-level finish consistency

  • “Most of them I make my own stencils, and we weigh them down. And if you leave a little bit of space between where you weigh them down and where the paint's actually going to hit, it lives enough for that little bit of kind of fuzziness, the over-spray.”

    Dave Matrando @ ~57:00 — Technical insight into cabinet painting methodology that replicates vintage factory production quirks

  • “They were throwing them out the door as fast as they could. And it was lead paint, so it had more pigment in it.”

    Dave Matrando @ ~58:30 — Historical context about vintage manufacturing processes that informs modern restoration approach

    • Steve Ritchie
    person
    Hugh Sparrperson
    Chuck Websterperson
    Vid1900person
    Clay Harrellperson
    Mark Hankowskiperson
    Steve Youngperson
    Perryperson
    Pintasticevent
    Bally Playboygame
    Black Knight 2000game
    Roller Coaster Tycoongame
    Metroidgame
    Tradewindsgame
    X-Filesgame
    Mystic Pinballcompany
    FAST Pinballcompany
  • ?

    personnel_signal: Steve Ritchie engaged with custom game community, providing direct feedback on Mark Seiden's Metroid game during Pintastic event

    high · Mark Seiden: 'Steve Ritchie played the game. He said that he did not hate it... he said it was too dark'

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Expert cabinet painters like Dave Matrando using custom stencils and over-spray techniques to replicate factory imperfections and achieve near-original finish quality

    high · Dave Matrando describes stencil technique creating intentional fuzziness to match original factory painting; Benjamin Miner notes running hand across paint edge detects no seams on Matrando's work

  • ?

    operational_signal: Mark Hankowski (Mystic Pinball operator) actively employing skilled restoration specialists like Benjamin Miner to upgrade and maintain venue collection

    high · Benjamin Miner employed by Hankowski at Mystic Pinball; has restored Black Knight, X-Files, Agent 777, Addams Family, Star Trek Next Gen for venue; Hankowski planning additional restoration work

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Vintage pinball cabinets used lead-based paint with higher pigment content enabling thinner, better-looking coats; modern replications must account for this difference

    high · Dave Matrando: 'It was lead paint, so it had more pigment in it... you didn't need to spray a heavy coat. So it was a nice thin coat that looked good'

  • ?

    content_signal: The Classic Pinball Podcast Episode 2 focused on event coverage from Pintastic with extended interviews of competition winners

    high · George states episode broke Pintastic into two episodes due to interview volume; Episode 2 concentrates on Best in Play winners

  • ?

    technology_signal: FAST Pinball board sets enabling hobbyist builders to construct playable custom games with programmable rule sets

    high · Mark Seiden: 'I got a cheap piece of plywood and started getting to work. I bought a fast pinball board set, hooked it all up, had it flipping fairly quickly'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Collectors actively seeking arcade machines from their childhood venues to recreate nostalgic gaming experiences

    high · Ryan McQuaid spent time tracking down original Roller Coaster Tycoon from his childhood Metro Bowl before settling on home use only version

    • I understand that two of those games were roached. Yes. Two of the three were complete basket cases. Black Knight 2000 technically ran when I bought it. Not well. The drawbridge was broken. the entire hinge mechanism for the upper playfield was broken. All of my games got complete teardowns, playfield touch-ups, clear-coating, the entire works. So you didn't buy a replacement? I don't even know why not game. Is there even a replacement playfield? So a replacement playfield actually was announced. I believe Mirko was doing it. And I had originally planned to use one, but money got tight. So I decided I wasn't able to justify the $1,000 on a brand new playfield, and I better work with what I had. So instead of spending $1,000, I spent roughly two months on scraping off all of the existing decal art, scrubbing the play field down until it was absolutely beautiful, clear coating, doing water slide decals for the inserts,
    4:03
    airbrushing touch-ups on all the upper play field and the paint. And the hardest thing about Black Knight 2000 was redoing the center decal where the knight's face is. because he is multiple colors, and one of those colors is white. So you need to do that in multiple layers, and that took the longest out of everything. I'm interested because I collect classic Bally machines, SS games. So did you put a remake Playfield in that, or did you do the same thing? In Bally? In Playboy? No. So the Bally Playboy was completely trashed when I got it. I have before and after images that we can link to. Like most, right? Like most. It was unplayable. It had a destroyed center playfield like most Playboys do. It had one board that was serviceable. And actually, it turns out it had the wrong back box light board that holds the light board. Thank you. It had the wrong light board. Yes, so I didn't notice that until after I was done, that all the lights didn't line up. Yeah, I still to this day do not know what the light board that I have in my basement is, but it's not Playboy. It came with a Bally Star Trek board. Where did the game come from? It just came up on Craigslist. A guy bought it on eBay. He got bait and switched where they offered a really nice game, and they gave him a piece of garbage. That answers the question. eBay, that's the answer. eBay, don't buy on eBay. Some people are so good, they actually can show them that blank light and say, I know what game that is. I asked the general internet and there were a few theories, but no one's come up with a solid thing. So, I actually... the game came with a bunch of restoration gear, and that's the reason I bought it for the price I did, because it was not worth the price I paid for it. But it came with cabinet decals, or not cabinet decals, it was stencils, and a playfield overlay, which I elected to not use, because the playfield overlay was from Classic Arcades and they do not make quality... What they do is they vectorize the image, and that loses some detail. So that was not okay for me. You can take that all out. No, no, no. I'm going to take it in another direction. That's fine. Apron decals from this character are not correct. I bought one for my Paragon.
    6:24
    Right, Dave? I showed it to Dave. Dave is like, what is that? It was way off. It wasn't even close. Yeah, the women on the playfield for the Playboy overlay that I got had maybe two to six lines of details in her hair. On the original playfield, they have hundreds of lines of detail doing their hair, and they looked terrible. They just looked terrible. And it's because they used vectorizing, and it all gets averaged together, and it's just not great. So I was going to use it because the playfield was really far gone, but I'm going to give a shout-out to Chuck Webster right now. He took one look at my playfield and said, you can fix that. And I said, all right, challenge accepted, and I did it.
    7:04
    Terrific. I spent nine months on Playboy, and probably three or four of those were just Playfield. Why don't we wrap up with the Rollercoaster Tycoon. Tell us a little bit about it. So Rollercoaster Tycoon was a whole different beast. I bought it. And that awesome topper you did. Yes. That was really cool. That was really, thanks. So the Rollercoaster Tycoon, I actually got home use only. That's the only home use only or fully working game I've ever bought in my life. but it is one of my favorite games of all time just because I grew up playing pinball at Metro Bowl and Peabody. They had one pinball machine, and it was Roller Coaster Tycoon. It had a replay value of $3 million, which even little 10-year-old me could hit no problem. So I didn't have a lot of quarters when I was a kid, but I could play that game for 40 minutes on 50 cents, and so I developed a deep love for it. So I actually spent a little bit of time trying to find one and couldn't because they just don't come up for sale very often. I started the process of tracking down the original one I played at that arcade. I got three owners in and then found a home use only one and just went and bought it.
    8:09
    So it was in beautiful shape. It had never been abused, but it had never been cleaned either. So it did not need a full tear down and restoration, but it did it anyway because I loved it. So it got completely teared down, treated as if it were a piece of garbage, even though it was amazing. It got professionally clear-coated at an auto body shop because it happened to be winter, and I can't do that on my own during the winter. Sometimes it's better to sub things out. Yeah. And I only needed to do it once because it didn't need any touch-ups. It was perfect, so I just needed to keep it the way it was. And so it all went back together, and it looked beautiful. From the beginning, I had planned this topper. I wanted to make a working model roller coaster that would interact with the game. And when I first did the restoration, I think a year or a year and a half ago, I actually originally ran the wire for it, because I knew it was going to be there from the very beginning. So it's just a wire goes from the normally closed portion of the switch, so it doesn't interfere with the game, because the game uses the normally open pin. And I ran it all the way up to the back box, waiting to finish this topper.
    9:15
    Well executed. Yeah, thank you. Like the flashing lights, too, on there. Thank you. That's all handled pretty simply with some code. It's awesome. Cool. I want to thank you for coming on with us for a couple minutes, talking about your games, and congratulations on three ribbons. Yeah, no problem. Thank you so much for having me. I was approached for a redo, so here's the redo. So it's not a full redo. I just forgot something, and I'm going to get in a lot of trouble if I don't. I want to give a huge shout-out to my wife, Whitney McQuaid, for all the work she put in on Valley Playboy's touch-up work. We were talking about the imperfect stencils, and she is the reason that it is even kind of presentable on two of the three sides. So thanks, hon. I will buy you presents.
    10:10
    Thanks, Ryan. And now on to our next guest with Dave. Fantastic. At Best in Play for Custom, we have Metroid. custom game from Mark Seiden. Mark Seiden did a custom game here and did an awesome job. People were playing it non-stop. So tell us how you came to make Metroid and all the details that went into that. Sure. So three years ago, well technically it started four years ago at Pentastic. I attended a custom game makers panel and it was always in the back of my mind that I wanted to build a game. I knew it was going to be a lot of work so I wasn't ready to dedicate myself to it at this point.
    10:51
    But I was still thinking about it at that point. So I had talked to Hugh Sparr after the panel. He met us at the bar and we had a beer and I talked about how, like, oh yeah, I want to do that someday. It's awesome what you did with your game. Who's who? Hugh Sparr. He did, what was his custom game? Van Halen. Van Halen and,
    11:13
    oh, Sharpshooter 3 or whatever. Okay. He did a sequel to Sharpshooter. shooter yeah okay um yeah he's uh he's a local um but uh so yeah so i it was just in the back of my mind and i was like all right i'm gonna do this someday it'll probably be like five years from now uh flash forward next pintastic um automated services has um a lot of uh half populated dirty obviously left in a warehouse without climate control play fields and like looking at them like oh i could grab one and just use the parts and throw them on a board and get a controller uh board set and figure it out so i picked up a half populated uh jurassic park actually um with had like one rail on it the three pop bumpers uh it still had the double scoop and a few other things in it. So I took that home, got a cheap piece of plywood and started getting to work. I bought a fast pinball board set, hooked it all up, had it flipping fairly quickly on an empty board. And from there, it was just sort of like, well, let's put something somewhere And then from there it just kept building up organically to the point where I had most of the game designed I think there one thing we should tell the audience and that is you're a programmer by trade. Yeah. So that makes a big difference. I mean, that's not a skill set that's readily available by probably 99 point how many percent in this hobby. Yeah. Plus owning a bunch of machines, you get used to how they work. Well, I own a lot of machines, but that doesn't mean that I'm not a programmer. Well, I mean, the boards, you really just need to know, okay, I need to hook this wire to this side of the coil lug and the other wire to this side of the coil lug, and then put it into these plugs on the controller board, and then it's just a matter of telling the software, like, oh, it's on that pin. Well, it's when you make that crossover from the wires to the software. That's the leap from here to eternity. And finding the controller board you need and how to program it. It's a whole science and artwork in itself.
    13:41
    I got another question for you. So why Metroid? Why that theme? So what is Metroid? Metroid is a video game by Nintendo. The first one came out in the mid-80s.
    13:57
    The one that mine is based on is Super Metroid. It came out in the mid-90s, which is one of my favorite games of all time.
    14:06
    And I thought it... Metroid is a game that lends itself to pinball because one of the very first, literal first power-up you get is the ability to turn into a ball. Okay. So basically you roll around the game to get through places and things like that. Oh, so a ball like a pinball. So the character of Metroid is transforming into a ball. Yeah, and to get through little passages and stuff like that. The reason I did that is because my brother was actually visiting me, and we were looking at the Jurassic Park play field, which still had half of the T-Rex Max on it, And he's like, oh, you should do a Metro game, and that should be Craig coming down and grabbing the ball. I was like, you're right. I should do that. Yeah, yeah. And I didn't do that, but I did make the Metro game anyways. Okay. From start to finish, how long did it take you to get to where you are now with the game? It's about three years now.
    15:05
    Yeah, so about a year for this particular play field. About a year ago, I had lost my job, so I had a lot of free time. That helps. Yeah. And I decided, well, I'll just treat this as my job until I find a job, a real job, a paying job. It uses part of your portfolio.
    15:27
    Yeah, and I took that time to learn CAD. And I transferred my prototype that I had built up over time into digital, which allowed me to fabricate all the missing parts that I wanted, the play field, like the ramp, like that skill itself. Well, where did all the parts come from that are on your game? Most, I tried to. I mean, is there a play field mix or us? Pinball life, mostly. If they don't have it, Marco. If they don't have it, Bay Area. I think I ordered, might have ordered something from Australia, but I don't remember. That's the beautiful thing nowadays with pinball is that years ago when George and I were first started collecting, all you had was pinball resource, pretty much. Steve did a great job. He was it. And even, you know, there was no real internet going on. But nowadays, you've got Pinball Life, you've got Marco, you've got Bay Area Reviews, and then you've got all these other cottage things. We were in the dark ages. We were. We made it work, though. Well, you know, when the century, you know, turned, it was a really dark time for pinball.
    16:35
    There wasn't a lot going on. But it was a good time to be buying. It was a good time to be buying. I wish I had the time then. Yes, it was. And that's what I did most of mine. We've got plenty of stories later on for that, too. That's a whole other episode. Right. That's upcoming. So, Mark, anything else you want to talk about before we wrap this? Looking for a job in the pinball industry? If anyone in the pinball industry wants to talk to me about that, that's cool. But, yeah, so I guess I'll shout out my Twitch channel. It is The Arcade with five R's. R. You pronounce all five of them. Oh, I got to say, what about Steve Ritchie played your game? Oh, yeah, Steve Ritchie. I love that. Yeah, he played my game. Did he say R? No, he did not. He did not.
    17:20
    Yes, so Steve Ritchie played the game. He said that he did not hate it. That's good. That's a positive. Yeah. Also, he said it was too dark, which is absolutely correct. I had never played it up until that point with the lights off, and they had shut the lights off in free play just before he showed up. What are the odds of that? So this morning I went in and added code to be more lights. I was about to take his sunglasses off. Yeah, I know.
    17:55
    Play better. Yeah, play better. Play better. He has to come back and play it again with the new lighting. He did say come back and play it again. Okay. Yeah. Good.
    18:08
    All right, we're at Pintastic, and we have more Best in Play winners. We have Black Knight from 1980, and also the double winner, X-Files from the 90s. It's Benjamin Miner. Tell us how you came to restore these games, and tell us all about it. Well, I've worked for many years as a cabinetmaker,
    18:30
    and I left all that behind to pursue the more lucrative fields of rock and roll singing and pinball restoration.
    18:38
    Well, there you go. It all comes back around. A couple years ago, somebody gave me an abandoned roller games project, which had got as far as being completely disassembled, and it needed a new cabinet. And I was like, I can build one of those. And I just thought, okay, I'll give it a shot. We'll see. I'd never really aspired to do restorations before. I was just more of like a keep them running rebuild the flippers, wax them a lot and then it was like it sort of dropped in my lap but the part of me that's a good cabinet maker is the same as the part of me that's a good restorer which is like I want it to be as good as I can make it so it was a chance to flex some new muscles and learn some new skills and so the play field needed some restoration work and you had to learn how to redo the half-tone dots and all that kind of jazz So you do painting, you do clearing you actually have you built a cabinet? I have, yeah. Well, for roller games, because the one that it was with was a total beater. It was a loss. And how about the Tekken? I hear flippers, I hear mechs. Board repair? I sub out the boards. Me too. I'd much rather hand that to somebody that can do it efficiently and somebody who has the testing equipment so that when I'm done with everything else with the game, I can be relatively certain that all the stuff in the back box is okay, and if there's a problem, it's on this end of the game. It just eliminates a lot of headaches and lost time. So, you know, I really like Quinn Up Caldron, I really like Alan a lot. You know, I sort of... Yeah, no, I use Alan, so... Yeah, I go to whoever's able to get to me sooner. Gotcha. I've been... I met Alan through Dave a long time ago. Oh, Alan's great. He does my work. I send him a box of stuff and say what's good, what's bad, toss, save.
    20:37
    He's good about it, so it's great. Those guys are both really friendly and super helpful. But it was the same with me with learning how to do it. I've really got to give a big shout-out to Vid1900.
    20:49
    So I'm new to Pinside. Who is Vid1900? He's the mystery master lord. He's the guy who has published these wonderful guides on every subject from rebuilding your flippers to restoring your play field. Are you telling me nobody knows who this guy is? I think so. He's a man of mystery. But a lot of people don't.
    21:10
    Yeah, he kind of keeps to himself. Okay. But he's just done really wonderful expert guides, and he's made himself very available to people in the pinball community, up to and including if you just send him a personal message, he'll get back to you probably same day. That's a great source to have. He's terrific, and I couldn't have done the things that I learned how to do if it hadn't been for him. and all the stuff that he's made available. So, you know, full credit has to be given to this kind of thing. I didn't say that. He's actually, he's like the Clay of today. Yeah. Clay started the... Clay Harrell. Clay Harrell started the Pin River Guys. Remember, we've got to keep up our dropping names. Oh, yeah, exactly. That's our thing. Exactly. In fact, that's where I cut my teeth restoring my games, is doing those, reading those things that he did. And, you know, board repair, everything else on there, I learned a lot of stuff from him, so he was really good. Now, Vid1900's kind of taken the baton and keeps going forward with it. I think he's trying to pass it on to the rest of us at this point. Well, who's helped me high-end pinballs? Oh, Chris Hutchins. Yeah. I understand that he has started to be a little bit more accommodating to the hobby where he wasn't before. Is that true? Well, everything I hear about that guy is that he's got a constant wait list. Right, but I'm saying he's become more of a resource to people because of what you just said. I mean, if you've got gobs of work, you can give your trade secrets away because you're probably never going to get to every game that is potentially going to come your way. Right, and people need the work done, and more and more people need the secrets. So I'm guessing you're busy? I'm mostly busy working for Mark at the moment. You've got the forum. We don't have thousands.
    22:55
    Well, I'm not even allowed. You know, we're new, but that's like the, somebody asked me, you know, how many people do these podcasts get? It's like the million dollar question. Nobody says, and it's, I don't care. Yeah, we're in the tens. We're new. Okay. But your forum's here. If you want to give yourself a plug, go right ahead. Well, for the past several months, probably since last October or so, I've been doing jobs for Mark Hankowski, who runs Mystic Pinball in Turner's Falls, Massachusetts. He's got a really great arcade. He's always got about 22 games at any given time.
    23:37
    A very nice spread of machines. He's always got some EMs in there all the way up through very modern games. We unboxed a Munsters a couple months ago, and he's got all stops in between. and so we got to know each other he got to know what I could do and then he was like oh I've got this Black Knight that's a total basket case game can you do anything with it and I was like yeah I think we can and that worked out really well and then he sent me his agent 777 he's like this is this really rare game plan they only made 400 of these can you fix it I was like yeah let's take it on and then it was the X-Files and then it was the Addams Family and I just tore down a Star Trek the next gen for him and he tells me he wants me to work on his indiana jones next so you're a busy boy i've been busy with mark um but you know i want everybody to know that i'm around so if anybody else wants work done and is interested in talking to me you know i'm i'm not i'm not exclusive to him although i'm sure he wouldn't mind if i would be there you go well again i appreciate you coming on the show uh benjamin minor restorer oh replay restoration oh okay replay restoration Benjamin Miner okay I'm going to leave it at that thank you guys very much I really appreciate it you're welcome anytime makes all the hard work worth it anytime it's nice to get the recognition you deserved it nice job best in play winner here at Pentacity 2019 we have 1960's trade wins Dave Matrando is here he also has an awesome surfer that came really close to winning as well because you typically Dave wins at least one two or I don know have you won three yet in a row Never three No no no my record was broken today But typically he comes in the door and I hand him just here the blue ribbon because you know So tell us about the Tradewinds. Well, the Tradewinds is a 1962 Williams reverse wedge head.
    25:35
    I had two of them, made one out of it, sold the other one. and either both of them had to have the cabinets done, so I do cabinets.
    25:45
    I got to play your game today, and that game played awesome. Thank you. And not only played awesome, it looked awesome, and it triggered a life event for me. That used to be in the luncheonette when I was a kid at the Jersey Shore. Okay. And a day like today where it's 90 out, we used to go in there, four of us, I remember getting thrown out of there if you didn't play the game or you didn't buy a coke you were not sucking up the air and I remember that game so thank you for that thank you know that game it was not high tap and it was on with a bunch of other games so I'm really happy with its gameplay the key to good EM play is good restoration not high tapping or red dot flippers or whatever. For those who don't know, tell us what a high tap is. On the transformer, there are two lugs that you connect the main power to. One is regular tap, which is regular power, and the other is high tap, and that's for areas where the power draw is such that the machine doesn't get enough power to play properly. And back in the day when these were made, they had problems with the power. That's why they put it on there. So for low voltage. The power grid is not what it is today. So you're basically juicing the game. Juicing the game up a little bit to make up for the low power. Right. And many times when you go to shows, you high-tap games because the draw, the power, is such that your game doesn't play well. So would one say back in the 60s, the lazy op, instead of cleaning and fixing the game, just high-tapped it and said, let's call it a day? You know, you would think so, but I don't know that I bought a lot of games that were high-tapped before I bought them. And I haven't seen a meal like that. Typically, you know, and hats off to you for making the flippers so nice and powerful just by rebuilding stuff. You actually don't need a high-tap to get the power out of them. Right, right. That's a sign of a good restoration in an EM game.
    27:53
    But it needed a cabinet job, and last winter, a gentleman called me out of Brooklyn, New York, and he said, I have seven games I want you to paint. So I said, okay, and he rattled off the list. That's not Levi. No, no. Or Levy. No, not Levy. I always want to call him Levi. Levy. A guy by the name of Perry, he's actually a jukebox guy. Ooh. And so he started by bringing King of Diamonds and Tradewinds to the house. And I did it and said, well, while I'm painting his Tradewinds, I might as well paint mine. So I did that and he came up and it turns out I have an AMI Continental too and he did some work on that for me. Oh, I own a jukebox too. Yeah, so we did some sweat equity here. So you kind of swapped back and forth. I own a 64 Seabird. That's all. I also have a Seabird B. So it's, you know. Okay. You do really, I mean, never mind the regular restorations and mechanical, you do awesome cabinery paints. You've actually just finished my Valley Rolling Stones. Oh, you did that? Oh, yeah. Valley Rolling Stones. Oh, you did that. Oh, that's a beautiful looking game. Right. Or the cabinet. Right. Did he send you the pictures? No, we were together last weekend, so he showed me pictures. Yeah, that's beautiful. I wish I could have brought it this weekend for him. And the key, what I really like, because I'm really, you know, I'm fairly picky with my restos, is that when I, with a kind of repaint, I'll like run my hand along the side of the paint on the side of the cabinet, and typically I'll feel an edge. But on Dave's, I don't. And it's always, it's like really close to factory, the way he does it. Oh, you're talking about running your hand across the cabinet and feeling where the paint goes from one color to the other. Exactly. Don't do that to mine. Okay.
    29:32
    Well, you know what happens with it? Most of them I make my own stencils, and we weigh them down. And if you leave a little bit of space between where you weigh them down and where the paint's actually going to hit, it lives enough for that little bit of kind of fuzziness, the over-spray, if you will, that actually happened in the factory. They didn't spend a lot of time worrying about what it looked like. No, they had a big brass thing. They threw it down. Right, that's the crazy thing. They did it with a big hunk of metal. It's on a big Sunday line. Yeah, and they're in a hurry. And yet that's why the registration's kind of off all the time on them.
    30:08
    So we try to make it look that way. They were throwing them out the door as fast as they could. And it was lead paint, so it had more pigment in it. Oh, goody. I remember every time I sanded down. The good thing about that, it had a lot of pigment in it, So you didn't need to spray a heavy coat. So it was a nice thin coat that looked good. Right, right. The good old days. The good old days, right. So what's the other game? Trade win was one. What's the other game? The other game was Scott Leaf Surfer. Came out real nice. I actually just picked that up over the winter. That's a two-player, right? Yeah, that's a two-player. Surf champ is a four-player. Okay.
    30:42
    And it's a drop target game. Had a little trouble with it at the shows because I couldn't figure out how high to set the back up. what angle to put the play field. I think we're at 6% now, right? Wow, that's pretty good. That's nice. Why? What is the typical? Steve Young will tell you it's supposed to be about 5%. I like a little juice more than that. I like a little action. I like it fast. Yeah, degrees. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, no, like my volleys, I do it at 6. Right, and most of the EM guys pretty much in our area, the world, and Frank will tell you more about that, learned what they know from Steve Young. He taught everybody what they know, and I only live 10 miles from him. My father lives like a mile from him, so I'm there all the time. Steve is a story unto himself. I get along with Steve. I learn to play the game. People that don't get along with Steve don't know Steve. Well, you've got to play the game, and he does. And he knows a lot. Basically, I talked to Steve for many, many years I've known the guy. And basically, I said, so Steve, tell me what your day is like today. Oh, because he seemed a little bit, you know, on edge. And he said, well, it's like I pick up the phone and say, I need a coil. What's the game? I don't know, just send me a coil. Oh. That's a good policy game. Right, right. He gets irritated after a while, and I don't blame him. Oh, no. When I call, it's, hey, Steve, here we go. Ready? One, two, three, four, five, done. He likes that. Well, he likes it. But he talks. But he likes talking, too. Oh, no, no. I always have a chat with Steve. He's a good man. He's a good guy. Steve Young. He's got a reputation, but it's not an accurate one. It's not accurate. I believe that. He's very kind. He's very generous.
    32:32
    And he is giving of his time for people. Oh, yeah, he definitely is. He's a good man. Yeah. So, you know, like I said, we all in our area of the world, most of us learned what we know. It originated from Steve Young. He's a great resource and you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna wrap it at that. I want to thank you for coming on. Thank you Hope to see you next year. See what you're gonna bring I'll be here. I can't wait to be up the road. All right. That's it. Thank you. Thanks
    33:07
    We are here with best in play winner for antique We got gypsy clean 1955 with Frank Rothdeutsch. Rothdeutsch, yes. Italian or is that Irish?
    33:25
    Tell us about Gypsy Queen. It's a really good player. It was fun to play that in the best of play. I really can't take too much credit for the game as it plays. I've only had the game for a couple of months. I picked it up at the Allentown show.
    33:38
    All I can say is it's got new parts from Steve Young, the pinball resource who is dedicated to keeping old pinball alive.
    33:50
    He's making a lot of reproduction parts for older games, bumper caps. He also hacks. I bought parts that if he didn't take a mecha part, I wouldn't get the part, which is good. And he rebuilt score motors for older games, pitch and bats, any type of game. But he's invested a lot of money in buying the molds to make bumper caps to make the icon on the drop target. Don't you remember the whole fiasco when, I forget who went out of business, but who owned the molds to the bumper caps and the graphics? Who owned all the rights to all the different drop targets? Yeah, that was a dark time for Steve Young. And I remember calling Steve and saying, load up the truck. I said, here's $1,000. Just give me everything you have before it goes away. Right. I did as well. Yep.
    34:48
    But, yeah, the game came with new bumper caps and a new plastic set from Australian guys. Who's that? Oh, yeah, those guys. Yeah, they do a nice job. Yeah, they do a good job. Who's that?
    35:00
    Pinball Rescue. Is it Pin Rescue or Pinball Rescue? One of the two. That's why I just got confused. Yeah, because one of them is a restorer out in, I think, Pennsylvania. Yeah. The other one is an Australian group who makes reproduction Gottlieb stuff. Dave could tell you because he deals a lot with them. Is it Pin Rescue or Pinball Rescue in Australia? It is pinballrescue.net. That's in Australia? That's the Australian group. Okay. Pinballrescue.net does the Gottlieb overlays for the aprons, right? Do they do the Bali stuff? They do the stern stuff, not the Bali stuff. Yeah, the cardboard apron covers. The ballet stuff was owned by Planetary Pinball, and they're subbing that out to some other, I forget, maybe it's Cosplay Arcades maybe doing that for ballet, I believe. But they couldn't, yeah, there was some hubbub about that. People wanted some other guy to do it, but I don't know. That's Planetary Pinball's call because they're the owners of it. But, yeah, they do a great job on that stuff. So is this your first time doing a resto for the show, or have you done this before? For the show, yeah. I mean, I restore games for myself. I've been collecting them since 1977. I still have my first game of Gottlieb Subway. Do you collect other than EMs? No, I've had a few solid-state games, not too many. I had a Flash. I had a Whirlwind.
    36:26
    But 99.9%. Do you stay with one vendor, or do you... I have a few Williams games. I'm not really a Bally guy. Mostly Gottlieb. Wedge heads.
    36:38
    And back when I started collecting, wood rails were pretty much untouchable. I wonder if you know my buddy in New Jersey. Do you know a guy named John Toth? I've heard of John. In fact, I did buy something from him once. I bought some, what, a five-point gong, a five-inch gong. John has... I haven't seen him at shows lately. No, you know, when I stopped going to Allentown, that's where I know John from. He's got 50 wedge heads in his basement if he doesn't have more. And then up in his second floor of his house, he's got a bunch of classic volley games that I collect. So, John is... I bought my Harlem Globetrotters from John. So here we go, we're dropping another name. Oh, in fact, your brother... Brother Joe, yeah. Joe, I met these two at an Allentown show years ago. I saw a bow and arrow there that was just awesome. And I said, you know, I've got to buy this thing. The price is right. It played really nice. That's not the one you own. Yeah, it's the one I own from years ago. And it's a blast to play. I went even further with it. I brought it even further in the rest of the process. But it's a nice starting point, definitely. It's really playing well. And when I was buying the people I was with around me they said why are you buying that for What does he want that for It like you see When you guys will play you see It a sleeper but it an awesome player Yeah you see That a great playing that a beautiful game Yeah Bowen Arrow is one of the best that one of the best Valley EMs, I think, of the 70s. When I first started collecting, wood rail machines were pretty much untouchable because the people that owned them were still relatively young, they still had them in their collections, and now all those collectors are getting old. Some of them have unfortunately passed away. And a lot of these games are becoming more and more valuable.
    38:25
    Yeah, I just want to say that I enjoy the hobby immensely. I'm not really in it for restoration and getting awards or anything. It was a very nice touch that I had today with the ribbon on the game. Is that your first one? That's my first one, yeah. Ever? Ever.
    38:44
    Wow, right. Cool. Welcome to the club. Well, I want to thank you for coming on. Congratulations on winning your first ribbon. And as I said to everybody else, hopefully we'll see you next year and see what your latest restoration is. Thanks again. Thanks a lot. Enjoy going to the shows. You're very welcome.
    39:06
    Best in Play, we have a 1970s EM winner for Jungle Princess, Roger Dobie. And I know I've seen you around the show. I've probably seen you around Allentown here and there, but I never really talked with you so much about it. But tell us about Jungle Princess and how you got into your pinball passion, and congratulations on the win on that. Oh, thank you. I've gotten into pinball. A couple family members had them years ago, and once they got them running, I was maybe 14, 15, I started playing them.
    39:42
    You started repairing them back at 14 and 15? I was only playing them then. Then I got one of my own, and it's been downhill since then. I'm up to a little over 100 games now. No.
    39:55
    Unfortunately. Set up? About 70% are set up. Are they all done up? Are they all restored, or just kind of players' games? Players' games, for the most part. I do have some nicer wood rails. What do you collect? Mainly EMs, anything with flippers. So 50s, 60s? A little bit of everything. I have 50s, 60s, I have a couple 40s games. I do have one flipperless pre-war game. What game is that?
    40:25
    It's called Gottlieb's Scoreboard. I believe it's 1939. Okay, I'm going to have to go look that one up. I've never seen it before I was given one, so that makes it even better. Some games coming your way? I find them here and there. Luckily, someone saw this one, their family member had it. They were going to get rid of it, basically brought it over to my house. I couldn't say no.
    40:50
    In Best in Play, we're actually looking for more antiques. We have a very small showing of antique pins that's pre-1960. If you ever want to restore one of those and bring one of those or two of those, you might have a good chance of winning something.
    41:04
    I'm wondering, Roger, Dave started with Allentown. Have you been to Allentown? Yes, maybe the last nine, ten years. So then you definitely played. Do you remember the baseball game that was there a couple of years ago? All restored, real old. It was next to Jack when he had Oz. I remember it was sitting right next to it. No, you don't remember that? I honestly don't remember. And then the other game I keep thinking about that's old is, is it called Battleship with the big guns? Is that what it's called? And it's got the carrier. It looks like one of those gigantic guns on an aircraft carrier. Have you seen that old game? I believe that was a pre-war machine. That would be before flippers. I think it is. There's so many out there that the artwork is just amazing. If they didn't bring them to Allentown, I wouldn't see them. But I'm always intrigued by seeing older games because, like you said, you don't see them. Exactly. They're not out in the public eye that often. And, you know, without, I mean, there's guys here that have been doing it a lot longer than I have and are a lot better at it than restoring games than I am. And it's just amazing. Well, I don't know if you know the premise of this show. It's called the Classic Pinball Podcast. Our premise is we talk about games before 1994. So I always try, well, always try. Here we are on our second show. I want to make sure that I introduce older games to people when people have them or, you know, brought them to a show or, you know, own them in their collection because you should understand where modern games came from. Exactly. It's great to know, you know, how everything started. Well, how it evolved as well. Exactly. Like I said, that pre-war baseball machine. If somebody didn't give that to me, I probably never would have went out and sought something like that. So once I got it and I got it cleaned up and working, it's kind of like going back in time.
    43:13
    So plans on doing some other restorations for next year? Yeah, I've got a few games in the works. A couple wood rails that I'd like to get done this year. depending on how much time I can put into them. And it's great seeing you guys, and great that you're doing this podcast. We appreciate you coming on. One more question for you. Okay, go. So is this your first win? Yes, it is, actually. Okay, good. Dave Matrando usually beats everybody out on the EMs. Yeah, like I said previously, when he walks in the door, I might as well just hand the blue ribbon to him. Exactly. Because you were right up against his surf champ. It's between your Jungle Princess and his surf champ, or maybe it was surfer. I think it was surfer. That's right, yes. Two-player surfer. Surfer. And it was really tough between the two of them, and yours just eked out a win over Dave's, so congrats there. Thank you. I'm honestly surprised because Dave's a tough nut to crack. He does beautiful work. He does absolutely amazing work. Well, I want to thank you for coming on. Hopefully we see you at next year's show. Well, 2019 Best in Play. I'd like to thank my Best in Play team of volunteers. It was a monumental task going through all the titles that were available for us to play. And there were some really great titles again this year. Some older ones that were there, some newer ones that came in. And I had a great team of volunteers. Without them, again, it was like too big a task for one person to get through, and these guys really helped me out a lot. We had John Day. I had him tasked with the antique 60s and 70s EMs. My wife, Maureen, and I tackled the 70s solid state in the early 80s. Joel DeGuzman tackled the late 80s. And Aaron and Mark Seiden did 90s, 2000s. And I should also mention that John Day and I collaborated on Best Custom as well to get that judged. We came up with some nice winners and also some honorable mentions because some were almost too close to call, but we hashed it out. For Antique, the 1955 Gypsy Queen. That was real nice, done by Frank Rothdeich.
    45:35
    1960s trade wins by none other than Dave Matrando. Dave usually wins at least one, if not two. I think it might be a three-time winner at one point, but he got one this time. with his trade wins. The next section for the next category, which is 70s EM.
    45:54
    Jungle Princess won that one. Roger Doby brought that. And honorable mention goes to a really nice-looking vampire, and again, Dave Matrando's surfer.
    46:05
    Ashley Ludwig brought the vampire. Next map, we have 1970s solid state, Playboy. That was brought by Ryan McQuaid. and that game, from what he's telling me, was a total just basket case, a junker in a junkyard, and he just brought it back from the dead and did a really nice job, spent, I think he said, three years on it, spent a lot of time on it, and it really showed he put a lot of effort and played great, everything was strong, which is what we're looking for in best in play. We have the honorable mention is Charlie's Angels brought by John Day, and John was definitely not involved in judging that one. our other teams that aren't involved with it judged it fairly along with everybody else so we gave him honorable mention on that one 1980s early 80s we get Black Knight brought by Mark Hankowski that's it and that was a real nice example to play that was fun to play but Benjamin Minor does a lot of Mark's restoration work honorable mention is for Flash Gordon brought by Eric Peabody. That was a real nice example there with a hard top on it. It was a hard top? No, it was a hard top. Yeah, hard top. And then we have late 80s, Black Knight 2000. Again, Ryan McQuaid, second win from him. He was very happy about that. He spent a lot of time on that one too. And even though the cabinet was a little bit faded, the rest of the game played well, and it looked really fantastic, all nice lighting and everything else. So that put him over the mark on that one. and this wasn't the same Black Knight 2000 that has won so many times in the past because this year we've instituted that once you win one year you're not eligible again to win the next year that way we can keep people with fresh titles coming in fresh people winning if possible at least a fresh new game next up we have 90s and X-Files won that and that again was Benjamin Miner in the 2000s we have Rollercoaster Tycoon And again, Ryan McQuaid, now a triple crown winner. He got three. Three wins this time. So that's pretty rare.
    48:15
    And we got our own mention for the Cat Trek, Mike Schmidt, and Austin Powers, Brian Hawkins. The thing about the Roller Coaster Tycoon, it was really cool, as well as playing well. It had that really awesome roller coaster on top of the machine as a topper that would go off when you hit something at the top of the game. I forget what triggers it, but then it would go off into a whole roller coaster cycle with a flashing light and this whole 3D thing going on. It was really a nice touch that he did, and a lot of excitement around that game. People kept playing it. For Custom, we had a couple titles, but far and away, Metroid, brought by Mark Seiden. I did a lot of work on that, Labor of Love. I actually had the play field cleared for him on that game, and it came out really nice. There's really no other customs really to judge as well on that, except for the loss in space, which is really well done to Brian Hawkins, but he was a previous year winner, so he wasn't eligible. And again, Mark wasn't part of the judging process on this one either, because if you're one of the judges on the panel, you can't judge in your own game, obviously, so he took that out of the loop to keep everything fair. But congratulations, Mark, on that Metro. a really fun title, and even Steve Ritchie even played at one point and said that he didn't hate it. So I guess that's a compliment from Steve. So well done. And thank you again, guys. You did an awesome job helping us out here. And my wife, Maureen, she did a great job helping me.
    49:46
    So hopefully be even better next year. This is George from the Classic Pinball Podcast. Be good and be well.
    49:58
    One, two, three. Welcome to the Classic Pinball Podcast with your hosts, George and Dave, Episode 2.
    50:15
    I noticed at Pintastic 2019, there were some special guests there. There were some celebrities, actually, as one of the players. We saw Joe Besser was there. Jerry Jewell from Deadwood was there. It was pretty cool. and George Costanza showed up. It was really cool seeing these people. They loved pinball. They showed up and did a meet and greet session.