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This Flippin' Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 49m·analyzed·Aug 7, 2021
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TL;DR

Restoration, tournaments, and community safety discussions as Tommy finishes building a rare 1978 Volton from salvaged parts.

Summary

Tommy Skinner and Johanna Taylor James Rees discuss pandemic safety in the pinball community, recent tournament activity, and Tommy's extensive restoration projects over the past year. The episode covers Tommy's completion of three major restoration builds (Stargazer, Meteor, and Volton), his philosophy on making rare games accessible, and the community infrastructure supporting restoration work. Notable topics include COVID-19 precautions for IFPA events, the rarity and pricing of Volton machines, and the ecosystem of aftermarket parts suppliers enabling custom builds.

Key Claims

  • Volton had a production run of 365 units originally due to poor test location performance that led to production cancellation

    high confidence · Tommy Skinner citing Internet Pinball Database, discussing the rarity of Volton compared to contemporary titles like Playboy (18,250 units), Supersonic (10,000+), and Kiss (17,000 units)

  • An HES-restored Volton sold for between $12,000-$14,000

    medium confidence · Tommy Skinner reporting a conversation with the current owner; unconfirmed sale price

  • A Volton is currently listed on Pinside for $7,500 but has not sold

    high confidence · Tommy Skinner checking Pinside during the recording

  • Sean at Third Coast Pinball has created custom wire harnesses for Stargazer, Quicksilver, Fathom, Kiss, and 8-Ball Deluxe in production runs

    high confidence · Tommy Skinner discussing Sean's work and his plans to have Sean create a Volton harness

  • A CPR artist declined to create a Volton backglass, citing concern that it would enable people to build Voltons from scratch and devalue existing machines

    high confidence · Tommy Skinner recounting his direct interaction with the artist when purchasing the playfield and plastics

  • Tommy paid $100 and $150 for two Project Stars machines and traded an extra Stars plus an extra MPU to acquire the Volton

    high confidence · Tommy Skinner explaining his acquisition and trading strategy

  • IFPA tournaments resumed in August 2021 with Midnight Madness at Pin Vault in Indianapolis and a tournament at North End Pub in Indianapolis drawing 31 and 20 players respectively

    high confidence · Johanna Taylor James Rees describing recent tournament activity

  • Three brand-new players who picked up pinball during COVID-19 are now competing in IFPA tournaments

    high confidence · Johanna Taylor James Rees observing growth in new tournament participants

Notable Quotes

  • “Pinball should be a shared thing. Like, that's a large motivator for why I put games on location.”

    Tommy Skinner @ ~41:40 — Encapsulates Tommy's philosophy on accessibility and community-oriented approach to restoration and placement, contrasting with the CPR artist's scarcity-focused stance

  • “If I don't have those games there, does that dude find pinball? So that was how I viewed it.”

    Tommy Skinner @ ~41:50 — Explains the rationale behind placing restored/custom games at public locations to recruit new players

  • “I have a rare game boner. Like, for whatever reason, I just love, I love rare games.”

    Tommy Skinner @ ~39:30 — Tommy's candid admission of motivation for collecting and restoring obscure titles like Volton

  • “I'm old. I don't recover from that like I used to, but it was a lot of fun. Like I had not had that level of fun in a long time because of the pandemic.”

    Tommy Skinner @ ~25:10 — Reflects pandemic isolation impact on community gathering and the relief of resumed social pinball activities

  • “You don't get freedom when it steps on somebody else's ability to maintain their health.”

    Johanna Taylor James Rees @ ~17:00 — Articulates the community health rationale for vaccine/mask advocacy in the tight-knit pinball venue context

  • “I look at it it's like I remember as a kid doing puzzles all the time with my mom like we just always were working on a puzzle and that's kind of how i started to look at these machines it's like they're puzzles that you put together.”

    Tommy Skinner @ ~35:15 — Reveals the meditative, puzzle-solving approach Tommy takes to restoration as hobby philosophy

  • “For me, it's the wiring. Because I still suck at reading schematics.”

    Tommy Skinner @ ~57:30 — Identifies the most intimidating technical challenge in restoration work despite extensive experience

  • “I'm smart enough to, like, get myself in trouble or whatever? Something like that, yeah. Yeah, I kind of know, like, what I'm doing, but there's definitely stuff I can easily still fuck up.”

Entities

Tommy SkinnerpersonJohanna Taylor James ReespersonJessica DiNardopersonRobert HaggardpersonSeanpersonChristopher HutchinspersonPatrickpersonWallypersonCarriepersonAndrewpersonThis Flippin' Podcast

Signals

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Tommy has progressed from cabinet refurbs and playfield swaps to complete from-scratch builds of rare/unobtainable games (Stargazer, Volton), using salvaged donor cabinets, aftermarket reproductions, and custom harnesses

    high · Tommy completed Stargazer entirely from scratch using a Stern Pinball cabinet donor, rebuilt Volton from barn-salvaged parts with CPR playfield/plastics and custom harness. Now confident in Bally/Stern builds but acknowledges WPC wire harness complexity.

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Robust ecosystem of aftermarket suppliers enabling restoration: Third Coast Pinball (harnesses), CPR (playfields/plastics), Andrew (MPU/solenoid boards), Mantis (metal guides), Pinball Rebel (tech charts/documentation)

    high · Tommy cited ~10 different parts suppliers in the community; specifically highlighted Sean (Third Coast), CPR, Andrew, Mantis, and Pinball Rebel as essential resources for his builds

  • ?

    community_signal: Philosophical clash within restoration community: Tommy advocates for reproduction parts and shared access to rare games (placing at venues); CPR artist opposed reproductions to prevent devaluation of originals

    high · CPR artist refused to make Volton backglass, citing concern that reproductions would enable scratch-builds and devalue existing machines. Tommy disagreed, rebuilt Volton anyway to ensure one more rare game was accessible at Pinball at the Zoo.

  • ?

    venue_signal: IFPA tournaments resumed in early August 2021 after pandemic hiatus, with strong participation: Pin Vault Midnight Madness (31 players), North End Pub tournament (20 players)

    high · Johanna Taylor James Rees hosted North End Pub tournament August 2, 2021 with 20 participants; Pin Vault hosted Midnight Madness August 1 with 31 players. Noted three new players from COVID era now in competitive circuit.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.328

0:00
The episode you are about to hear contains explicit words. The opinions within are those of the hosts and in no way imply that anyone listening to this podcast agrees with anything we say. Please send complaints to theslippinpodcast at gmail.com
0:30
That started dying before And now I'm feeling the dying You've got your head over your head You've got your mouth running on You've got your eyes looking for something That you never see That's the reason Good God, I tell me the reason I never thought too hard on dying before I never thought on the dying I never ever hated dying before And now I'm feeling the dying And you got to Give me the shot Give me the pill You're really cool Now open up to my world Welcome everyone to episode 113 of this fucking podcast. I'm Tommy Skinner, joined by my partner in crime and co-host Taylor Reese. It's been summer vacation. I sadly go back to school in just three days. We're recording here on August 6th, 2021.
1:56
There's some happenings in the pinball world. I've been working on restoring a game all summer and just wrapped that up. We haven't really talked about the Mandalorian's gameplay with Taylor since he's gotten to play it yet. We're going to cover a little bit of all of that and who knows what else as we tend to ramble. But thanks for tuning in. Taylor, how's it going, man? So it's going okay.
2:18
Obviously, we're still in the middle of a pandemic. I don't know if people have heard about that, but that's a thing. And we – so I am currently in a situation where one of my kids had an exposure at a birthday party. Oh, nice. Good times. And so we just found out about it. So right now I am supposed to be on the road to go see my brother, his kids, my sister and her kids. Oh, Tommy's giving the eyeball to, is it a dog? It's the dog. The dog wants attention. Keep talking. But so we basically had to cancel our vacation plan. So we are, yeah, so that's kind of a bummer. but you know my daughter's my daughter's really good about masking up and stuff and so hopefully like it was a birthday party outside she was wearing a mask most of the time but sucks have to be careful our kids actually go back and they're supposed to go back in three weeks um and right now they're trying to figure out like the whole mask mandate thing if they're going to do it if they're not. So there's, we have a lot of uncertainty right now. So not, yeah, so not trying to be a kind of a pill, but that's kind of what we're dealing with in my household. So it's kind of a bummer. Yeah. Alyssa's school corporation goes back next week as well, and they just passed the mask mandate again last week. My corporation has already said, uh, we are not wearing masks, you know, so I will be just because of life circumstances and things going on that I want to be a little extra careful for.

Tommy Skinner @ ~59:00 — Honest assessment of overconfidence risks in high-voltage restoration work

organization
Third Coast Pinballcompany
Soft Plunge Pinballcompany
Double Danger Pinballcompany
CPR (Circuits Protected and Renewed)company
Mantiscompany
Pinball Rebelorganization
Richmond Pinball Collectivevenue
Center of the Universe Brewing Companyvenue
Gore Bar (Gwar Bar)venue
Pin Vaultvenue
North End Pubvenue
Pinball at the Zooevent
Voltongame
Stargazergame
  • ?

    competitive_signal: COVID-19 hiatus paradoxically boosted new player acquisition; three players who started pinball during pandemic are now competing in IFPA tournaments

    high · Johanna Taylor James Rees observed 'three brand new players people that have picked up pinball over since COVID's happened' at North End Pub tournament; Tommy reported helping one player with Godzilla strategy tips.

  • ?

    community_signal: High-profile community members (Tommy, Johanna Taylor James Rees) publicly advocating for vaccination/masking in pinball venues; Johanna Taylor James Rees froze league membership and paused organizing to protect unvaccinated child at home

    high · Extended discussion on vaccine efficacy (94% Moderna after 6 months), mask requirements for IFPA events, personal decisions to pause community activities. Johanna Taylor James Rees explicitly stated: 'I have frozen my membership at the Richmond Pinball Collective. I'm not going to be running my league next year because I have an unvaccinated child at home.'

  • $

    market_signal: Volton pricing highly volatile and uncertain: HES-restored original sold $12-14K, current Pinside listing $7.5K (unsold), Tommy's reproduction build has no comparable sales to benchmark

    medium · Tommy acknowledged difficulty pricing his Volton rebuild due to rarity factor and lack of sales data. Noted HES restoration sold 12-14K vs current Pinside listing at 7.5K still unsold, reflecting uncertainty around collector willingness to pay.

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Pinball Rebel website (tech charts, instruction cards) critical resource for troubleshooting wiring and schematics; Tommy printed charts for all owned games before recording

    high · Tommy cited Pinball Rebel tech charts as vastly superior to full schematics for tracking wiring issues; rushed to print charts before recording. Identified wiring/schematics as most intimidating remaining challenge despite extensive restoration experience.

  • ?

    collector_signal: Tommy motivated by rarity factor to acquire and restore otherwise unplayable games; describes himself as having a 'rare game boner' and actively seeks obscure titles despite scarcity and pricing challenges

    high · Tommy explicitly stated attraction to rare games and bought Volton parts (playfield, plastics) before acquiring a donor cabinet, betting on finding one eventually. Describes hobby as driven by desire for games 'you're not going to see' at other collectors' houses.

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Limited/no aftermarket production of obscure games (Volton, Stargazer) forces collectors to source salvaged cabinets, commission custom reproductions, and build from scratch; CPR's digital printing enabling reproduction of previously impossible games

    high · Tommy noted Volton never got reproduction backglass from CPR, but appreciates CPR's digital printing enabling reproduction of 'games we never thought would get made, like Volton.' Built Stargazer and Volton because originals unavailable at reasonable prices.

  • ?

    product_concern: CPR artist's refusal to produce Volton backglass due to scarcity concerns perceived as gatekeeping; Tommy found this frustrating and completed the build anyway as principled response

    high · Tommy described CPR artist as having 'attitude issues' or 'differing views' when artist declined to produce backglass, citing devaluation concern. Tommy's response: rebuild Volton to ensure 'there's one more in the world' and opportunity for public play at Pinball at the Zoo.

  • ?

    venue_signal: Casual social pinball gatherings and location visits during pandemic recovery; Tommy hosted house party with Jessica DiNardo and Robert Haggard, visited multiple Richmond venues (Richmond Pinball Collective, Center of the Universe, Gore Bar)

    high · Tommy organized small gathering with Jessica DiNardo and Robert Haggard, visited three venues in one evening (Richmond Pinball Collective, Center of the Universe Brewing Company, Gore Bar). Described staying up until 2am playing as highlight of pandemic isolation.

    • 4:04
    But, yeah, it's what it is, man. Like, it's those things, you know, if you can, you know, if you're not at an at-risk group of the vaccine, I trust the scientists. You should probably go and get vaccinated. I mean, I'm not. I got the Johnson & Johnson, and I just found out that basically because of its lower effective rate, I can actually go back and get Moderna or Pfizer at this point. Yeah. So I think I'll be doing that this week here before school gets started or while school is getting started, just because I'm going to be exposed to roughly 1,000 people a day, at least maybe 1,500 at school, and then coming back to work at the bar on the weekends. You know, I'm around several hundred people every weekend. So for me, it's just one of those things where I definitely just want to be on the cautious side. Are you – is your school K-12, or is it – what age group are you? Uh, I'm just nine through 12 in my building, but we're actually attached to our middle school, which is six through eight. And that's a dog, everybody. That's a dog. And then the elementary school is probably across the street. Okay. Yeah. So, yeah, I have a middle schooler and a high schooler and, you know, my high schooler is vaccinated. My middle schooler is not because she's not old enough. So that's, that's a tough thing. So, but yeah, if you are healthy enough to get the vaccine, it is proving to be effective. People are talking about like breakthrough cases and stuff like that. I mean, you know, the Pfizer vaccine after, or Moderna, I got Moderna. Moderna after six months is still supposed to be 94% effective. So that's an insane efficacy rate. if you know anything about the way vaccines work. It's not a magic pill. That's not going to, you know, it's not something where you're just not going to get it. But the data has shown that if you get vaccinated, the likelihood of you getting into a hospital or getting really sick is reduced by over 90%. so if you can do it, I mean, I think that's one of the things that's interesting about like, you know, what's, you know, it's the pinball community. It's a really, it's a really tight knit community because part of it is like, there's intimacy when you are playing a game with people because you are within each other's like personal space. Right. Um, so that, yeah, I think, you know, I think especially seeing, and also like just seeing how, how much operators and locations and people and businesses struggled last year, like going into the fall, like the idea that these operators and our community is going to be affected by lockdowns and the inability to host IFPA events, like do everything you can do to make sure that you protect your community. So vaccinate, if you don't want to get vaccinated, wear a mask when you are around other people.
    7:10
    There have been no deaths by mask wearing in the United States. You can breathe through the mask. What about our freedoms, Taylor?
    7:24
    Here's the thing. The idea, you have the right to not get vaccinated. That's great. But once you go out into public, that changes because you are then putting somebody else's health, you are then making a choice as to whether you can put somebody else at risk. And that is where I'm like, no, that's not a, you can't just, you don't get freedom when it steps on somebody else's ability to maintain their health. So yeah, so yeah, you You have the – if you don't want to wear a mask, you're free to do that. But the CDC has said, everybody has said, if you – everybody who is indoors, whether you are vaccinated or not, should be wearing a mask. Like, so you know that. Don't go inside. Stay outside. You know, like the birthday party my daughter went to was all outside. But, you know, whatever. And if you're not – and the other thing is, if you're not willing to do these things, like if you're not willing to mask up, if you're not vaccinated and you're not willing to get vaccinated, then don't go to pinball events. Like, do not show up because you are putting a really tight-knit community at risk. And people go home, you know, and if somebody else – I'm vaccinated. My daughter is not. She cannot be vaccinated. She does not have a choice. So don't make a choice. You know, I have frozen my membership at the Richmond Pinball Collective. I'm not going to be running my league next year because I have an unvaccinated child at home. I cannot risk my kid getting sick because I give her something. So, please, if you're in this pinball community, look out for each other, and let's do everything we can do in our ability to stop the spread of the virus because it's awful, man. And it's getting, I mean, we're at 150,000 cases a day now. Like, that's, it's really bad.
    9:33
    Yeah, we just have IPA events back, and I think everybody wants to keep those. So that's a big part of it. I know we just hosted ours. We're still cleaning our machines at the location with the, I believe it was SD90. That's supposed to last up to 90 days on the machine. We're applying it every 30 just to be on the safe side of things and encouraging people to do whatever they feel comfortable with. Some people are coming with masks, some aren't, and it's just kind of what it is right now. But, you know, if you want to keep having fun and you're enjoying pinball in public places, not that, you know, we don't enjoy our home collections, but companies don't make as many games if it's only home people buying. That's just the reality. Like, if we're meant to go into businesses, the more locations there are, the more pinball games that get created in general, and the more you can enjoy them. So do your part to help out and try to stay healthy out there.
    10:25
    There you go. That's our PSA. PSA for the day. Well, I will say prior to all this, like the Delta, you know, going crazy, I did have a weekend of a pinball binge. I don't know what you want to call it.
    10:49
    Traveling through Richmond, Jessica DiNardo and Robert Haggard, haggard haggard of double danger uh swung by stayed at my house for a couple nights and so i played a lot of pinball a couple weeks ago um you first of all you always play a lot of pinball i've seen your audience so yeah let's not let's not get carried away like that was your bin but i had i mean like for not really doing that much in the last two years i had you know i had some people i had a small gathering at my house i had a small gathering you have to do something social Yeah, I had a small gathering at my house, and then we went to the Richmond Pinball Collective. We went to my friend Dan's location at Center of the Universe Brewing. We went to the Gore Bar. But that night, the first night that they got in, I had people over, and we were up until it got pretty – it was late. It was like 2 a.m. I'm old. I don't recover from that like I used to, but it was a lot of fun. Like I had not had that level of fun in a long time because of the pandemic, which is another bummer because now I'm like I'm going kind of back into a personal lockdown to be safe. And so I'm like, man, that was awesome.
    12:08
    Womp womp, you know, like sucks. So but it was but it was a ton of fun. And obviously, like, you know, Jessica brought my kids, like, some soft plunge pinball T-shirts, which are amazing. If you're not aware of Jessica's brand, then you've got to go check out soft plunge pinball.
    12:28
    Robert brought me a really cool shirt, so Double Danger Pinball. Of course, if you don't check them out, you should. Both of those companies are making some cool stuff and definitely support them. But, yeah, we had a ton of fun. And, yeah, I went to the Gore Bar. If you're in Richmond, Virginia, the Homo Gwar Heavy Metal Costume Band, I don't know what you call them, but definitely check out the Gwar Bar.
    12:54
    So I'll give a shout-out to them as well. Very nice. Side Social. That's good. We had our – well, it was just last weekend.
    13:04
    IFBA stuff came back, and the Pin Vault in Indianapolis hosted a Midnight Madness tournament. So as soon as midnight struck on August 1st, we did a tournament down there. And then the very next afternoon, we hosted a tournament at North End Pub. So it was a very busy day for pinball. They had, I think, 31 players show up, and we had 20 players.
    13:26
    And not that competitive pinball has been gone, because we've pretty much continued playing since last fall, late last fall. And we think we started back up in October with competitive stuff at North End. but uh it's cool to see that the ifpa recognition of stuff's coming back and we had like three brand new players people that have picked up pinball over uh since covid's happened and a couple of them are like getting really into it i was talking to one earlier today about like some tips for playing godzilla and like tips for just general playing how you nudge and stuff so like it's cool to see there's so many people finding the hobby uh at the same time uh those of us are getting to return to that competitive side of things. It's been fun.
    14:12
    I've been doing a ton of work on games over the past year. I'd say I switched from playing a ton to I feel like I just work on stuff all the time.
    14:21
    I went through, well, we're in August, and so far this year I've finished the Stargazer that I built from scratch. I restored a Meteor, and then I just finished, I don't even know what you want to call it, a restore slash rebuild or whatever. on the Bolton Escapes Cosmic Doom. I've been working on that up at our lake house all summer. I've been mostly going up there like Sunday nights through Wednesdays and using some of my time up there to work on that. So it's just been a difference for me on what part of the hobby I've been partaking in more. Are you doing everything now, like the entire thing of the restoration? Yeah, that thing. I did absolutely everything on the Stargazer. The Meteor, I didn't redo the cabinet.
    15:04
    because it's in decent shape and I was just putting it on location. But I went through everything on that one. But at one point, didn't you have a friend that you were working with? They were helping do play field swaps. Yeah, my buddy Michael helped me do some play field swaps while I did the cabinet for Flash Gordon. But now you're doing everything. But yeah, these last few I've done. Bolton was absolutely everything.
    15:26
    The cabinet that was found in a barn was basically decomposing, so I had to get a different game cabinet to convert. repainted that, clear-coated it, Playfield was a CPR, did all the swapping myself.
    15:42
    I guess I redid Skateball last year, too, during COVID. I forget about that one. But, yeah, I use all new boards. Shout-out to Andrew and his nvram.weebly website. I love his Valley Stern boards, and he's got a new series on there for your Solanoid driver board that's got no high-voltage section. It's cheaper because if you're not using original displays, which if you're restoring a game at this point, there's really no reason for you to use those as blows.
    16:05
    It eliminates that section entirely, so that's sweet. But I've got those in there. Volting was a really neat project for me because it's an incredibly rare game. I think the production run was maybe 365 originally. Oh, wow. And it's from, like, an era where Bally was just killing it on things. And I'm looking at IPDB right now. Yeah, 365 units confirmed. but surrounding it and the production time period is kind of interesting because you've got Playboy right before it, which they sell almost 20,000 units, like 18,250, and it's followed by Supersonic, which sold over 10,000. And then you have Star Trek and Kiss at 16,000 and 17,000. And right in the middle of those is Volta and Escape's Cosmic Team with 365 because apparently it did so bad at its test locations back in the day that they just canceled production. What, what, what, okay, owning the game, I assume that you played it before you bought one. I, so my original plan is, yes, I have played one. When I went down to Tennessee last fall, Game Galaxy, I think it is down there, had one. They actually had the one that HEP restored a few years ago. Okay.
    17:24
    So I had played it, but, like, as my, some of my friends like to say, I have, like, a rare game boner. Like, for whatever reason, I just love, I love Rare games. Like, I think it's very interesting. And, like, I get that Adam's Family is an amazing game, but I can go to any collector's house, and for the most part, they're going to have Adam's Family, and I can play it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like the weird stuff you're not going to see. So, anyway, I wanted one of these for a long time just because it looks really pretty. And then CPR did the play field and the plastics, and I bought them even without having the game, because I was going to approach it like my Stargator. I'm like, I can eventually build this. And I talked to Sean at Third Coast, who does the wire harnesses. he looked at it and he basically was like yeah that's actually really close to a kiss harness which I've already done but it's even simpler so I can eventually build you one and I was like yeah no problem like I'm not in a rush I got the stuff and then I just happened to get lucky earlier this year and this one showed up over in Ohio that was pretty much pulled out of laying in a pile of hay in a barn full of mice nests and just disgusting and I didn't get it initially but I found the guy who did on Facebook and he didn't really know what it was and I kind of explained it to him. It was there with an 8-ball to Lux, too, and he wanted the 8-ball to Lux. And I ended up actually trading an extra Project Stars machine that I had in my storage unit for it, because he wanted a game that was, like, closer to playable. Tommy just has an extra Stars sitting around. I like that. At one point, I had three Stars, and the most expensive one was the one that you'd picked up for me. The other two, I paid $100 and $150 for. They were, like, super cheap. Yeah. But they were, like, they were projects, you know. One came out of a Shred, one came out of, like, a storage unit. It was a $150 game.
    18:57
    Yeah, exactly. It's the Stars. So that's what this guy paid for the 8-Ball Deluxe and the Volton. So it kind of worked out good. I traded him the Stars and an extra MPU that I had that was actually a good MPU. So anyway, that's how this whole thing started. And then yeah, I just wanted it because it was kind of rare. And one of the artists at CPR kind of I really appreciate what CPR does. I love that they're making these products. especially now with their new digital printing, like, they're cranking out games we never thought would get made, like Volton. I just bought a cheater play field for them. I strongly encourage everyone to support CPR, buy the stuff that you want for your games. That being said, one of the artists has, like, some attitude issues, I guess, or differing views than me, which I translate to attitude issues. But when they released Volton, I purchased it right away, and I asked, are you guys going to do the back glass as well because you did the play field and the plastics? And if you're going to do it, I want to buy from you. I want to support you. And the reply was, no, I won't do that because then people will build a game from scratch and devalue my machine.
    19:59
    And while I understand that viewpoint, I just strongly disagree with it because my whole idea is, like, pinball should be a shared thing. Like, that's a large motivator for why I put games on location. Like, this new dude being really into it at my location and wanting to learn more, I appreciate. Like, if I don't have those games there, does that dude find pinball? So that was how I viewed it. So it really pissed me off, and that was why I was going to definitely build one from scratch. There you go. To, like, make sure there was one more.
    20:25
    Stumbling into this really destroyed one that I ended up basically kind of, like, salvaging slash scratch building one. Like, there's a lot of basically all new stuff on here. But I used the original. No, I didn't even use the original coin door, actually. No, the only thing that's from the original game on here is actually the play field harness and the head harness. That's it. Okay, so. That's it, yeah. Everything else was new. Like, I got new spinners, all new mechs. I actually luckily had some new old stuff. Oh, I guess the pot bumper mechs would have been reused. So, yeah, there's a couple things. Now, if you were building this game from scratch without a donor, without a donor Volton, you would be able to do it, right? I mean, that's how you did the Stargazer. I thought I did the Stargazer. Stargazer, you didn't even have a Stargazer. I mean, there was no donor to that. Like, what was the donor game on Stargazer? uh i used a cabinet from a stern uh literally stern pinball oh that's right that was the name of it yeah which was another game i think i paid like 275 for it wasn't working and yeah so this okay so i think that this is i think i mean i think it's really interesting that you have progressed to the point where you are basically just you see a game that you want and it's impossible to get it at either a decent price or a decent condition right yeah and so So you are now saying basically almost any game that you could even think of wanting to own, you could because you have built it from scratch. Yeah. It's definitely, for me specifically at this point, I'd say any classic Valley or Stern because I've gotten just really familiar with that board set and how those games operate. I know there's the guy out there, he's on Pennside, but he's built a bunch of the WPC games. He's done his own Medieval Madness. Wally, yeah. Yeah, I think that's him. He's been building those games for years now.
    22:18
    I haven't worked a ton on, like, I have those games, but the ones I have, they've always needed, like, minor repairs, so I just don't know a ton on there.
    22:26
    And I'm not comfortable enough. Like, I couldn't build my own wire harnesses at this point. Like, I mean, could I if I really, really had to? Yeah, I could learn it, I think. But, like, those are really complicated, and that blows my mind when Sean can make those, or that Wally guy I know made his own without having one to copy. I guess if I had one to copy, it wouldn't be terrible. But just looking at a schematic to do it would be really helpful. And so Sean is able – is he able to make any classic game harness, or is there – He's been doing them, like, in runs. Okay. So it's Third Ghost Pinball on Pinside, if you're looking for his information at all. He makes, like, Coinder harnesses. He makes new harnesses that just go from the Transformer to the Rectifier board, like, lots of little convenient things. And then he started doing games a few years back, and I know he's done, for sure, Stargazer and Quicksilver. I have both of those. I know he's done Fathom. He's done Kiss. I think he's done 8-Ball Deluxe. And some people, like, when they're just restoring a game, they just want to put all new stuff in it. Like, or you buy a game that had mice chewing a harness. Like, is it worth trying to track down all those little chews through the wire, or do you just buy a brand-new one? Those sort of things. when I showed him Bolton he said he would make it for me at some point because it was so similar to KISS in its layout you got two spinners, you got stand-ups you got rollovers up top and pop bumpers, it's honestly a super similar layout minus the drop targets but I don't think he just does any game, it's got to be something there's enough demand there for that it's going to make it worth his time to design the harness and then sell it but it's just awesome to have people out there that are doing things like that same thing with uh the metal ball guides came from mantis carrie mantis and his products like when i look at all the members of the pinball community that i've gotten parts from i mean there's probably like 10 different people that are making this part or that part but it all comes together and i'm able to assemble it into a machine um i kind of look at it it's like i remember as a kid doing puzzles all the time with my mom like we just always were working on a puzzle and that's kind of how i started to look at these machines it's like they're puzzles that you put together, there's just a lot more parts, and it's a little complicated, and if you're not careful, you'll electrocute yourself. So, you know, yeah, watch out for stuff like that. So what was your first game? It was Stargazer, and you've done – That was the first one I completely built, yeah. Before that, I had done, like, the hardtop installation on Frontier, and I had redone cabinets on Frontier, Harlem, and Flash Gordon, and then, yeah, Stargazer. I did the playfield swap on Skateball myself, but I didn't redo that cabinet. Do you like the... And then the last two, I've just redone everything on my own. Between doing a hard top and a playfield swap, what would you rather do?
    25:11
    It just depends on the game. To me, it's like a financial approach. Like, if there was a replacement playfield for Frontier at this point... You would do that. I would probably do it because of how much I ended up liking that game and how the value on it shot up. Like, I could see it being justified.
    25:26
    What about... Volton I'm kind of curious about because, like, there's just not very many sales of that machine because it's so rare.
    25:33
    It's not one that I plan to keep. I'm hoping to enter it at Pinball at the Zoo next month. There's a chance that that show may get canceled at this point, so we're kind of waiting for confirmation. But, like, that's kind of like we've talked about before. It's, like, my home show. It's right by our lake house. It's the first one I ever went to. And me and my buddy Dane, we did the Classic Valley Row up there last year or two years ago when they last had the show. and like we kind of him and I kind of like to restore games and show them off up there and like I was really looking forward to doing that so I'm hoping that still happens but if not this is the game like I'm out of room at my house I'm out of room at my location um I wanted to build it so other people could play it at that show and that there'd be one more in the world so that there's another chance for people to play this rare game from 1978 so uh we'll see but it's not what I plan to keep so I'm trying to figure out like what do I even price it at you know and it makes it's just tough because it's the rarity factor. I don't have a bunch of recorded sales I can look at. It was really neat as I was finishing up. Like, I literally worked on it. I had some friends come up to the lake this Monday because it's my last week of summer, people that I work with at the bar, and we hung out all day and swam and made fun. So then I basically had Tuesday and Wednesday to finish this thing up, and I worked on it for 30 hours over those two days to finish it up completely. And I am actually still waiting on my apron. I sent it out for powder coating to come back. so that's the last thing I have to do is just screw down the apron luckily but um it was neat my dad was up there for the last day while I worked on it and he's like he's seen me play pinball and like fix little things here and there but he'd never seen like one of my full restorations and he was taking a bunch of pictures of it and it was just cool to have him there to I don show off a bit for my dad that like I not a moron and that was I don think your dad thinks you a moron but no not at all but it it nice when I don know you know you like to make your parents proud I feel like I saw a Volton for sale recently and I trying to find that right now There's one on Pinside right now that's an original. I don't know if it works or not, but it's like at $7,500. Wait, $7,500?
    27:38
    Yeah, but it hasn't sold. It's just fitting. Okay, okay. That's not the one I saw. I know the one that HEP restored supposedly sold for between $12,000 and $14,000. I talked to the guy who currently owns it. But that's an HEP restore, Christopher Hutchins. Yeah. And everything's original. Some people prefer the original, whereas mine's a reproduction play field, reproduction plastic. But yours is a brand-new game. I mean, it's basically a brand-new game. Yeah. I mean, I replace flipper switches. Like, it's brand new. So it's one of those things. It's just there's some people who are, you know, it's just like classic cars. They want original new old soft stuff versus reproduction parts. It's up to those people. But you sold Stargazer, right?
    28:24
    I did sell Stargazer. That went to Gorilla Biscuits on Pennside, Patrick in real life. Awesome dude. We met up in Cleveland sometime earlier this summer, I think, to deliver that or right before the school year got out.
    28:39
    It's one of those cool things, you know, you meet someone in the hobby, he's buying an expensive game from you, but we've actually, like, stayed in contact, texting each other, and, like, you made another friend.
    28:49
    He had recently moved to Buffalo, New York, and the Buffalo pinball guys, at least Nick, I know for sure, went over to see his collection recently, and Nick, like, commented on how nice that game turned out that I had done. And that was cool because it's another, like, not a ton of people got to see that game at my house before I sold it. And it's cool just to get some, like, affirmation that somebody else who knows what they're doing within the pinball hobby saw it and was impressed.
    29:11
    But that was cool. With your experience of doing these games, what do you still find – what would you say is the most intimidating part still to a restoration?
    29:20
    For me, it's the wiring. It is? Okay. Because I still suck at reading schematics. Huge shout-out to – fucking, was it Pinball Rebel? Inconito or whatever. Yep.
    29:31
    That's what I just told you I had to run to FedEx before we were recording, so I just printed up a bunch of tech charts from his website for, like, all the games I own. Because those charts make it so much easier, like, when you're tracking down anything, because it lists, like, the connector, the wire color, the transistor. Like, if you've got a problem with a light or a switch, that chart makes it so much easier than going through, like, the full schematic and the love it. So I think just for, I think the pinball rebel page, so, and I'm just saying this just for clarification on that. I think that the Pinball Rebel page is run by somebody else, and the incognito stuff is posted there. Okay. But there might be some, like – When I needed to find it, I Googled the game's name, and I had Pinball Rebel tech chart, and it pulls it right to the right place. Yeah, I just know that, like, Pinball Rebel, like, I used to go there because, yeah, he had stuff like that. And I could be completely wrong, but I just think, like, in the history of the Pinball Rebels site, like, at some point the incognito stuff ended up getting hosted there. And so there's probably a crossover between what was there originally or whatever, but I just want to – I can't remember who does the Pinball Rebels site, but it's a great site. Like, they have a bunch, like, of custom, like, you know, instruction cards and stuff like that. And I think it's – I think almost all of it is free, but, you know, maybe – They have a PayPal donation website, that link you can make.
    31:01
    But that stuff's usually helpful. And then, like, it's one of those things where, like, what's the expression? Like, I'm smart enough to, like, get myself in trouble or whatever? Something like that, yeah. Yeah, I kind of know, like, what I'm doing, but there's definitely stuff I can easily still fuck up. That's called overconfidence.
    31:16
    Yeah, so, like, when I did Frontier, I repinned everything. I've learned how to repin everything. Like, it makes a huge difference on these games. and I plug in Frontier and I'm blowing the circuit breaker in my house. I'm like, oh, like that's not good, you know. That's like a sphincter tightening moment, right? Oh, yeah. It's like, oh, fuck something up bad, right? That's in my brain. And then I have my buddy, Michael, come over and he's like, do you put keypins on your rectifier? And I was like, no, I can't mess those up. And he's like, well, you plugged them in upside down. And, oh, yeah, I just plugged in like everything to the rectifier upside down because I didn't put in keypins. So now I always put in keypins. Oh, my God. And you didn't, like, destroy boards or anything like that? No, I got super lucky that the circuit breaker just broke for the house before I think it could even, like, get to the boards.
    32:02
    So now, like, I always make sure I use keypins. But even when, like, when I plugged in Stargazer. Oh, man. Granted, it was a brand-new wire harness. I had, like, a couple switch columns that weren't working.
    32:14
    And I learned how to use, like, my multimeter for continuity. So I just found where I had breaks in the line for the switch and stuff. But, you know, that made it a little easier. Even when I got Frontier working, that game was the same thing. The cabinet was destroyed. It was sitting in water somewhere. I had to get a new cabinet made for that one when I did it.
    32:32
    Well, it turns out, like, yeah, I wired everything back exactly like it was. But at some point, someone had fucked up the wiring working on the game. And I ended up, I had, like, two switches that were altered in the lineup, which was giving me matrix issues. Right. When I plugged in Volton the other night at the lake, my dad was like, yeah, I want to see this thing when it works, you know, and he was out cutting grass. And I was like, I don't want it to not work in front of him, so, like, I'm going to plug it in while he's cutting grass. And the whole thing worked except for, like, two, literally just two GI sockets. And I was like, holy shit, like, I couldn't believe it. Every switch registered correctly, every coil fired correctly. It kind of blew my mind because usually, like, you have to make adjustments. But I've gotten pretty good, whereas, like, as I was doing the swap, I'm adjusting my switches to where, like, I think they should be and stuff. It all just actually worked. I was kind of blown away. And then I, you know, once that was all done, I went through and looked, and I just had switched around two of the GI sockets. That's why they weren't getting the right power. And just flipped them back, and boom, everything was lit up. Are you using the YOP boards?
    33:33
    Those will be going on my next restorations. I was kind of the – that's David YOP, if you aren't familiar with David. David's been on the show. David's just an awesome dude. I picked up a Medieval Madness for him earlier this summer in Indianapolis because I could get to it very quick for him, and he let me put it on location for a few weeks so he could get it. Another one of those great people I've met in the hobby. But he's been talking about making these boards. He calls them Yopsicle light boards at this point for, like, years. And I kept being like, just do it, man. I'll use them. I'll test it out. Yeah, do it, do it, do it. He finally did it, and I did install them on my Dolly Parton at North End Pub last week, which had, like, the worst flaky classic ballet sockets ever. like the whole game would flicker and one of my buddies was like oh yeah do you need me to bring you like some light bulbs for that dolly because the lights are i'm like no dude it's not the lights it's the stuff it's like it's anyway uh so his light board is a flat uh modern looking circuit board that just has a screw hole with a solder pad on it and then another solder pad where you put your controlled lighting and it just swaps right in they're amazing i put them all in dolly parton i i roughly took like two to three minutes to switch out each socket because I had like a lot of extra solder on there from trying to fix the shitty sockets before.
    34:41
    I will be ordering a ton more of those. He sold out of his initial run and they are great. He's already sold out. They give it a cleaner and modern look. Yeah, his initial run sold out. Holy shit. Like as soon as he posted, because I kind of posted that, you know, he put them in. It was going to be a test game. I thought they were awesome. They're traditional. I think he did like Sunshine or whatever that's called. It's not the warm white, but it's definitely not cool white. That's what I was going to ask you. So, like light is, okay. So correct me if I'm wrong. Light is measured in kelvins, right?
    35:13
    Sure. Why not? So I'm pretty sure that light is measured in kelvins. As you go higher in the kelvin range, you get into like more of a blue range. So like 5,000 kelvins is like that kind of bluish. Modern cool white. Right. And then as you go down to like 2,000 to 3,000 kelvins is when you get into more of like your classic incandescent look, which would be a warm white. Correct? To me, that looks very yellow, which I don't like. Right, right. It just says old and aged in my brain. But I'm just saying this because this always confuses me, like between warm white and cool white. So basically cool white. Okay, so then the other question I have is, is there a, what would be the lamp that would be in between? Because I think that Comet, I think Comet has one. Yeah, Comet does it, and I think it's called like sunshine. Sunshine. Sunlight. So it doesn't have that. That's what I have in my fathom. It's not, it doesn't look like a obviously modern bulb with a pure whiteness, like the bluish tint. And it doesn't look yellow. It's somewhere in between. It's like an off-light light. Because I like the warm look of incandescence. Like, I don't like when it creeps into that higher Kelvin range. And I think a lot of people do, especially on these older solid-state games. I personally don't because, like, I am building these to look new. I want them to have, like, a modern lighting look. But what about the back glass? Like, in the back glass, do you go with a cool white?
    36:50
    Yeah, I do. You don't think it affects the look of the artwork? I mean, the fact that you're finding, like, a different colored lamp through the back? It can, but I haven't really noticed any problems on any particular game.
    37:07
    Like, it just kind of depends on the color scheme of your game. And, again, it's a personal preference. I mean, I like that it looks brighter and newer. That's my basic comparison.
    37:17
    I can see how, like, the theme of Frontier would appeal to a warmer white. Like, it's outdoors. There's campfire stuff on there. Like, I get that. but for me, I just wanted it to look really bright so you can see it. Because a lot of these old games don't have great GI lighting in general, to be honest. So that's another reason. When I restore these, I don't use original colored post. I've put clear post and clear rubbers on almost all these games. It allows more light. I started doing the same, especially with the rubbers, slingshot rubbers. Yeah. It's amazing how much more light gets through them. Every game I own has clear slingshot rubbers. I mean, like, one, the stern black rubber is the worst shit ever. I mean, like, rip those off your game as soon as it lands.
    38:00
    And, yeah, because you will just have the dirtiest play field in no time. Yeah, I've noticed my Avengers play field gets real dirty, and I switched out most of those rubbers to clear rubbers to begin with. But there's, like, a few of the harder-to-get-to ones. I was like, yeah, whatever, I'll leave it. And I'm like, damn it, this game gets dirty. Yeah, it really does.
    38:17
    Going back to your restoration stuff. cabinet wise because I mean I will say like I I you know I obviously I do the playfield rails and so a lot of people reach out to me with questions about restorations I have done some I've done some full restorations done swaps you know I've done some difficult swaps so I do feel like pretty comfortable around a playfield um yeah but like a like cabinet work like one of the things that I am really intimidated by are the use of stencils, right? And I know that you use pinball pimp stencils, right?
    38:52
    Yeah. So what have you learned, like, over these games to, like, what are the tips and tricks of using stencils in a – So, one, the cabinet prep work is everything. Like, I know – to me, as I've gotten into restorations, HGP does a weekly updated thread, what he's doing. He also has several games from the past that he's had individual threads for.
    39:21
    It's like anything. You want to get better at it, follow people who have been doing it longer than you and know more. And learn from them. Learn from their mistakes. Learn from your own mistakes. But cabinet prep work takes a ton.
    39:32
    A trick I did on Stargazer that I've had a few friends now use after me. Typically, like, you'll see HEP using Bondo to fix his cabinets and stuff. For the most part, when he's restoring his games, he's getting brand-new cabinets made, so there's very little wrong with them to begin with. He is just making them absolutely perfect. He is a perfectionist. I will not ever claim to be a perfectionist. I want my games to look better than 99% of the ones that exist. I know they're not going to look better than his. And I will say, like, I've talked to Chris about that.
    40:03
    I make rails for Chris, and Chris, his parents live near me. we're friends, but I know that like a lot of it for him is like he would get these rough cabinets and he would restore them. And the amount of time that goes into, I've had a couple of people reach out recently and I've seen people posting recently about trying to find people who are making cabinets because I do think that the cabinet, the cabinet process or the cabinet restoration is really intimidating because a lot of people don't have woodworking experience and the cabinets are really fucked up like yeah that's basically my frontier and bolton were things the frontier could have been fixed bolton i really don't know if it could have it's really bad um but it was easier for me to either find a different game or have a cabinet built like frontier i had a cabinet built bolton i had a different game that i got really cheap that i could use for the conversion the person that did the cabinet the person that made the cabinet for you is that something that they do or is that it was that like a one-off thing uh he was a one-off okay i had to take him the cabinet so he could actually copy all the parts and do it um kirk weaver i think is the name in ohio is the one that i know closest to me that does cabinets and does really well like they're actually officially licensed through planetarium okay if you're doing anything valley williams uh and his price is pretty reasonable i want to say like 800 to a thousand dollars depending on the game um which again not cheap by any means but if you're doing these high-end restores you kind of expect to be spending money. The trick I found on Stargazer that I was mentioning before is the Bondo, it works okay, you know, for certain specific things, like when they're minor. That Stargazer cabinet specifically had a bunch of planking in the side of it initially, and because I had seen, you saw the Galaxy at Texas Pinball Festival a couple years ago, right, that my buddy did? Yeah. So that was left outdoors, and it had insane planking, And he went through just a ton and ton of prep work on that cabinet. Like I can't even imagine how many sanding, bondo, primer, redo things he did to get that looking the way it did. So I had the idea that I would try something a little different. I was already using fiberglass resin to patch corners on games that I'd seen in Vid's guide. So what I did was actually make up some fiberglass resin. And I just did like a skim coat on the entire side of it that had the planking. And it filled it in amazingly.
    42:27
    It was real thin because the problem was I learned pretty quickly is that that fiberglass resin is way harder to sand than Bondo, but it made it, like, perfect. Like, that game looked really, really nice on the sides.
    42:39
    So I used that again on Vault in here because I was actually converting a Bally Lost World cabinet for this one that had been completely stripped, and it had been sitting empty in the window of an arcade with Christmas lights in it as, like, a decoration for a few years. So, I mean, it worked out perfect for what I needed. I needed a cabinet from that era that had a coin door, and it did. That was what I needed. I had everything else ready to go. So that was a trick that I've learned. Don't mix paint brands, for sure. Like, I've basically settled on using Molotow paint brands, which I think are made in Germany. Great tip. Yeah, I learned that on Stargazer because from my driveway one day, you could probably hear very much like the scene in Christmas Story where the kid yells fudge, but it was not fudge. That was me in my driveway. I had used Rust-Oleum Cobalt Metallic Blue.
    43:36
    And actually, I was using Rust-Oleum White, but I was trying something different. I had put on my base coat and then clear-coated, and then I was going to put on my white layer and then clear-coat again over that. and I quickly learned that, at least with what I was doing, and again, I'm not doing anything in a professional setup. I'm doing this shit literally in my driveway, outside. I'm victim to the weather, humidity, all that stuff. Anyway, it created a reaction as I started to spray the white on the clear coat that it legitimately just peeled off. It looked like the dude's face from Indiana Jones. It was just peeling off everything from the side of the cabinet. And I was like, thankfully, I was only doing the head at that point, so I was like just shocked and stunned um but back to like Flash Gordon I I mixed Molotov for my red and I used like Rust-Oleum black and then something else for a metallic gold and I had a little reaction between those paints so like I've gotten to the point where I'm realizing like find the brand and stick to it and specifically I've gone to Molotov because it's uh they have like 418 colors or 480 colors I can't remember which it is there's a ton of them out there you can order it to a website called Bombing Science, which is out of Via Canada. You get free shipping if you order $100, and if you're painting an entire cabinet, you're going to need $100 in paint, trust me.
    44:52
    It sprays. It's really hard to make it run. It's like a run list. It's used by graffiti artists. Yeah, I was going to say, yeah, that sounds like some – It's a good quality paint, and it's only like $6 a can or something. Like it's not terribly expensive.
    45:07
    And how many cans do you think you go through like on – So on Volton, for the base, just doing the white, I probably used like 10 cans. And you're doing the whole, you're doing rattle cans for the entire thing. So you're not going, oh, wow. Yeah, everything. And then for my colors, my pink and purple that go on that game, I used like just over one can for each of those. And that's another reason I like them is because of the high quality, like being a spray paint artist, spray paint type thing, graffiti artist, spray paint. it's got they have the numbers listed on the can but it's super pigmented it has four times the pigment as a traditional spray paint so like I'm able to use one stencil and get a nice thick coat on there that makes that the purple and the pink cover the white completely now do you like with your so I've seen there's a pinball restorer out there does a lot of cabinet work that's amazing Ashley Lugwe like yeah I started I've been following her recently. I reached out. We were trying to – well, anyway, go on. Yeah, but I follow her work. She's awesome. Yeah, so one of the things that I think is really amazing with what she does, and I'm not sure how she does it, but, you know, like one of the things with stencils is a lot of times you get like a really super hard edge, which is not what it looks like out of the factory. No, originally you got a little bit of overspray. Well, there was some overspray, but there's also this like almost like mist kind of effect like sometimes you get. Like, you just don't get that really hard edge. I learned that from a local restorer. Basically, you can't use pinball pen stencils then because his are an adhesive stencil that goes directly on the cabinet. Okay, okay. What he did was he bought those. He applied them to poster board and cut his own from the poster board. Right, right. And then on the backside, he just took a little bit of masking tape and rolled it and put it underneath on that backside so that the stencil isn't actually perfectly flat on the cabinet. Gotcha. It's got a little bit of space because he wanted that original overspray look too.
    47:06
    And again, that's the personal preference. I don't like that. I like the modern hard-mize. I want it to look like I did it.
    47:14
    I'm not trying to pass off anything I do as an original. I'm specifically trying to be like, no, this is brand fucking new. I did this.
    47:21
    But again, some people like that original look, so they do that. Same thing with cabinets. If I was going to do a modern game like Adam's Family or Twilight Zone now, I would 100% buy Mirko's Radcals. They look shinier. They're super sturdy. They're not going to get damaged as much. But again, based on your face, you want an original decal.
    47:40
    So there you go. There's just preference. Make screens. That's what I want. I want you to go into the screen making business. At one point, somebody had talked about doing that. They were going to go and they were going to make screens to do entire cabinets. Yeah, that ain't happening. No? Not for me. Maybe that was Deep Root. Maybe that was the Deep Root's plan. that's what they that's that's what they're working on right now that's the snag they've hit yeah that's the snag they got to make those screens oh my god what a company um what a company yeah so okay yeah man i i've got to say like looking at your restorations the work you're doing is really impressive i i mean especially yeah because i remember i mean you know we've been friends for a really long time now and i i remember when you would got into it and it was yeah like you were hiring people out to do swaps and stuff like that and then all of a sudden you were like oh recording babe sorry let's just go oh jesus come on we're trying to record here we're doing the show we don't do it that doctrines went outside because they were barking for attention yeah um but yeah so it's it's been really cool to see especially like a lot of cabinet stuff because i've i am really into that i mean i like the painting and stuff like that and um yeah it's cool to see like how far you've progressed but it's also it's also interesting to see when you have those hiccups, right? Like, I know, like, I think, like, I remember your Harlem, because you had issues on Harlem, right? Like, did it paint peel on that one or something? No. Harlem, so that's what really pissed me off, was Harlem was the first cabinet I ever did, and it went, like, perfect. It was incredibly neat. Oh, okay. Like, yeah, Harlem was, like, oh, I was like, oh, yeah, I can do any cabinet. What was the next one? The next one was Flash? Flash Gord? Flash Gord. Okay, that's what it was, because, yeah, it was, like... My stencil pulled off part of the paint, and that was when I was... Oh, that's right. I was trying to rush it really quick because I was trying to get it ready for Pinball at the Zoo. Frontier, I had problems, but it was because of the guy who made my cabinet. He was, again, not a pinball guy. He makes main cabinet, and he assumed I wanted it like a modern pinball cabinet, so it was covered with like a laminate, which would be perfect if I was putting details on it. But to apply paint, not so much.
    49:50
    So how did you deal with the laminate? Oh, I painted over it. Oh, you did? At one point, I didn't let it. So that's the other thing is, like, it actually helped me painting Volton up at the lake this summer because I'm not up there every day. Right, so you give it proper time. Right, so I can paint a coat, and then I leave for a week. Yeah, yeah. Whereas, like, when I'm at home and I see the cabinet sitting in my garage every time, like, I let my dogs out three, four, five times a day, I'm like, man, I really want to put on that next coat of paint. It's probably been okay. And this way I was able to be like, no, let it sit for two weeks, then do the next coat. So it just really helped me space out my time for working on things. I could do a coat, and then I'd work on some of the play field while I was inside for the next day while I'm at the lake and then disappear for a week. When you're doing stencils, how long do you wait until you remove the stencil? Like do you remove it once you've painted? So once you paint, you remove the stencil, and then you just let it dry? I'm removing it right away. Yeah. So, and again, so the Molotov paint, my buddy Dane, DJ Blau on Pinside, that's who restored my Fathom. He's built his own Quicksilver. Like, when I was doing Stargazer, he was doing Quicksilver. He also uses the Molotov paints now. I think Kiss was the last game he restored. And he was basically like, yeah, I literally sprayed the paint, and I let the stencil just sit there for an entire day before I pulled it. And I was like, oh, interesting, because, like, I usually pull them right away. So I was like, I'd already done one side of the head of Volton, and I was like, okay, I'm going to do the other side, but I'll let the stencil sit this time. And I only let it sit for like two hours, and I went to pull it, and a bunch of the adhesive stuck to the cabinet. But he's painting in an indoor climate-controlled space. I'm painting outside where the sun was moving and possibly hit the stencil and made the adhesive stick longer.
    51:35
    Because, like, my base coat had cured the same amount of time for both sides of the head, but one side I pulled off right away, and one side I let sit there. So initially when I did Harlem, I did have, I let the stencil sit for a little while. And then when I pulled it, I had some issues, like you're right, where the paint was almost starting to pull up with it. So I had to like, it came out really good, but there was a little bit of worry. And that's when I started pulling them faster.
    51:59
    When I did the body for Volton, I pulled them right away and it worked better. But again, I think that a lot of that has to do with like the climate that you're painting in versus like it's an indoor environment or not. because I did have that adhesive stick to the cabinet on that head. So then I let the cabinet just sit. Once I had painted it, I let it sit for like two or three weeks, and then I went at it with Goo Gone to get the adhesive off before I clear-coated it, and it worked fine. And it was no issue getting the adhesive off? It was not easy. Right. And it was like I had to be very careful where I was rubbing, and I was using a little razor blade. So, yeah, I mean, it's stuff, but it wasn't that it was coming off. It just was taking time.
    52:36
    So, yeah, like each game definitely presents its own challenges. They're each a little bit different, you know, and depends on, like with Vulcan, I could get the play field and the plastics from CPR, and then there was no back glass. So I was like, all right, well, I ended up getting one from Cuse, and I had it custom designed and added mirroring to it. Nice. So now people can make their own. People can make their own Vulcan. Yeah, exactly.
    53:00
    So that was what already bothered me was because VZ Resto had already done the back glass. So CPR was not going to stop anyone from building their own. Right. They were just not getting themselves business. And I will admit, like, the BG Resto, it's not as good as a CPR, and a CPR is not as good as cruises. But, like, if I really wanted the game, I could either have BG Resto make it, or if you guys ever need something made for a game, like the virtual pinball community, I'm not a member of it. I don't play virtual pinball. But if you go out there, almost every pinball machine has been redesigned virtually with really good art at this point. You can literally take one of the virtual pinball back glasses and have a Translight printed for, like, $30. bucks yeah so like if you really really really want a game the only thing stopping you at this point in time is like you like that's just the reality of it like i'm not saying it's cheaper um it's definitely not faster like i was collecting parts for that stargazer for three years before i built it uh but like if you really really want something at this point you can definitely make it happen um i know my buddy john in missouri is building a stargazer now i got hired to build because of my first Stargazer. Another guy wanted to buy it, and now he's hired me to build him one, so I'm gathering parts for him. There's a guy in southern Indiana that's building five Stargazers and two Quicksilvers, and I assume he's building them for people who are either prepaying or he's selling them. It's really cool because we're living in a time where there's so many reproduction parts available that you can do that. And specifically for classic sterns, some classic stern titles have the plastic pop bumper rings. and like Swings our buddy Swings actually redesigned those and they available on Shapeways So yeah it just nowadays you can make something
    54:50
    Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, so get out there, make more Voltons so that it drives the prices down of the originals as much as possible. We need, like, a couple thousand of those out there.
    55:02
    Yeah, actually, don't. The gameplay is not that great. That's one of the guys who wants to, because I posted some of it to Facebook, and somebody had already contacted me about buying it. He was like, well, how does it play? And, like, the only thing I can really say about Volton is that it plays like a game that really spent a lot more time on the art package than the layout. Like, it's not, there's nothing super inventive about the layout.
    55:22
    But it plays like a very early classic rally, you know. And this one plays particularly well because it's all brand new. I did play, we had one at, when I helped at the Southern Fried Game Room, Comp, there was one in the Classics Bank. So, yeah, I did play one. That game was such a pain in the ass because, yeah, it was just a lot of stuck balls, and every time we would open the corn door, it would slam tilt.
    55:54
    Yeah, so we ended up having to disable it. It was a bit of a mess, but I have played one. The art package on it is great, though. it's like a really good package, but yeah, I think it's pretty simplistic and it's like, yeah, yeah. It's by no way like the best playing game ever, but I do think it's one of the nicest art packages. And then you factor in the rarity and it just like, it obviously it, it, it appealed to all the things that I really enjoy. Um, all right. So that was Tommy's restoration with Tommy. I will say like, if people have any questions, you know, about that, because there's not a ton of people who have done what Tommy has done, like definitely like reach out. Cause I would love to, I'd love to hear more. And then, you know, it'd be interesting to see kind of what people are interested in finding out about, like, you know, what part of the process. I'm happy to help too. Um, Patrick, who bought my Stargazer, I said, I was just talking to him this week and he bought a rough big game because the rumor is there's two companies making big gameplay fields for next year's release so my guess is cpr and miracle is the only two i could think of um but i was just like yeah man if you need help on anything like reach out like i'm by no means would i say i'm an expert but i have done it and i know like what i've screwed up and i can hopefully prevent you from screwing up the things i've screwed up and kind of walk you through it uh like remember when i sent you the picture of my skateball harness yes and it looks like a rat's nest yes like i've never made that mistake again i i now wash them with the plastic zip ties oh That's good enough for me. No, no, no, no. Don't listen to Tommy. Take those things apart. Completely dismantle your harness. Scrub it, clean it, and then replace all those zip ties.
    57:39
    I replace the zip ties when I do it. How did you wash it? You didn't put it, like, in the dishwasher or anything. No, I literally just, like, put it in the shower and scrubbed it. You know what I think I do? I think when I've done at least my WPC harnesses. Yeah, they're separated already in the WPC thing. Well, you have to clip them apart. You have to clip them apart to separate them into your Switch. But they're separated like lighting versus solenoids. Yeah, yeah. The ballets, it's just all fucking together. It's all together. Like everything. And then, oh, no. Yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, that was not, that wasn't. Yeah, that's why that makes them harder. That's the other nice thing when Sean remakes the harnesses for the games. He makes them separate. So, like, I was only installing all the lighting harness and then all the solenoid harness. What does a harness run for a brand-new harness? Do you know? Do you remember?
    58:31
    So it depends because you make them in those parts. So, like, for Stargazer, I got all-new cabinet, playfield, head, and coin door, and it was, like, a little over $500, which to me is still incredibly cheap. That's not a bad deal. Yeah. so yeah I know I think my buddy just got the play field for the Stargazer he's building because he's going to reuse the head harness and his was like 275 or 300 maybe to me it's well worth it so yeah it's not bad oh and then another shout out to Andrew and his EnvyRam board because for Bolton even though it's not like the highest scoring game ever I figured if anyone ever broke a million points It really annoys me on those old six-digit games that if you break a million points, it doesn't scroll or save the highest score. Well, with Andrew's new MPU, it's got a seven-digit, essentially, hack built into it where all the games that were six-digit have the ability to run seven-digit software, and you just have to wire in seven-digit displays. And it maybe took me ten minutes to rewire my displays and plug them into the new connector, so I have seven-digit scoring on Volton. Oh, nice. This will be like the only vault I know of in the world that has a mirrored back glass and seven-digit score. Look at that. And you're selling it. I will be, yeah, for sure. So we need to figure out.
    59:56
    I'm saying you put it out there for $15,000. Oh, you're insane. I am. If somebody wants to pay me $15,000, you contact me right away. I'm not hoping for that much. If you sell for $15,000, I'll make you a deal. You sell for $15,000 because I set that price, right? You don't think it will ever sell for that much. So what do you think? How about this? How much do you think it should sell for? And then whatever it sells for above that, you send it to me for my kids' car.
    60:26
    For their 529. Oh, man. I don't know. That's what I haven't, like, I wanted to take it to Pinball at the Zoo because I think I can really, I have a shot at winning Best Restoration, which I weirdly care about. So I'm really hoping that this show still happens. It's not a restoration, though. It's a new game. That's different.
    60:50
    Whatever. I wanted to win something. It's just weird how much I actually want that. My Harlem, I never expected anything, and it got Best 70s Restoration. I was like, oh, that's fucking cool. You know, there are a lot of people who have been restoring games, though. Oh, I know. Absolutely. This last year. I think my best chance is because there was a good chance. They rescheduled this Pinball at the Zoo show this year for Labor Day weekend, and there's a good chance my buddy Dane can't go, so he's not going to be able to bring the Quicksilver or the kit that he restored during COVID. So I'm like, all right. Like, if he does, I want him to bring Quicksilver, because then at least we're in different decades, so I could still win the 70s category. But, yeah, I don't know, man. I'm curious, because I'd say, like, without a doubt, it's not as good of a player as Stargazer, but it's way more rare than Stargazer. So it's like a third of the production run that Stargazer had.
    61:43
    And there's not, like, there isn't a harness out there. So, like, it's not one that people are building from scratch. And I just imagine there's, you know, like, we've seen this hobby grow exponentially. But there's still those, like, hardcore collectors who, like, they want all the valleys from that era. And this is one that's just not very common to find. So no idea. We'll see. We'll probably wait until after Labor Day here. So I want to get that apron installed and make sure I give it enough test plays that I can confirm everything's working really good before I send it off to a new owner. All right. So, okay. So no idea as to what you think. No. If somebody walked up to you right now and offered you $10,000 for it, would you take it? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I think so. Okay. Yeah. All right. What is, just to get a sense of pricing on, what are the fathoms going for that Haggis is doing? What do they do? Those limited edition ones, I think, are $9,500.
    62:42
    I think it's right around there. And that's for the Mermaid? That's the Mermaid one? Yeah. We have some code and stuff like that? I think that's what they were. All right. Moving on to a new pinball that Tommy hasn't made. there have been, since we've talked,
    62:58
    there have been, what do we got? We've got, oh, shit. Ultraman, right? Ultraman and Halloween were announced. Halloween were announced, and they've since been played because they have been in shows.
    63:16
    They're actually streaming, they just announced today that Dead Flips is streaming both games tomorrow. Tomorrow, so I will have to release this tonight.
    63:25
    Yeah, so they're streaming. So I'm just going to say this because I have to put it out there. I am really, I'm excited for Spooky. I think that it's great that they sold their games so quickly. Obviously, they sold out of both models like super fast. Yes, there were some issues with people buying multiple games so that they could sell that flip them. I think it did stop there's been some clicking that's been coming over the that's been coming I think from Tommy's side I think my AC vent was hitting my window shades plastic little end caps on the strings I think they were hitting the wall I moved them out of the way I think that's what it was um but yes that's but um yeah it was spooky yeah so it's it's really great that they were able to sell their games like they did i was really surprised and frankly kind of frustrated that there was no gameplay video to actually show like i mean that there was video of like you know the game was flipping and it showed that it worked and that there were many play fields and stuff like that but there was nothing basically at all about like what stuff was going to do and i just It's like, personally, Ultraman is something that's a title, that's a theme that I like because I grew up watching Ultraman. But I, you know, I can't pull the trigger on a game unless I see it being played, you know. And, you know, some of Spooky's titles for me, as far as how much I like to play them, are real hit and miss. You know, it's, so they're, I don't know. That was tough. It was a bit of a bummer to, like, see that there was or to not see any gameplay prior to it actually going on sale. Yeah, I think they'll be available for resale, like you said.
    65:23
    It's one of those things, like, people are going to pay up at the start because they want the game because Spooky does have that 18-month production cycle. But by the time you get to the end of that 18-month, the prices come down. Ultraman being such a small production run, I don't know what to expect. I'm completely unfamiliar with Ultraman. but the art package on that game just looks fucking amazing to me. To me, it looks like fun pinball. It's just a fun theme. A lot you could do with it. It looks interesting. I love horror movies but Halloween is my least favorite horror franchise.
    65:55
    But again, I think the art package on it looks really neat and I think the layout looks interesting.
    66:00
    I know everyone always bitches about why don't people do anything new in pinball and then Spooky does something and then people shit on them for it. With the upper play fields? Interesting. The upper play fields and not just like a pure fan layout, all that sort of stuff. But I'm curious to play it. So we'll see. We're getting a Halloween at North End Pub very early. I think we're number 13 or 14. Oh, wow. So we should have that within the next few weeks, I think.
    66:28
    So I think that they might – they probably already have – your game is already on the line then, right? Because I think I've seen a picture. They probably had like 20 games lined up.
    66:39
    Yeah, I'm assuming so. We still have this mystery clicking. I don't know what it is. It's really – no? No? I don't know. Whatever. People are going to complain no matter what. Yeah. I don't hear it on my end, if I hope so. But, yeah, I spoke to some people who played it. I mean, I haven't played it, so I don't have a ton to say. The art package, yeah, I like the Iron Man art package. So basically Iron Man is a robot that fights. That's Ultraman, I believe. Ultraman, what did I say? Iron Man. Ultraman is basically a robot that fights monsters. So it's like, yeah, kaiju stuff. So it's like Japanese, yeah, it's like an old Japanese, based off an old Japanese TV show. There's also a comic book. the artwork for the black glasses from the comic book, probably I think the side art as well. But I remember watching that as a kid. I've got a bunch of, like, Ultraman figures around my house that my brother, you know, my brother gave me one from Japan or whatever. And actually I preordered a articulating one before the game was even announced. I ordered this one from Bandai. That's coming out, I think that might be coming out in September. But so I love the Ultraman theme.
    68:02
    But, yeah, gameplay-wise, I think it looks pretty interesting. I think some of the stuff that they've done, like the way that the inlanes are fed, is pretty interesting. It seems like it's going to end up leading to, like, some pretty long ball times because of that safe feed. But, yeah, it's interesting. I can't really think about it. Like I said, I'm excited to see the stream tomorrow and definitely excited to play it for sure. And so you have a Halloween. Now, is there a reason you went with Halloween over Ultraman?
    68:36
    It is my buddy Mark, he's got a few games down at the location. He was the one who really wanted this one. So that's why we went with it as far as I know.
    68:46
    Basically, I had heard that it was most likely Halloween ahead of time, but I had not seen or wasn't 100% positive. And I let him know, and he, you know, asked, because we bought a couple games together, you know, do you want to go halves on it? I just really wasn't into Halloween, but I basically said if it's Friday the 13th, I'll buy it because that's the horror series that I'm super into.
    69:08
    So that would have been, you know, I would have bought it, but instead it was Halloween and he went with it. The Ultraman thing, I had heard several different rumors on what that second theme would be. I did know they were doing two different versions, but I wasn't sure. I just think first I just think the Ultraman 1 looks fun like it's a fun goofy theme that you could do a ton with battling monsters on a petro- retro science robots right yeah it's like it just looks very enjoyable the sounds that I heard from a couple of the games that were being video released from Pinfest I liked what I heard I'm excited to see them excited to play them but uh yeah i mean halloween that was just what mark wanted so that's what we were getting in it's a theme we have excuse me uh with the bar being like a kind of a heavy metal venue there's a lot of our players who are like into that music and that music tends to tie really well to horror in general like a lot of them go to horror conventions and stuff so um that appeals to me and i just like horror movies in general so like i like all that aspects about it i'm really curious to shoot it though the layout looks very interesting to me what did you uh you have any thoughts on the upper play fields from what you saw um i i didn't see enough like anything to make any judgment based on you know their spooky zone released video kind of like teaser videos of them and all the gameplay videos i saw were pretty short um i haven't spent a ton of time uh going out and watching them though just knowing ours was coming so early i wasn't as worried about it uh as soon as it gets here we'll definitely stream it uh so we'll we'll see the only thing i i heard about the upper play Phillips was just that they were tough.
    70:52
    But I also think it could be one of those things where it seems to me like a lot of the gameplay does take place on the upper play fields.
    71:02
    Right? It's not – I could be wrong. I haven't looked into it at all. I mean, it's like – I don't know. Like one quarter of the play field is covered by this tiered – these tiered upper play fields. So it seems to me like that's an important – we can kind of segue into the Mandalorian on this because the Mandalorian is also a game where you basically have one quarter of the play field is taken up by the, like, the mask on the premium LE is that articulating upper play field, right? this is the same kind of thing where it's like you have a lot of a lot of real estate is being taken up by something that you would assume would lend itself to being more involved with the gameplay does that make sense yeah because of the amount of space it takes up you think it'll be used more um on the same on the other like the other arguments that is because it is a big and prominent visible feature uh but you only use it on occasion it makes it feel more special when you do use it so like i see that side of it too i did get to play so i've got the mandolin lorian pro uh last week for my birthday me and a buddy went to an arcade that's about 35 minutes away that has a mandolin le and we got to play the articulating or wrote the upper play field and i will say it was really impressive um i would not want to operate it personally yeah he said even right out of the box it did not work and it took like two weeks for them to get it fixed and operating. But it was very cool. I will say that. I did find it way more difficult on that version than on the Pro, although I think the Pro can be pretty hard to get through all the challenges as well. But yeah, I'm still enjoying Mandalorian. So let's talk Mandalorian because I have spent some time on Mandalorian as well. They have one at the Richmond Pinball Collective.
    72:57
    And, yeah, so Mandalorian. So here's my take on Mandalorian. I played a pro. I know that there are wire form ramps that are available through a guy on the pin side.
    73:16
    Yeah, I actually have his prototypes being tested at North End Club, and I just got, like, the full production version delivered yesterday that I'm going to install tomorrow.
    73:29
    But, yeah, they've been – the metal ramps are a huge upgrade. If anyone out there has a Pro, I strongly recommend the upgraded wire form versions. So I played the one that has, like, just the production ramps. And I will say, like, the thing that I'm surprised at how cloudy they are, like, they're not, like, crystal clear ramps, right? Like, it's almost like. It's because they're, like, they're curved, I think. I think the curvature of them causes that distortion. Like, causes, like, a milking to it. Yeah. Yeah, they're not the best ramps. So, but because of that, especially on the right side, like underneath where the ramp is, it's like there's a lot of like really important shots. Like there's your super jackpot shot. And then like that area is just kind of like looks muddled because of that ramp crossing right over top of it. So I've seen pictures of the wire forms and the wire forms look like an absolutely like necessary upgrade. You know, one problem that the one at the collective had that I know that other places have had is that the diverter broke. That feeds that upper right area.
    74:43
    Yep. So with that out of commission, now I did get – I did have an opportunity to play, you know, several dozen games on it prior to that happening. and I guess I really like, okay, my first impression playing that game is I really liked it. I liked the theme. I've watched both seasons of The Mandalorian. When the second season came out, I was all in.
    75:12
    And so, you know, as far as like the Star Wars theme, I think it's very digestible. You know, it's like the story is already there for Stern. so I think they did a good job in bringing in elements of the show obviously like the child is a really huge feature on the play field during gameplay I will say that so yeah so my first impression was that I really liked it and I enjoyed playing it the code that I started playing it on it was basically like you could just shoot up the center the falcon crash shot and you would start your multi-ball you'd come out of multi-ball and you could start you could do the same thing again since then I think new code has hurry ups included in that center shot so it's not just multi-ball multi-ball multi-ball now it's multi-ball build your build your hurry up and then do the hurry up and then multi-ball which is fine but after playing it for a while I started to like the upper play field area because the challenges were always really hard for me like just getting up there and like getting anywhere with the challenges and then with the child so basically like half the play field just doesn't seem like it gets used that often like the upper part um so a lot of your gameplay is happening like certainly like your orbits are important, but it seems like everything is, like, in that bottom half of the play field. Does that make sense?
    76:56
    Yeah. I don't know. I just think it's interesting because I think about, like, a lot of the games that I've been playing recently, like, my lineup, I've got some of the newer games by Stern. Like, all the shots seem like they're pretty, like, just further back. Right? Mm-hmm. And this game, it's like there are no shots that are further back. I mean, you have the upper right play field, so you're hitting those targets. But everything is like your shot is either made or it's not, like all in the bottom half of the play field. Yeah, I get that. Which seems kind of – it just gets kind of – I don't know. It's weird. It seems strange that you're not really interacting as much with the rest of the play field. but it's just a place for the ball to almost travel through. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm.
    77:45
    So, to me, I know there was all these rumors as that game was getting ready to come out that there was, like, ramp diverters and all this stuff. Similar to Shadow. And I see the similarities in the Shadow, personally, just with, like, the way the right ramp works, the lower right ramp, it reminds me of the left ramp on Shadow. The orbit shot, I think, is almost identical.
    78:11
    Some of the stand-up targets are in similar positions to the mongrel targets. But I see what you're saying about that lack of anything as a long shot because of the fact that your ramp is what delivers it to that upper play field. And your center shot feeds that ramp, but there's no specific – like the swinging target is very close to you, so you feel like you've already completed that shot even if it doesn't go around. Right. And so I think that makes it play, it seems to me like without those longer shots, especially like, I mean, I've been playing a lot of Elwin games where I feel like. You got the spinner in the back. You got the tower shot in the back. Yeah, but there's a certain level of accuracy that you have to have for those further shots that I don't feel like you have in Mandalorian.
    78:54
    Oh, see, I think I feel like you have to be more accurate because if you miss those closer shots, you have less reaction time. To me, the ball times have been much shorter at location for Mandalorian than any of my L1 games. Really?
    79:05
    Yeah, because the L1 games, the shots are really long, but you have time to recover them. Whereas if you're missing stuff on Mandalorian, those posts are sending it right back at you. Well, I mean, my experience with Mandalorian is with the center shot. So one thing is the center shot is so valuable.
    79:21
    I don't love that. I think it's really unbalanced because you shoot up the middle enough times. the ball comes out the left orbit. It's pretty easy to catch. It's pretty easy to drop catch, rinse and repeat, start a multi-ball, go through your multi-ball, you trap up, you shoot up the middle, you build your hurry up, you collect your hurry up, you shoot up the middle, you start your multi-ball. I mean, it is, when I step up to that game on ball one, I am trying to get through like every Falcon Crest multi-ball. Now, certainly like I want to stack my modes, but I'm just saying like But starting a mode, you know, it's like you shoot the left scoop with your backhanded with your left flipper, and it's a pretty safe shot. You do that two times. Oh, it is.
    80:08
    I think that only works for your first two modes. It does. And then you have to hit the ramp. It does. And that right ramp, I think the right ramp and the right turnaround, I think that those two shots can be tricky.
    80:20
    They're tricky. The feed from that little turnaround can be real deadly. so my thing is like I hate shooting that middle shot so I like how the shot feels I hate how many times you have to do it so I've actually completely adjusted to where I almost only play that game for the modes and the encounters and I avoid the middle shot as much as I can and I instead start my multiballs through super skill shots and through the foundry wait you can start your multiballs through the foundry yeah Yeah, one of the things you can buy is multi-balls ready. So typically I'll buy that, and then I'll start my mode, and then I'll shoot my middle shot. So I'm stacking that, and I don't have to shoot the middle at the time. This is a pro tip right here. Do not shoot up the middle anymore. The super skill shot is also, so it's not valuable enough points-wise. Like in competition, I don't know that I would play this way, but I just enjoy seeing what's in the game right now at this stage. So the super skill shot, you have to hold the left flipper, So then the ball goes all the way around on your plunge. What people don't realize is you have to keep holding that flipper until it hits the left orbit switch, which is pretty far down, to activate the super skill shot. So there's a decent amount of time before it passes that post until it hits that switch. So a lot of times people won't get that super skill shot. And then it's three parts. So you have to shoot the turnaround, the right ramp, and then your scoop, your left ramp, and your center shot will all be lit for different awards. Oh. So for me I try to do that and either so the bad thing is if you shoot the middle your multi just starts So I don like to do that one because I don have a mode running Right But I instead try to shoot the left ramp because it then jumps right over an encounter And there's a ton of encounters to get through. Right. So I aim for that. And if you hit the left scoop, it gives you a mode start.
    82:16
    And then additionally on top of that, it awards you like some best guard, depending on which shot you hit and stuff too. so like that's why I try to avoid the multi-ball shot on the third shot for the super skill shot because I'm getting that best car and I could probably buy a multi-ball start anyway yeah see I will say like the foundry stuff like I don't always I don't always love the way that Dwight allows for awards to be earned like the pop bumper like the pop bumper roulette shit drives me totally insane like I just hate it yeah that's that's why I kind of like the foundry over that because you have to actually earn the best and then you can buy the things. I think it's an interesting system. I will say I'm conflicted because I enjoy getting to the wizard modes and stuff but when I look at the depth of Mandalorian compared to specifically the Elwynn games it's not there. Whereas the Elwynn games I'm always trying to get further and further into them and my score happens to increase. On Mandalorian I'm trying to get high scores but specifically through, like, stacking with my multipliers. So I get really focused on, like, getting my multipliers going and then starting a mode and then starting my multiball. The multiplier stuff is still kind of elusive to me. Like, I haven't gotten to – I don't really even mess with that. Like, I just do the multiball hurry-up thing. Oh, yeah, no, you got to get multipliers going, man. It'll completely change how you're scoring. What kind of scores are you putting up? uh iu tommy is also tommy has also stood on the stage of pinberg finals though yeah no i on that le that i played last week i put up like 800 something a little under 900 i think it was um typically on my machine i'm consistently between like four and six hundred i would say i put i mean i put up those numbers yeah um yeah i still have not had i think it's the other part that keeps drawing me back and like why i'm finding it to be a good game is because to get that perfect stat going where I've got like a 5x multiplier, a mode, and a multi-ball, it's really tough. And then even once you get it, it's still tough to hit the shots you need to hit with the multi-ball going.
    84:19
    No, I get that. I'm enjoying it. I think it's a, I think they did a great job, like you mentioned, with the theme and integrating it. And I think the game is like super far above where Stranger Things was for Brian Eddy to see it come back to this. The upper play field I could do without on the, like, premium LE. I will say the little, like, the drop-down ramp that's on the premium LE that's on the turnaround shot, I really wish that was on the pro. That I really liked. It was difficult to hit, but it was really rewarding when you hit it. And what is the purpose of that as far as game plan? So, like, on the pro where that super jackpot lights and you have to shoot just that turnaround shot, on the premium LE that drops down and that's your super jackpot. and it's a little harder to hit than the turnaround because, like, the turnaround you can backhand super easy. Yes, super easy. Like, the feed out of it can be kind of tough, but you can hit it. On the premium L.E., the backhand, it does not guarantee it's going to make it up that ramp. It's kind of like the tower ramp on Jurassic Park. Like, you need to hit it with some force. So it makes that a little bit tougher, and it just changes the ball travel path. Like, anytime you have a shot, I mean, that's part of the reason I love Shadow, the fact that you can change the ramp so you control the ball travel path. Yeah. That's what this is doing, the fact that that drops down and now your ball is coming back to your left side instead of coming to the right side. Like, I enjoy those games. And what triggers that? Is it, I mean, is that something, is that player? It became the ambush mode, which is like a hurry up that's in the game. It would drop. It dropped for super jackpots. I don't know what other times it might have dropped for. But there was multiple times it was used within the game. And going back to, I do like Mandalorian. I will say, like, the diverter at the collective broke. And so for a long, like, I was still going in there and playing it. and without having that upper right play field even accessible, I think that's one of the reasons why I have that impression of, oh, it's not getting used. Yeah, and then I look over at the child, and I'm like, oh, shit, like half the play field isn't really getting used. Yeah, the child didn't matter at all to me, even on the premium LE. Like the magnet there, it's always cool to see a magnet grab a ball, but like gameplay-wise, it didn't really alter or change anything to me. It just doesn't seem like, I mean, they're rollover lanes that are taking up way too much real estate. I mean, that's – and on the pro, it's like you can't even see them. I mean, it's – I don't know. You can't see them on the LE either. That was no different.
    86:44
    Yeah, I don't know. They're interesting. It's basically, instead of being the pop bumpers for the random awards, it's the rollover lanes on this one. Yeah. So it's kind of – it's still like a weird Dwight integration of the rollovers. I don't know how you're getting your bonus X multipliers on this game still because I've had a couple times where I've gotten really big multipliers I don't know if it has to do with the child lanes or if it has to do with the hunter or the Boba Fett stand-ups so I'm not sure where those are coming from I do like the best guard overall I'm happy with it and as far as location game goes it's been doing well for me my diverger hasn't broken somehow which is amazing my left ramp did break like on day one though stern got me my replacement last week finally uh so that's nice and like i said stern like you know give stern crap or whatever you know stuff but the reality is they we've said before they produce things really fast and they tend to take care of you like when things break they tend to get yes i have i've had the same experience with my uh yeah like my avengers i my my stranger dr strange disc was having issues and they sent me a new one and they were really responsive. I will say that. My Jurassic Park has had an issue really for a long time where like occasionally the GI on my lower left side of the play field will cut out. And when it does that, my flipper loses power for a second.
    88:08
    And it's one of those things where it could rarely happen and now it's become like where it's happening more. I sent them video last week and they're replying with me and having me try different things. I actually need to get back down there tomorrow and test out the next thing they told me. But they're doing a good job as opposed to, like, I don't know, Deep Roots customer service, which is weird because, like, right now you can't contact them via Facebook or their LinkedIn page. It's almost like they're trying to disappear. But, yeah. So thanks, Stern, for your great customer support and actually existing as a company that makes things and helps their customers out. So speaking of Stern and Stern being in the news.
    88:45
    Oh, it's on the Ocho right now, I think. Oh, yeah, if you're watching ESPN right now, you can watch pinball, which is kind of cool.
    88:54
    Yeah. But this week, Steve Ritchie has left Stern Pinball and is now working at Jersey Jack Pinball.
    89:04
    Yeah, that's a big deal. He's been at Stern for, like, close to 20 years, I think. Yes. Now, I will say, like, I like Steve because he's always – he's spoken his mind. So it will be interesting to see if he comes out and talks about this separation because I think it was after Spider-Man he left. Is that right?
    89:28
    I can't remember if he left or if, like – I think he designed Spider-Man. There's a few games where he was, like, on contract essentially. Okay. But I feel like at some point he was employed by Stern and then there was a separation, and he was kind of vocal about his displeasure with them. Am I wrong about that? Yeah, I believe that. I'm pretty sure that that happened. I've only been around like 10 years now, so that's like pre-my involvement, but I do remember there being some – like I feel like Spider-Man was designed – because I know that he had special Spider-Man side armor that had spiderwebs in it. Those were like Steve Ritchie's design. They were a product you could buy from him, not Stern. Yeah, I think it was right around the Spider-Man time that they had a falling out.
    90:10
    That was when Stern was doing pretty bad. I think Borg was like their only contract designer at one point. And like Lawler did Monopoly, but that was an out-of-house product that Lawler designed. Yeah, it was like Pat Lawler designed. Yeah, I think that's how Spider-Man was with Steve Ritchie. Or maybe that was when he first got brought back. But there was something he did for them that was like that. What was the game? What did Steve Ritchie design after Spider-Man? Was it Game of Thrones? I'm looking it up right now. Spider-Man, and then it was, I'm trying to think of games that were made. You had CSI.
    90:53
    Oh, yeah, he's on one of those, and Lawler's on one of those. He did 24, and Lawler did CSI. Oh, that's right, 24. Okay, so we have 2003, we have Terminator 3 with Star Trek. 2004, we had Elvis. 2006, World Poker. 2007, Spider-Man. 2009, 24. 2012, ACDC. And then Star Trek, Star Game of Thrones, Star Wars, Black Knight, Star Led Zeppelin. Wow. And that's Steve Ritchie since 2003. And now Steve has left, and he is now at Jersey Jack Pinball.
    91:37
    He is. Yeah. Obviously, I think the big thing everyone's talked about already is the bigger production budgets at Jersey Jack Pinball because of their higher prices. Right. They allow their designers to throw more in the games. That's the largest thing I've heard.
    91:54
    Obviously, eventually, at some point, I hope Steve comes out and does tell the story. or, you know, if he wants to. If not, I don't really care, honestly. But it would be interesting to know what the main reason was.
    92:05
    But I know typically his designs seem to take longer than some of the other designers at CERN. So I'm wondering if that production cycle just works better for him over at JGP where he gets maybe two to three years to design a game versus, like, oh, when's that game come out every year? Borg typically has a game out every year. for the brief time Trudeau was there. He was having a game every year. I'm trying to think who else they have on design. But, yeah, some other people seem to work a little faster than perhaps Richie did. So Stern still has Borg, Eddie, Gomez, Alwain. Oh, yeah.
    92:42
    Yeah, that's four. I mean, if you're releasing four games a year or three Cornerstone titles a year, like that's plenty of designers. And you have Kapow, right? You still have Kapow. Kapow, who sneaks in for a game every couple years. Yeah, because Batman and Elvira were probably, what, three years apart?
    92:57
    Yeah. Yeah, I think it's – It's just hard to say. And then, so the other word is that Lyman is left, right? So that – is that official or is that still kind of – we don't know what's going on. That's not official. Okay. I was told that rumor almost six weeks ago. Yeah.
    93:16
    I was told where he's working, and I know somebody who works there, and I asked them directly, and they showed me the payroll that he's not on it. So part of what I heard, at least, wasn't true. But I do seem to, what's it, whether there's smoke, there's fire, right? I think there's something to do with that. And I think with Lyman, Lyman's one of those ones who continues to work on games for years and is known for having a slower development style, a lot of depth. And I'm wondering if Stern has just moved to, like, I mean, they are very consistent in cranking out three to four games a year. Nobody else is even close to that. so maybe he wants more time to work on his things, or maybe he just wants less work. I don't know how old Steve is, but he can't be real far from retirement age, right? Right, yeah. Just realistically, and I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but I just wonder if they're financially able,
    94:06
    I think retirement's the goal for most of us. I don't think we all want to work our entire lives. So maybe they want something slower for the last few years where they can really dedicate. If these are going to be their last however many games, they really want to put more time and effort into it to make them what they envision.
    94:24
    I mean, there's lots of possibilities. Who knows? But, yeah, that's interesting because I know back in the day him and Lawler were known for not getting along well. And I thought it was interesting to see them in a picture together. Yeah, that was interesting. I know they were very rivals, very much so.
    94:41
    I think that's very interesting to me, though, because, you know, I think we, with age, tend to mellow out as humans, and maybe you realize, like, your enemy was someone who could teach you something or you could teach them something. No, no, Taylor says no. I'm almost 50, and I've just learned that, like, you just – I thought you were going on 60. Oh, fuck off. No, I'm almost 50, and I have learned that those people that you have, like, seething hatred for, that doesn't subside. Like once you have that seething hatred, you just continue. You just keep it.
    95:20
    And it just fuels you and makes you bitter and vengeful and – okay, sorry about that. Sorry. All right. Well, we have talked for a while. I'm trying to think like what else. So I want to say that I've heard rumors of a game being made that I'm excited about, Godzilla.
    95:48
    I don't know if that's happening. I've also heard rumors, and I'm very excited as well. I suspect a fall, maybe post-Expo release, but I don't know anything. Yeah, I need to. If somebody's got any information on that, if they want to reach out to me, I would like that. I'd appreciate that. If you're a distributor that sells pinball machines for Stern Pinball and you want to reach out to me to tell me about something about that, hit me up.
    96:19
    Yeah, I already have the Sega Godzilla, and it's not a popular game at my location, but it's one of my favorite games.
    96:28
    And I would love to stick a Godzilla next to a Godzilla. Well, I have three Keith Elwin games behind me, and I would like a four. Yeah, if the rumors are true and it isn't Elwin, it's going to be very hard to pass up because, I mean, Elwin hits all the right check marks, man. Are you still digging Avengers now? I know you've had some mechanical issues. So, yeah, so I had a mechanical issue with my Doctor Strange spinner. Actually, I fixed the one I had. Well, I hacked it or whatever, but so that's working. I really like the game. I mean, it's like – one of the things I think is interesting about what Elwin has done is his games just play differently to me.
    97:15
    I'm trying to think. They just play so different. Like, I don't necessarily feel like I'm playing the same designer's games. so I know that he is blacklisted and he's not odd to mention but that was what I loved about Trudeau games was his layouts did not feel like you were playing a game by the same designer every designer was drastically different that's what always appealed to me now Elwynn seems to be doing the same thing but with greater rules and it's super addictive I think that's a big thing I really like the way Avengers shoots. I think the layout is great. The rules, to me, are still... So Jurassic Park is maybe my favorite game. Tommy just texted me. I have to check the text. Oh. So Jurassic Park, for me is probably my favorite game. I enjoy the way that you have so many different ways that you can approach the game. Like you can step up to it and you can go for visitor center. You can, you know, try to get your perfect paddocks. But not getting a perfect paddock does not stop you from progressing in the game. Like you don't even have to catch the dinosaur. But there's just so many different ways to approach how you play Jurassic Park that I think may make it my favorite rule set that I've played um and I think Avengers is just it's just not there for the rules for me because I feel like you I don't know I feel like the gameplay like the first I feel like a lot of the like when you step up you always have the same objectives so it's like you know you certainly have different modes you can play but it's still like oh you want to collect the characters you can get to your first like you can get to the soul gem so it's like you know that you need to get there first and on Jurassic Park you could there's just a there's just a ton of different avenues so I really like Avengers like it's not going anywhere I've started playing Jurassic Park again because our friend Don from the Pinball Podcast, he has the Jurassic Park now. So I started playing that because we were chatting about it. And I love Jurassic Park. I still think Jurassic Park is my favorite. I think Maiden is the best shooter. I think Jurassic Park is the best game. And I like almost everything about Avengers. It's a tough game. I would put Avengers. Well, it is tough. And that's one of the things that I really like about it is that I feel like the ramp shots especially it's like they're makeable, but they're not as easily makeable as like elements in Jurassic Park or Iron Maiden. You know what I mean? Like they're so far back. It takes a good shot. Yeah, absolutely. I think that I would put Avengers above Maiden. Like I would go Jurassic Park, Avengers and Maiden. I still think Maiden just shoots so well. But bottom line, they're all really good. They're all really good, and they will look great with the Godzilla next to it. They would. Supposedly, the room right here has some crazy mechanism, which I'm guessing is going to be premium LEs only, I'm sure. But I'm intrigued. All right. All right, man.
    100:48
    So that's probably it for our episode. Yeah, that works for me, man. You go back to school next week. Yep, I go to work at the bar in like two hours. Same thing tomorrow and sleep all day Sunday. Monday I go back to school. I am going to do my best to get back to Escape Nublar.
    101:11
    That is my – I've gone to Escape Nublar through, like, regular gameplay, I think three times now at Jurassic Park. And I think that that's going to be my – that's my assignment for myself. well a couple thousand more plays in the game and i'm sure you'll get there i don't even want to look at the audits uh man so uh friend of the show aj what he was posting about some audits on a medieval madness remake what was like seven thousand plays or something like that i mean that's a lot of plays like that and it was a home use game that's the only game so So if you have a game, if you own games at your home, look at your games and let us know what your highest audit is, total games played on whatever your home use only game is. I really want to see like what a typical person puts up. Yeah, my location games have less than your home games. Are you serious? But Dressley Park, I've had literally twice as long as you, and my plays are almost at half of what yours are.
    102:26
    Yeah. I don't know. Like, you play a lot of pinball, man. Oh, another news thing. Wait, where's Dennis Norbin? He's working at CGC now. He is with American Pinball. He's at American Pinball. Yeah, American Pinball has a game coming soon. It should be at Expo. Quick rundown. Super. This is our new segment that we'll probably only do one time.
    102:46
    Okay, so American Pinball. Do we have any news on a new game? We know Dennis Nordman's there. New game? They have a new game. I've been told it'll be at Expo. It's something I'm excited for. Original theme, not a licensed theme. But you think you know what it is, and you're just not telling me? Yeah, I'll tell you later, but I don't know. American Pinball, I haven't put it out there publicly, so I don't want to. Okay. And then there's a pinball company in Australia, Home Pin. Haggis? Well, Home Pin is doing 7-Eleven apparently. They're in China. Oh, they're in China. China, man. Apparently they're doing 7-Eleven, which I don't know that that makes any sense. We'll move on from them. I hadn't even heard about that one. Haggis Pinball is Fathom. CGC, the rumor is Cactus Canyon, continued. And then a original title. I'm not sure what that is.
    103:39
    Yeah. And then we know Spooky has Halloween and Ultraman. That covers them for the next two years. Stern, we think, has Godzilla, and they – I'm not sure what else. Maybe James Bond. Supposedly that's Steve Ritchie's last game before he left. And then Deep Root has No Way to Contact Them. Good luck. Yeah, if you sent money to Deep Root, now might be a good time to find out what your money is at. Tommy, man, it was good to talk to you. You too, man. Good to catch up. We'll do this again soon, now that I'm not driving around all the time. Summer schedules, hectic for me, back to school year, and I'm on like a normal human working thing. If you come across a Walking Dead, hit me up. Or if you have information about Godzilla, hit me up. Yeah, and if you want to buy a crazy nice Voltron, hit me up. And if you want to buy This Flippin' Podcast t-shirts, you can go to pinballswag.com. Is that right? Did I make that up? Silver Ball Swag. There's a shop. It's Silver Ball Swag, This Flippin' Podcast slash North End Pub. We've just got kind of like our logo on a few different things. And I've been having some different shirts designed for my location. So if you want to support either of those, go right ahead. So if you are looking to add some pinball art to your basement arcade or your wherever, check out Tilt Cycle, obviously. Also, there's a skateboard deck out for creature skateboards by a guy, a local artist to me. I think it's Jim Callahan. He did one. It's the Lar Ball deck. I got one. Oh, Tommy's got one. I have one. But I know a lot of people have picked him up, but it's really great. I didn't know it was a local artist. Yeah, he's local to me. It's Barf Comics on Instagram. I had to order it from some Canadian website. It's the only place I could find it. It is. So, yeah, so they were released, and then they kept, like, restocking places, and it seems kind of like that stock is running out, so you might have to search a little bit for it, but it's Creature Pinball. But check it out. If you go to Barf Comics or you go to Creature Skateboards, not Creature Pinball, If you go to Creature Skateboards, you'll see it, but, like, basically the underside is, like, a playfield layout, and then actually the top side of the deck actually has a cool graphic as well. But, yeah, so check that out, and, yeah, we'll talk to you later. And, yeah, be safe and keep each other safe. Get vaccinated. Wear a mask. Do what you can do to stop the spread of the pandemic. Don't be a dickhead. Don't be an ass. And got anything else, Ed? No, man, don't be an ass. That's a good one. I like that. We're done with that. All right, Tommy. I'll talk to you later, man. Bye.
    106:55
    No wonder who's gonna tell us When all that is true to be true It was no reason to put a watch on Because of the last magic we did It's a takeover, yeah
    107:25
    Thank you. You got a whip You got a target On that right Metal Tiger Thank you. Thank you for watching.