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#46 Space Riders (Atari) - The Classic Pinball Podcast

The Classic Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 22m·analyzed·Feb 8, 2021
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Dr. Dave interviews father-son pinball enthusiasts about restoring a 1978 Atari Space Riders and classic game appreciation.

Summary

The Classic Pinball Podcast features Dr. Dave interviewing Scott and his 11-year-old son Griffin from northern New York about their pinball collection and restoration work. The episode focuses on their recently restored 1978 Atari Space Riders machine, restoration techniques for classic games, and Griffin's passion for vintage pinball from the 1960s-80s era, particularly Gottlieb electromechanical machines.

Key Claims

  • Space Riders was designed by a person who also designed Neutron Star and other games, but the designer's name is not immediately recalled

    medium confidence · Dr. Dave discussing Space Riders designer and other works in conversation with Scott and Griffin

  • George Opperman was the primary artist hired by Atari to do artwork for video games and cabinet designs

    high confidence · Griffin found this information in books and is described as a big fan of Opperman's artwork

  • When manufacturers transitioned from electromechanical to solid state pinball in the mid-1970s, they added stepper units to solid state games to bridge the gap and make players feel machines were still mechanically dynamic

    medium confidence · Dr. Dave explaining historical manufacturing practice, cites Hot Tip as example, mentions Williams and Gottlieb but uncertain on specific titles

  • Steve Sharlin (now deceased) was a notable Gottlieb expert who helped diagnose and repair vintage Gottlieb machines and shared extensive knowledge with the community

    high confidence · Scott describing how Steve Sharlin diagnosed a lamp issue on an Alien Star using remote troubleshooting

  • The talking voice was an optional upgrade on Gorgar costing around $70-$100, and some machines were sold without this feature

    high confidence · Dr. Dave describing a Gorgar restoration where the voice option was not purchased by the original owner

  • Williams developed lane change mechanics first, before other manufacturers adopted the feature

    medium confidence · Dr. Dave discussing Firepower and Blackout as games featuring lane change, noting someone made a hack to add lane change to Gorgar

  • Pinball PCB offers a combo soundboard aftermarket replacement for Blackout for approximately $125

    medium confidence · Dr. Dave mentioning this as an option for Scott's non-functioning Blackout soundboard

  • Novus 2 polish is effective for playfield plastics, cabinets, and general cleaning, available at bulk pricing ($5 per bottle in some orders)

Notable Quotes

  • “It's a piece of art and I'm stunned that we got it working because there's very few people that are around still that know this pin and the circuitry.”

    Scott @ mid-episode — Highlights the rarity of technical expertise for Atari pinball machines and the challenge of restoring obscure hardware

  • “Tell me what's in, oh, I don't know, transistor Q14... it's empty. He goes, ah, somebody desoddered it and cannibalized it and put it somewhere else. Go get yourself a four cent resistor.”

    Scott (recounting Steve Sharlin's diagnosis) @ early episode — Demonstrates the practical problem-solving and generous knowledge-sharing culture in the pinball community

  • “I'm like the carpenter whose house is falling apart, but the customer's houses are awesome.”

    Dr. Dave @ mid-episode — Humorous observation about the common situation of restoration professionals having extensive personal projects backlog

  • “Griffin will not let me plug anything in until it's perfect.”

    Scott @ mid-episode — Shows Griffin's meticulous approach to game restoration and his influence on the father's standards

  • “I like the lights and how the play field was designed... I go from 60s to 80s, from machines like Dancing Dolls from 1960 to Gottlieb's Black Hole in 1981.”

    Griffin @ mid-episode — Demonstrates an 11-year-old collector's sophisticated knowledge of pinball history and design evolution

  • “An EM game is a fantastic game to play if it's all strong and working well.”

    Dr. Dave @ late episode — Emphasizes the importance of proper restoration in showcasing the actual gameplay quality of classic machines

  • “He's good at playfield plastics. He can buff and clean a playfield of plastic like nobody's business.”

    Scott (describing Griffin) @ mid-episode — Shows Griffin's specialized skills in cosmetic restoration at a young age

  • “They put stepper units inside the first solid state games that would actually just work in conjunction to make those sounds inside the game. So people would feel they bridge over to the new technology.”

Entities

ScottpersonGriffinpersonDr. DavepersonSteve SharlinpersonGeorge OppermanpersonMike ThomaspersonSteve ArpinopersonSpace Ridersgame

Signals

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Atari pinball restoration requires specialized expertise concentrated in small geographic regions (California); Scott connected via referral chain to Mike Thomas for circuit board troubleshooting

    high · Steve Arpino referred Scott to Mike Thomas in Southern California; Mike Thomas provided extensive remote technical support via email for IC chip diagnosis

  • ?

    community_signal: Young generation (age 11) entering pinball hobby with sophisticated historical knowledge and restoration skills, driven by YouTube content and family participation

    high · Griffin watches YouTube pinball gameplay, knows pinball history dating to 1960s, has memorized manufacturer dates and titles, demonstrates advanced restoration skills (playfield plastic restoration, board troubleshooting)

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Playfield protectors (clear overlay products) emerging as alternative to traditional restoration methods for managing cupped inserts and playfield wear

    medium · Dr. Dave describing playfield protector application as budget-friendly alternative to full clearcoat restoration; used to level cupped inserts and protect touch-up work

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Specific restoration material preferences emerging: Novus 2 polish for playfield/cabinet cleaning (used in bulk quantities), white Elmer's glue preferred over epoxy for insert reinstallation

    high · Griffin and Dr. Dave both using Novus 2 extensively; Dr. Dave now buys by the gallon; white glue preferred because epoxy causes hydrophobic lifting of inserts

  • ?

    product_concern: Gottlieb soundboards showing age-related failures requiring replacement or troubleshooting; aftermarket combo soundboards available from Pinball PCB (~$125)

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.246

0:00
🎵 Hello everyone, and welcome to the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is David, also known as Dr. Dave. And today we have a special guest segment featuring Scott and his 11-year-old son Griffin, who seems to be our youngest fan. Scott reached out to me several months back saying he and his son love our podcast and are big fans of my Dr. Day's Pinball Restorations YouTube channel. Griffin has watched most of my restoration vids and listened to many of our podcasts. Scott and Griffin have grown a collection of four pinball machines that they love playing and working on together. Griffin knows the dates of manufacturer, titles, and artists rivaling pinball fans many years his senior. They, like me, enjoy bringing these old school classics back to like new condition before they play their machines It is great to see a new generation breathing life into our beloved mechanical marbles Today we have special guests up in from northern New York Scott and Griffin, who have been pinball fans for a while They have a nice little collection and they work on the games themselves as a father-son team They've been listening to the podcast and they're fans of my Dr. Dave Pimmo Restoration's YouTube videos they have out there. They reached out to me a little while back because they had an Atari Space Riders game and we started chatting about that. Welcome, guys. Yeah, thank you. Welcome. So, Scott, you were saying about how you got started in this. You had a Flight 2000 and what other games?
2:16
I had a Flight 2000. I had a Firepower. I had an Alien Star, which was one of my hot list picks. That was tough to find, but it suddenly appeared, and I drove, I think, about 600 miles to get it. Wow. Nice.
2:33
But the first three were the Embryon, because I always liked a wide body, the Flight 2000 from Stern, and the Alien Star is where I started way back when. This is 20-plus years ago.
2:46

high confidence · Griffin and Dr. Dave discussing their use of Novus 2; they go through it rapidly (by the gallon)

  • Gottlieb drop target assemblies are complex engineering requiring significant time to rebuild (initially 4+ hours, reduced to 30 minutes to 1 hour with experience)

    high confidence · Dr. Dave describing personal experience rebuilding Gottlieb drop target assemblies with detailed spring mechanisms

  • Mike Thomas from Southern California is a recognized Atari pinball expert who provides troubleshooting consultation via email

    high confidence · Scott describing how Mike Thomas provided extensive summer-long support for diagnosing Space Riders circuit board issues

    • Dr. Dave @ mid-episode — Historical insight into manufacturer strategy during the EM-to-solid-state transition period

    Firepower
    game
    Blackoutgame
    Gorgargame
    Flight 2000game
    Alien Stargame
    Big Shotgame
    Eldoradogame
    Paragongame
    Funlandgame
    Neutron Stargame
    Black Holegame
    Dancing Dollsgame
    Pacific Pinball Expoevent
    The Classic Pinball Podcastorganization
    Pinball PCBcompany

    high · Scott's 1980 Blackout has non-functional soundboard; Dr. Dave cites Pinball PCB as source for combo soundboard replacements

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Father-son restoration team and Dr. Dave strongly prefer original component restoration over modern modifications (e.g., avoiding LED retrofits, maintaining original drop targets)

    high · Scott: 'We like things original.' Griffin on LEDs: 'it looks bad' on older games. Both avoid LED installation and drop target mods on classic machines

  • ?

    design_innovation: Manufacturers added stepper units to early solid-state games (mid-1970s) to replicate electromechanical feel and ease player transition from EM to SS technology

    medium · Dr. Dave explaining that Williams and Gottlieb added stepper units to early solid-state machines; Hot Tip cited as example, though specific title confirmation uncertain

  • $

    market_signal: Younger collector (Griffin, age 11) gravitating toward 1960s-80s electromechanical and early solid-state games rather than modern machines; appreciates drop targets and mechanical elements over ramps/LEDs

    high · Griffin's top three favorites all pre-1981 (Big Shot 1974, Eldorado 1975, Firepower 1980s); prefers mechanical elements and EM 'buzz'; watches 1960-1981 games on YouTube

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Death of Steve Sharlin represents loss of specialized Gottlieb technical expertise; few people remaining with deep circuit knowledge for vintage Gottlieb/Atari machines

    high · Dr. Dave: 'I'm stunned that we got it working because there's very few people that are around still that know this pin and the circuitry.' Steve Sharlin noted as deceased expert who helped diagnose issues remotely

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Gottlieb drop target assemblies are mechanically complex requiring specialized knowledge; initial rebuild time 4+ hours, reduced to 30min-1hr with experience; online tutorials available

    high · Dr. Dave describing extensive rebuilding experience with Gottlieb drop targets; initial 4-hour rebuild time improved through practice; mentions online video available

  • ?

    content_signal: Podcast hosts recruiting engaged listeners as guests; Scott and Griffin reached out after months of listening to establish relationship before appearing on episode

    high · Scott: 'reached out to me several months back saying he and his son love our podcast and are big fans of my Dr. Day's Pinball Restorations YouTube channel'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Growing collections requiring distributed storage solutions; Scott expanding from game room to basement workshop to off-site heated storage across the street

    high · Scott: 'over here I have all my workshop in my heated basement, and I got them up in my game room here, and I got some across the street in heated storage as well'

    • Alien Star, fun game. never owned it but a friend of mine did and uh that's that's a nice little table i like all of that i have a flight 2000 myself it's a great game uh all the stern talk the uh the clear posts in that really made it for me i had i had lighted some of those from underneath just uh as a mod and wow the machine really popped but the clear posts really made it and it had a really nice sound package for at the time you know pinball was sort of kind of phasing out and you know they We were trying to save a few bucks here and there, but it still was really fun to play. That's the Alien Star, right? Yes. Yeah.
    3:24
    There's a guy, I think Steve Sharland was the guy's name. He passed recently, but he was a big Gottlieb guru of that kind of generation of games, and I met him out in California at Pacific Pinball Expo years ago, and he had an Alien Star out there along with some other Gottliebs in a lineup. And this really, if you check out online sometime, Pacific Pinball Expo from a couple years ago, they did a nice setup of, I think, a couple hundred games and a big, huge room with like the lighting was just Christmas tree lights hanging down. So nice atmosphere. But he had an alien star. Speaking of lighted posts, he had an alien star with with lighted post LED underneath the posts. and they would anytime the kicker would kick it would make them kind of flash it so they'd be on but then they'd flash like even so almost like a lightning strike every time a kicker would kick so it's a nice little mod he did it's amazing you mentioned steve charlotte and i'm so sorry to hear that he had passed is that alien star someone had given me a phone number from a guy in california it just was said steve on it just from you know the the internet and just people that i talked to he actually helped me find out why the far right drain out lane lamp would not light. And it turned out, and I didn't know Gottlieb very well. And I called him and that was Steve Sharlin. And he helped me diagnose it. I pulled the back open. He said, tell me, this is how awesome this guy was. Tell me what's in, oh, I don't know, transistor Q14. and I said, it's empty. He goes, ah, somebody desoddered it and cannibalized it and put it somewhere else. They needed a resistor and they took it out of there. And he said, go get yourself a four cent resistor. I soldered it in there and it worked. And it was Steve-O, good guy. Sweet, yeah, really good guy. A lot of good guys in the pinball biz, in the pinball hobby. Yeah, a lot of good guys. People help each other a lot. We share the wealth with ideas and how to fix things and best practices and so forth. And it's been, I've learned a lot over the past 30 years doing it and I'm constantly learning and improving my, you know, what I do.
    5:38
    But yeah, Steve, great guy. I talked to him for a while, way back when. So right, I was looking at your, at the Space Riders pin, because typically the Atari pins from that timeframe, you know, Superman was the go-to game. Everyone loves Superman. and I have one actually have a couple of them but the uh the other ones got I don't know kind of poo-pooed they didn't really care for them they didn't really do that well in location they didn't really I don't know what happened to them they didn't maybe didn't last of all the boards or whatever but uh and that's why a lot of them in great shape and I was looking up your space riders and look like uh it has quite a following a lot of people like that game the um the guy that designed it um i don't have him off offhand here the guy's name but he did uh neutron star he also did uh which is a great they only made i think one of those yeah and it's a regular size uh pin not a wide body i actually got to play it out in california and it was a fun game it's a whitewood um the other rare one is uh the roadrunner you know like uh bunny roadrunner yeah that's a fun I played that one too. That's a blast to play. If you go around the outer end, you go beep, beep, you know, just from the road runner. But yeah, he, that guy who made space where he's made a lot of cool games, I think middle earth neutron star, maybe one other one, but but space riders, that looks like a fun table.
    7:06
    It's a, it's a great game. And Griffin actually was looking at some of the books that I have. And we found out that George Opperman, who's the artist that was really hired by Atari to do almost everything from video games to, you know, their cabinet artwork and that kind of thing.
    7:25
    He's a big, Griffin is a huge fan of that artwork. He's got a couple of favorites, but that's what really caught my eye when I was looking. It is not a fast table by any means. It's got a lot of real estate. It's a wide body. The graphics are fantastic. Yes. from from what i understand the people that put it together were outstanding heavily technical people and they didn't really have a steve richie kind of guy coming in all the time going all right well here's what you need to do with the shot so the ball kind of plods along but it's a piece of art and it's i'm stunned that we got it working because there's very few people that are around still that know this pin and the circuitry. And you found some guys out in California who knew about Atari pins, because that's where he came from anyway, California. So you found some people that could help you with it, with fixing the board and what chips you needed and that kind of thing? Yeah, that's right. Actually, the gentleman that I bought it from, his name was Steve Arpino. He lives just outside of Syracuse. He's pretty well known in the Northeast for pinball. and he um he said you know i got a couple of names you might want to try a few so the gentleman's name was mike thomas he lives in southern california i called him and he was gracious enough to lend his time most of the summer most of august i had him on the hook for this and that and emails and all of this and he taught me a lot about um troubleshooting ic chips on a board with just a simple multimeter. It didn't have a logic probe or any of that stuff. Managed to find six or seven bad ones, and I'll tell you, after replacing those, it lit up like 80% of it came back, and then a few odds and ends later, it's running. We had to clean the display glass and the contacts there, but it's unbelievable. It's 100% now. Wow. And those board edge connectors just kind of cleaned us up a little bit with a fiberglass pen or something like that, or would you do it with the board edge connectors? Are they a problem at all? Yeah, I needed to buff them a little bit, but Griffin helped me with the sandpaper a little bit, a very mild sandpaper. I also re-tinned every one of them, which helped to give a little more bite on the contact board that would connect to it. We're going to talk about the rule sets, how the game works. So first up, we have bike, B-I-K-E. You can spell it.
    9:54
    You get 1,000 points. So why don't we fire up a game. Do you have one of those quarters? Mm-hmm. And we'll just see how it works. Yeah. Upon starting a game, first up, show zero. There are four players. And it should show ball one, credit zero. So we have no credits other than the quarter we put in. So the ball was loaded. It gets fired. And okay, now we're at the top. So when you come in to the, I guess, play field, you got B-I-K-E, bike.
    10:33
    And when you spell bike, that gives you two times your bonus. So the end of ball bonus is now doubled. So all score is doubled. Okay, great. What about the top rollovers there? Those are star rollovers. They give you 50 points. And 500 points when lit. So 500 and 500, so now we're at 6,000. And every time you hit one after that, it's 50 cents. Or 50 cents.
    11:03
    Moving down, we have more star rollovers. 50 points, 500 when lit. We also have two holes on the sides. So how do you get an extra ball? So let's move down here. This is actually how you get it. So these are left saucer, right saucer. They're worth $5,000 when the ball hits it. However, they could be worth extra ball or special depending on what you do with the drop target. So explain how that works. So we have three sections. We have three messenger balls with three guard targets.
    11:43
    So when you hit one, there will be a place where the ball can hit the rubber, and there's a stand-up target in there with a red light. When you hit that... So go ahead and hit that.
    11:59
    All right, so now the red light went off, so it's getting ready. And then if you do it here, let's do it again, and just give it a tap there. You can use your finger again. And then we did this one, so let's do that one.
    12:14
    And then... Okay, so all three of those are down, and now we have a special that's lit. Also, when you hit the kickers, they switch to each side. So go ahead and do that. It should kick.
    12:32
    And it keeps going back and forth. And then when you get the ball, you get an extra ball. Actually, this wasn't an extra ball. That gave you 100,000 because the special is set for 100,000. All right, so this is how we get an extra ball. We hit all three drop targets.
    12:54
    That lights extra ball. Excellent. Same player shoots again. So if that's the extra ball, how do we get special? And what is the special? So we do the same thing. We hit all three drop targets.
    13:12
    Now you send all three messenger balls up. So not only do we have to hit all the targets down in the same ball, but we have to hit all three messenger balls to get special. Yes. And what does special give us? It will give us 100,000 points. Let's see.
    13:34
    I'll be darned. It does. Okay, so excellent. Let's keep going. What else do we have? Well, we have two spinners on the side that give you 1,000 when lit. And we light those by just hitting the target next to it, I believe. Yep. And if you hit this one, this one, that lights up.
    13:57
    And those are all worth $1,000 as well. Nice. Moving down, we have the score area with all your score. End of ball bonus. There's the double, and that you get from spelling either bike or city. If you do bike and city, it's triple, and this counts three times three. Here, let's do bike.
    14:22
    That light's double. Let's do city. That gives us 3x. Wow. So at the end of the ball, when the ball drains... And there's the special we got from earlier.
    14:42
    Nice. Wow. Okay. That's pretty simple. Yeah, that's essentially the gameplay. Pretty simple, but very colorful.
    14:53
    I want to hear what Griffin's take is on all this. So what floats your boat in the pinball world, Griffin? How did you, that your dad got you into this, and now you have certain favorites that you like, and I guess you like the art of the Atari pin? Yeah. Well, what really got me into pinball was just watching them being played by other people on YouTube.
    15:15
    And it just really got me into the feeling to start playing. I like the lights and how the play field was designed.
    15:25
    Okay. What were you watching at first? What kind of games were you watching on YouTube? Well, I go from 60s to 80s. from machines like Dancing Dolls from 1960 to Gottlieb's Black Hole in 1981. Yeah.
    15:46
    Nice. So was your father influenced on the old school like that versus like, because usually a lot of younger people like the new school stuff with all the ramps and lights and all that stuff. Was your father kind of influenced on the old school artwork, or is that kind of just you found it? um i think he's kind of in the middle of 60s and 80s okay actually i was surprised um that griffin is a really big fan of the ems yeah he likes that that that buzz of the of the coil he likes um uh the sound the reset that score motor, he can mimic it just with his, just singing it. He can click it out with a pencil, tapping it on the table. That's great. It's called the EM dance. You know, it's great because you actually can, when you have the hands on the game, you actually can feel the game actually doing things. You know, in fact, there's a little factoid here. When they went from EM to solid state in the mid seventies, they were afraid the manufacturers that people would not want to adopt into the solid state thing. And there's not as much moving stuff going on like an EM. So they put stepper units inside the first solid state games that would actually just work in conjunction to make those sounds inside the game. So people would feel they bridge over to the new technology.
    17:14
    Wow. Didn't know that. Nope. Any, any titles we could, I'd like to read on that. I don't know like early on like a hot tip type of thing when they first yeah like yeah like hot tip exactly like the first say like the first Williams game probably like yeah probably Williams games I think did it that's you're probably right any kind of game I think Williams and Gottlieb did it I'm not sure if Bally did it but I know Williams and Gottlieb did but I'm not sure which title it was I just know I read about it but hot tip could be one of them yeah Griffin is um is a big EM fan I kind of like the early 80s because that's where when I was a teenager uh firepower and all of those were at the bowling alley flash Gorgar everybody flipped when Gorgar could say seven words and oh yeah it was all new now it's like oh my god this is so archaic but right so much fun to play did you see the latest podcast I had on Gorgar or had the one that didn't speak at all?
    18:19
    Yeah, podcast. It was either podcast or maybe I did it, no, I did the podcast and I did a YouTube video on it.
    18:26
    No, we didn't see it yet. Okay. So this one here, I had a Gorgar to restore for a person out in Western Mass and he had it since a kid and when I had it all good to go and done, it didn't have any voice and come to find out that the voice was an option back in the day. I think it was 70 bucks or something like that, under $100 for the option. And the person who bought the game decided they didn't need the voice. So this game didn't talk. A Gorgar that didn't talk, which is, I've never seen that before. So it was an option that didn't go for. But he was happy with that, with a non-talking Gorgar.
    19:09
    But yeah, I've had a couple of Gorgars in here. I've restored maybe four or five of them now. Popular game. I wonder if it has any collectability value. Everybody kind of likes a one-off or something different.
    19:22
    I don't know. Maybe a little bit, but I think people still want Gorar to talk, you know, in general. But I don't believe – there's not many Gorars that are like this. Even the brackets for the board, for the soundboard, is made for an old-school, previous-generation soundboard with no talking. So you have to get, if you want to, you can convert this game to a talker, but you need the brackets and something else to, to make it happen. You can buy a board for it or a couple of boards for it, but it would take a little bit of doing to get it done. And I guess you guys have a, you have a blackout as well. You just picked up a Williams blackout.
    19:59
    That's fine. Yep. 1980 condition red, right? Well, we don't have any sound yet, so we're not sure what the condition right now is. Oh.
    20:13
    I guess it is condition red then at this point. It is condition red right now, so we're working on it. Yeah, all the boards work except for the sound board.
    20:24
    Okay. So the whole game plays and everything just no sound Okay that good Once the when you turn it on cold we get about two or three digits and a few flickering Ten minutes later another digit comes up and then within 30 minutes all the plasma displays are lit and everything scores fine, and everything works. And the only thing is we don't have sound yet. So we're, I'm contemplating whether just to throw this thing as far as I can and watch it explode, the soundboard. Yep. Or, you know, keep shooting the parts cannon at it or what, you know? Well, they do make a combo soundboard for that aftermarket that you can get for, I think, a couple hundred bucks. If you ever wanted to, you just get that, throw it in, you'd be done. Or you keep packing at it, too. I think it's pinball PCB has them for a buck and a quarter. Yep. Yeah.
    21:20
    So that's an option. But that's a fun game. I own that game, too. I picked it up a while ago. Your ears is fully functional?
    21:30
    I picked it up sort of working, but I haven't gone through it yet. So I know it works very well. The sound works very well on it.
    21:40
    But I haven't done it with it because I have so many games on my own to do. I'm like the carpenter whose house is falling apart, but the customer's houses are awesome. You know?
    21:52
    Hey, dude. Yeah. Do you know how to fix cupped inserts on the play field? That's that's a tough one. Yeah, there's two ways you can go about it, especially if there's no writing on them. You can you can take them out. You can basically can heat up from the backside a little bit and kind of tap them out with a wooden dowel. And then you take them with some really fine sandpaper, wet sand them down and get them flat, which I've done that. you get a you know sand sand you get a nice and smooth and shiny again then you put them back in with some uh some white elmer's glue uh then you can level them or the other method which is a lot easier these days which is what i've been doing especially um people on a budget they don't want to get a whole clear coat job and everything else i do a playfield protector so have you guys heard of that playfield protector okay so the good thing about that is that when you when you clean the play field a magic racer and so forth and you touch up the play field um and you put this protector down it protects all your touch-ups and it serves to even out all the cupped inserts so it looks like a nice smooth sheet of glass on there takes for the cup inserts and you don't have to worry about it anymore what about raised inserts i got a couple of raised inserts i actually popped them out and i heated them up put them back in and they're still i think the plastic expanded. They're green arrows. All the time. Williams. Williams green arrows.
    23:28
    They're curved. They're almost like they're curved. The back end of the arrow is up and the tip is up. I'm like, how did this happen?
    23:36
    They made those they brought out the plate field so tight and they pounded them in that wood over time gets water in it and so forth and humidity and it kind of shrinks down and kind of pops them up. And so you can pound them back in, but they're going to pop up again. So what I'll do with that is I'll either get, I'll get brand new inserts if I want to, but the brand new inserts are a little different. They have ribs in them. So it's a different look. Or if you want to go keep the old stuff, I pop them out. I'll sand them down, like wet sand them down so that there's, you know, get rid of the cup. and then I will take a lot of times I'll actually take to the outside of that insert I'll sand that down as well I'll actually go to my bench grinder and grind down around a little bit a little at a time and try it grind it try it grind it until I get it so it fits in just right and not too tight and then it'll go in glue it in it won't pop up again but you have to get rid of some of the material either on the wood side or the plastic side yeah i tried that unfortunately i glued them back in and they came back up so now if i try to pop them up they're just going to break so i think i'm what kind of glue you use uh elmer's wood glue okay yeah it's a little that's a little i mean it works but it's a little strong so if you make a mistake like you said it's gonna hard time pop that's why i use the white glue because i just need it to be glued in good enough and not I don't need something so solid that a, you know, grill it can hit. It's not going to move, you know? So I learned a lesson in that because over the years I was using two part epoxy to glue stuff in. That was dumb because it has some kind of I want to say hydrophobic is the word, something with hydro in it. But basically what it is, it over, when it, when it hardens up, it winds up lifting up the insert when it hardens up with a two part epoxy I found. So now I don't use that anymore. I use the white, white glue. Gotcha.
    25:37
    A little tidbit. Good question. Do you guys like playing them more or working on them more or both? I think both.
    25:50
    Okay. So do you find when you get a game in, do you like to get it all restored up first and then play it, or do you just play it right away and then fix it after a while after you play it? Well, the thing is, when it's in really bad shape, we cannot play it. It just doesn't look too good at all, and we don't want to play it until it's 100% working. Yep.
    26:21
    Right on. That's what I do. The same thing. So I have so many games that are waiting to be done, but I don't enjoy them unless they're playing right.
    26:29
    Same way, right? Yeah, because you're not really getting the full experience of the game. And this is what happens a lot of times when you go to show pinball shows.
    26:37
    They'll put a game up there to get in free of the show. And it kind of works. And it's an older game, say an EM, and it plays dog slow and it's tired and the flippers are worn out. And people that play these games, they don't get a good impression of what an EM game can be. So that's why I like to, you know, as you, you know, get them all working well and they play strong and well. An EM game is a fantastic game to play if it's all strong and working well, as you know. yep that's uh that's that's a big thing with us we really like to finish it off and then enjoy it because like you said things are well things need to be repaired and if you let them go then you end up with more repairs later and especially play field you want to make sure that that's sealed and you know touched up and if it's got wear spots they're just going to get worse if you don't correct ball hop and things like that so yep Griffin will not let me plug anything in until it's perfect. Yeah, good.
    27:35
    So, Griffin, it's something you have some kind of an engineering mind. Do you like math and science and that kind of thing?
    27:44
    Well, I do like science. Okay. So, sort of like how things work and that kind of thing? Yeah. That makes sense.
    27:57
    He's good at playfield plastics. He can buff and clean a playfield of plastic like nobody's business. Oh, yeah?
    28:05
    What do you use? He's a big Novus 2 fan. Oh, me too. Novus 2 does it all. I get it by the gallon. We were scraping the last remnants of a six-year-old bottle and I said, all right, this is ridiculous. So we had a recent order and I said, all right, let's just add this. It's like $5. Let's just go get one.
    28:26
    Yeah, I go through it like water. Great for play fields, cabinets, plastics, everything. It's great stuff. The Novus 3, Novus 1, not so much, but Novus 2, that does it all. That little red bottle. Yep, little red bottle.
    28:45
    So tell me more about the games you own and what are your favorite side of them? There you go. It's hard to decide. They're all fun.
    28:58
    I think the winner will be Blackout because it does play, and I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with it, going to enjoy it a lot, and I think it's going to beat all of them.
    29:14
    Nice. Yeah, I consider that game kind of a sister game to Firepower. It's a little Firepower-esque. Yeah, Blackout was made right after Firepower.
    29:26
    Yep. and their cabinet artwork is very similar too. Yeah. The original colors were just like black, yellow and red.
    29:37
    Yep. And what I like about Firepower and Blackout is that they both have lane change. Yeah. Yep. Where you hit the right flipper and it changes the lights and you have to try to light them and then you get like two, three, four X.
    29:53
    Okay. Yeah, Williams decided, I think Williams came up with that first. and uh gorgar never had that there's a hack that someone did on it that they actually made it you can make gorgar into a lane change game but uh i've never done i read about it though but uh yeah they came up with that first the lane change yeah that's neat great game great colors on on blackout i can't wait to do mine at some point yeah so what so what are the games you got a fun Funland or Fun Park, you said? Yeah, we have a 1979 Bally Paragon. Yep, great game. A 1968 Gottlieb Funland.
    30:34
    And a 1978 Atari Space Riders. And now a Williams Blackout 1980. Are you guys running out of room yet? Or do you need to add more?
    30:47
    Yes, we are. Running out of room? Yeah, Griffin's not running out of room, but it's encroaching, let's put it that way. Okay.
    30:59
    Yeah, over here I have all my workshop in my heated basement, and I got them up in my game room here, and I got some across the street in heated storage as well. So busting at the seams, trying to keep them out of the kitchen and living room as best I can, but, you know. well it's tough to make pasta and play pinball in the kitchen at the same time it is yeah friend of mine years ago he actually had i think he got rid of his kitchen table to put three pinball machines in the kitchen wow there's a fan oh yeah it's a fan yeah he was not married at the time it was you know had his own apartment so he did what he wanted so that's what he did i think he then he put i think then he put two other machines in the living room as well in a small apartment up in Maine.
    31:51
    Griffin was telling me before we joined you what his top three games were. Maybe he could share those of all time. Sure. What are they, Griffin? Well, my number one is a 1974 Gottlieb Big Shot.
    32:05
    No, no. What's that game do for you? How come you like that game so much? Because on each side there are drop targets. on the left and right side on the upper play field.
    32:18
    And I do like how there's a hole in the middle with an – it's an eight ball. And then on the sides, it, like, allows you to have an extra ball.
    32:30
    That little metal thing that allows it to go back to the launch gate. Yeah, the gate. Oh, the gate to – it goes back to the shooter lane? Yes, yes. Yep. Mm-hmm. Cool.
    32:45
    My second favorite game is Gottlieb's 1975 Eldorado. Okay, fun game. Lots of targets in that game. Mm-hmm.
    32:55
    Big drop target fan. Yeah, yeah. Drop targets are great. Have you done have you guys rebuilt any Gottlieb drop targets yet? Assemblies? No. Okay. That's a whole other animal. But the first time I did one of those it took like four hours to do it um then i'm not have it down to like maybe half hour to an hour but uh wow yeah yeah this video is online about it but uh there's like two springs involved and you gotta kind of take it apart partially to get to them so it's quite the uh engineering marvel on the goth league stuff the ballet stuff and the william stuff is well william stuff's tough too ballet and stern are the easiest and my third favorite game is uh firepower by williams okay so you've played all these games or you just you've seen them on youtube i've seen all of them and i would love to play them okay what the cool thing about firepower is that you got multi-ball you try to get the ball up the spinner into the hole at the top.
    34:06
    Okay, yep. Yep. I heard on YouTube that when Williams tried drop targets on the play field, the flipper was hitting it so hard that it almost broke, so they decided to do stand-up targets.
    34:28
    Yeah, there's different theories. There's one theory. The other theory is that Williams wanted to cheap out and drop target as soon as they're too expensive.
    34:37
    And they said, we have enough money in here doing the voice and sound package for this thing. But what you read too is also possible as well because, yeah, strong flippers would kind of break those drop targets. And also that you can do a drop target mod on firepower. Correct. Yep. You can add drop targets.
    35:03
    Yeah. You guys going to try that if you get a Firepower? Are you going to try doing that mod? No. We like things original. He likes original stuff, absolutely. Okay. Yeah, me too. How do you feel about putting LEDs in an older game?
    35:23
    It would look – it depends. It would look good or bad, and I think in my opinion it looks bad. On the newer games, it looks fantastic, but the older games, I would like to just put normal lights in. Yep, good. You've got an old-school pinball soul there because I was the same way forever. I still am. Mine are all incandescent. But I'm starting to warm up to a comet LED. They're called warm white LEDs, and they're kind of mellow. They're not too bright. and I've been actually incorporating those in some of my restorations even on the older school not the ems though but like this generation here I'm starting to put them into the gi and the feature lights leaving them incandescent it helps with an engineering friend of mine told me with the infrared light on an incandescent on the artwork on the back glass it actually can that's what actually fades the reds out not the heat it's the infrared and it leads and have that infrared so it actually can save your back glasses over time. So that's in the heat and the light and the infrared. So I said, okay, I'm kind of, I'm sort of warming up to this, so to speak. So here and there, I'm starting using them. I'm using a tasteful LEDs here and there. But like you said, the modern games, like the new Sterns from 2000 and whatever, even some of the 90s games, you can throw some LEDs in there and it looks pretty good. You know, I just don't like the super bright, you know, camera flash going off in your face LED some people like this way too bright you know it doesn't too much yeah yeah we're with you actually the blackout we did orders from comet not too long ago and i put some under the play field and here and there and there are some spots where you just have to have an incandescent bulb it will blind you as soon as the drop target goes down suddenly you're blinded and they're way too bright so i think strategically they can look really good especially behind the back glass where you know the artwork pops and you know the playfield inserts is a good spot i did notice i ordered some oranges greens reds to match the lenses yeah it was not a good idea not good at all it didn't and i should have just gone just the warm white is bright enough to really make the original color of the plastics pop and that's all i do i just do this one smd one uh it's like one mounted mounted diet single mounted diode smd i think they call it But, yeah, that keeps it down low so it's not so bright. So I get the one SMD warm white, and I also do the warm red the same way.
    38:06
    Yeah, our Paragon downstairs in the basement does have LEDs too. And it came that way, or you put them in? We put them in. Okay. Like the whole thing?
    38:17
    Just the under the play field. and there's a few in the back glass but i had to uh go to the old pin side folks which have been you know very very helpful and i had to uh solder a quarter watt resistor on each bayonet so that they wouldn't start flickering right yep that's the thing too with the flickering thing because uh i've seen that on some games that shows they don't do that you also can buy uh uh a redo uh board, an Alltech lamp jar board or another lamp, modern lamp jar board. We also take care of that as well. Um, or you can do the, your trick you did as well to it. I did see that board and I thought, well, you know what? I think we got a hundred resistors for $3, which then you got the, the work of putting them all in. What a pain, you know, you got to sand the, the, the outside skirt of the bayonet, make sure it's sticking in. It was, it was fun. I enjoyed doing it. That's cool. Good, good solder practice. Yeah, absolutely. Yep.
    39:16
    So do you guys, with the sockets on these older games, are you kind of fixing up the sockets or putting new light sockets in?
    39:25
    We put new ones in. Okay. Yeah, depending, I'll actually use the old ones and just kind of, I can fix them. And if they're still, if I fix them and they're solid, they don't have more flicker, I'll use it. I'll give it one try. If it doesn't fix it, it goes out and I put a new socket in. we do keep the old ones just in case good idea the ones that are all floppy and all falling apart you should chuck those because they'll cause a short which i had with the game and all of a sudden the gi light gi wires start heating up on you it's like and you're gonna find out what's causing the heating up it's because one of the uh sockets is shorting typically and that is the space riders That was exactly what was happening. I mean, the whole footing just would fall out and would just be flopping in there, and there was no going back. It was like they're pressed with a machine. And over the year, they just pop out, and I had to replace probably 20% of the under-the-playfield lamp sockets I had to go. Yeah. Do you get them from Pinball Resource or somewhere else?
    40:34
    Stevo. Stevia. Absolutely. There you go. You know, the guy is awesome. I've never seen a place where you get your stuff and then you pay for it. Yeah. That is fantastic. It's basically a handshake, and I trust you until I don't. I love it. Exactly.
    40:49
    And so if you ever cross in the wrong way and you're a jerk to him, he goes, okay, well, go somewhere else. But he's a great guy. I been doing business with him forever So yeah Yeah he kind of right up the street from here I mean he four hours away He in lower New York State near Poughkeepsie I believe Yeah We could kind of drive there but I never have But he's been great. Anything we needed. With the Funland, especially. Oh, yeah. He loves the old Gottliebs. Yeah, he can talk forever. But he knows his stuff without a model number. It's fantastic. I do like Gottlieb's Black Hole with the basement. yep I got a friend of mine John who has a nice one he's also a restoration guy he has a nice black hole fun game yeah and also the same manufacturer made eclipse same layout but I think in the middle they have an extra bank of drop targets no basement either and the other game is spirit too right yes yeah that was on my hit list but i think most of them they said went to france and there's something about it's not even about the artwork or something but the shots there's so many cool things things that lift up and ramps and just all kinds of cool stuff but griffin has got his eye on one and as soon as i sell a kidney we can get one yeah no kidding There was one at a show recently a couple of years back in Allentown, and it was for sale there. I never got to play it. I should have played it because I never see these things. And it was in nice shape. I think it was going for, I want to say either $7,000 or $9,000 or something like that. It was, you know, good coin.
    42:39
    That's a steal now. Yeah, I know, right? That's crazy. So what's on your next acquire list? Anything you're looking to, besides spirit? Of course.
    42:53
    Um, I do like, um, Stern's game of thrones. Okay. Yeah. That's a fun game. Yeah. It's, it's from Stern and we played at the strong museum of play.
    43:09
    Now, where is this? What museum is this? Strong museum of play in the city of Rochester. Okay. So they have a lot of games there. Yeah, they do have a, an Atari Hercules, and a Superman. Wow.
    43:26
    Are they pretty decent condition? Not really. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, you get spoiled, you know, especially what you guys are doing and collectors in general that, you know, that like things a certain way. When you go to play a game out, you get spoiled by your stuff because your stuff's all tuned up nice versus on-location games, And it's hard to get that because they there's so many people come in there playing stuff. It's hard to keep it up in optimal shape.
    43:57
    And it is in defense of the museum. They only have one guy that's responsible for all of these. They have a huge warehouse where they rotate them out. He's probably got 70, 80, 100 machines in the basement just waiting to rotate. But he's one person. And, you know, there's lights out and dirty rubber and kickers that don't work. and you can't tap the score displays or out. So it's tough for one person to do it. Yeah, it'd be kind of a fool's errand because people ask me over the years, you know, oh, should I play an arcade? And it's like, I don't know, I'll take something I love and I'll, it just, I think it would wreck it for me because I wouldn't be able to keep up with all the people beating on the games and things breaking and so forth and having to re-restore things. And that's why I like, you know, with my collection because I play him. I have some friends over once in a while, but they don't get tons and tons of plays. So whenever I fix them up nice, they stay nice. They don't really need cleaning because they might get 100 plays in six months. They don't get a lot of action. So it works out. In fact, I'm thinking of taking this hot dog in over here down tomorrow before the big snowstorm. I wanted him up for wintertime. Paragon was sitting there before and put him up for winter for the skiing thing. I'm thinking now to put an EM up here. I haven't had an EM up in a while. I have a Kingpin that I've restored with a Playfield Protector. I'm going to put him up, I think. Who makes Kingpin, Griffin? I think it's a Gottlieb. Ding, ding, ding. You got it right. What year?
    45:35
    I think it's 60-something. 60-something? Nope, 70-something. I think it's like 70, 73? Yeah, maybe 74, somewhere around there. Yep. Is that one with all the little buttons on the play field, the orange ones that look in the shape of a triangle?
    45:54
    No. I think you're thinking of the Williams game. There's a Williams kingpin from the early 60s. It looks like.
    46:04
    Okay. So that's a 60s. You're right about that. That's a Williams. That's actually a fun game. It's called a reverse wedgehead. and yeah and uh it almost looks like i don't know fred funstone artwork on there has this like 50s kind of feel to it um but yeah this is a godly version this is like a 73 godly kingpin bowling theme it has like 10 drop targets at the very top of the game four flippers two little ones in the middle and regular flippers at the bottom uh very challenging game uh i have a question what is your opinion on christian march's artwork christian march's artwork hmm well i'm trying to actually i've been more into like uh dave christiansen and um and that type refresh my memory on what what he's done what is uh what games he's done it's it's funny really um in his artwork he has like pointy elbows on the pointy elbows yes okay yes right okay yep yep so the williams pointy elbows yeah uh not a not a huge fan of that not a huge fan of the pointy elbows yep a lot of arguing over that thing i i used to i used to hate it like you did like what is that yeah now i'm kind of i'm kind of like you know what maybe the guy was ahead of his time yeah and it's different it's kind of cool to uh because i don't i don't have any in my collection so if someone had them in their collection i'd play it as something different you know it's a different kind of art form but uh it might be enough for someone to pass on buying one i think i see in the background there you have a xena and i love that game yeah that's a that's a fun that's a fun player there that's uh yeah that's a that was one of my first ones i got I think I paid 50 bucks for that game. Oh, what?
    48:10
    Yep. Those are the days probably in the late nineties. Like, yeah, I got that. And she also had a Tempest. And the Tempest was 50 bucks as well. I said, okay, I take both of those. so and they both were kind of working and it was a nice shape so worked out well then you go over here you got these are the fathom flash gordon yeah i love flash gordon yeah that that's a great game if you get you get yourself a flash gordon it's a very challenging game um a lot of fun yeah what I do realize about Paragon and Flash Gordon they both have that like area where the drop targets go up like there's like one two three four targets yeah and lanes in lines yes yep I like that too I think did that one first I think Valley did Paragon had the first one of that design that's right that's correct yep Valley was the first one with Paragon in that one yep there were a lot of firsts in that game I think actually Paragon and Flash Gordon are the the two hardest Valley pinball machines to master they're both very tough games that's why I had them both up here for a while but I've had Paragon for so long it's like I gotta change it up a little bit but a lot of these are so nice it's like I hate to take any of these games down I can only in this room I leave room for five games so like i don't want to take eight ball lux down fathom or flash gordon so hot dog is gonna be the next one down it's hard to find a flash gordon play field in nice condition they are they really they're beat to crap typically there's uh cpr does make them now they make uh reproduction play fields for it have you seen those you seen that place cpr Yeah, I have. Yeah. Are they out of Canada?
    50:19
    They're out of Canada. Yeah. Canada, yeah. I probably bought like 20 play fields from them. I have so many. I get a stack of play fields of probably, I don't know, 20 or 25 play fields. Wow. That's really the way to go if you can swing it is just take everything off and put everything back on. Wow. Just save you every single time. What I find best is when you're going to do a swap. I just did the Bobby Orr with the CPR playfield. I'll rebuild it on the old playfield, and when it's all rebuilt, I'll slide everything over to the new playfield and sock it all down. Then it's all nice and fresh. What was it? I'm going to show you something. That's a Superman touched up clear-coated playfield. Oh, I was going to say, is that a reproduction? I never saw one. No, this is original. I have three of these. I sent them out to my guy, Bill Davis out west, and he does real nice work. He touches up airbrushes and puts an automotive clear coat on this thing. So it's going to be real nice when I put it back in the game.
    51:22
    That's fantastic. It looks beautiful. Yeah, thanks. Thank you. I can see myself in it from here. There you go, yeah.
    51:31
    Yeah, it's got quite the shine to it. but uh we've had a couple of brushes the clay fields we did uh we did clear coat our paragon and you know it's a work in progress they had some cupped inserts and i thought well you know if i put enough layers on it it will just fill up and it did however it's just a bit hazy because you're only supposed to put two three coats on i did like seven oh wow like glass now i mean it did clear out somewhat we buffed it and i gotta tell you when the lights are on and everything's running you really can't tell too much but um that's really the way to go with a two-part clear versus a can but i gotta tell you we stripped it down he cataloged everything nice got it back together and fired right up so you know so you actually did automotive clear on it is that what you did yeah it's a one part it was um from upole it's just an aerosol clear um i prepped it real well, knapped it down, cleaned it up, and you've got it all primped and all the artwork touched up. And then it worked very well. And it has, it's like a rock hard, but the two-part clears are like, you know, you ever go to a pub and you can see like the bar has actually got a coating on it. Right. Stuff like a rock. That's really what you want is to have it, you know, just over the inserts where the ball can't touch anything. Yeah. The thing with the two-part, I don't like to mess with myself because it's dangerous stuff. You've got to be able to hold a bunny suit and a respirator and all that kind of stuff because it's not uh friendly you know but you know i'll use the i'll use a verithane sometimes a verithane clear um it's like uh like for wood floors or whatever it's water water based or waterborne you know i was doing that for a while but now i'm now instead um the playfield protector for me is the way to go touch it up play for protector down it's all set um on your youtube channel Dr. Dave's Restorations. Yes. I have a certain video that I really like. I think it's called Far Out Pinball. Oh yeah, Far Out. Yep. I love that video. It's in my top 50 for sure. Wow. Wow. Thank you. What did you like about that one so much? What I do like is that there's drop targets on that one and the artwork's like really futuristic kind of yeah cool cool and also um i did see your um atari superman video okay i got a couple of them out there i think i think i got maybe two or three i forget how many but uh but yeah you like that one yeah i think in your video I'm not totally sure, but I think you said it was for a customer and you were about to ship it out somewhere? Yep.
    54:19
    I think I was about to maybe deliver it, I think. Yeah. Recently? It was like maybe a year or two ago? I think you said six years ago. Six years ago. Wow. Okay. Time flies. Some people touch base with the other customers and say, oh, you were here 10 years ago. It's like, really? It felt like just there yesterday, you know? So, yeah, it's hard to track. It does. I had to think back to our first machines when he was three and I couldn't remember them all. There'd been, there'd been a shift in the group. You know, there was a, I have a spot for three, it's perfect. And I would just sell one, put another one in and they would just move left, right and out.
    54:57
    Probably the saddest story of a money saving tactic was the Valley Kings of Steel when I bought it. There's no left kicker. It's just the rubber.
    55:09
    Oh yes. Yep. it's got a right kicker but wow what a cost savings we can save 3,500 coils if we just make it look like there's something there but there's nothing in there yeah yeah they kind of that was when when bally and other manufacturers were going through a downtime they had to kind of that's why uh midway yeah midway bought them out midway bought bally that's why they that's why the cabinets were made of that particle board stuff uh they made out of video game cabinet material which is not not nearly as good as regular wood and um yeah they kind of cheaped out even they had a uh it's called a cheap squeak soundboard instead of a uh squawk and talk soundboard that the other game before it had for for uh talking but uh yeah not a bad game for if you know someone new into the hobby and that kind of thing not a bad little game it's very reminiscent of xenon has a little xenon in it has a little bit of eight ball of lux in it a little bit so uh not a horrible game it's it's it's a decent game but i had two of those i sold i sold those off also on your youtube channel i think you posted this recently i'm not sure you did a 1986 williams high speed yes i saw that one too i like that yeah that one there i i got i got some a lot of good people commenting on that one saying uh they want one you know and say well that was my other one I had at the time you know so that got sold to a customer out in Brookline uh Massachusetts um who was really looking for one I've had I had that game maybe seven years uh kicking around to him a restoration queue so uh he wanted that I have a restoration queue of like maybe 20 to 20 25 games and people ask me if anything for sale and they'll put some money down and then I'll spend between two to eight months and get it ready for him and ship it out so that It was the one and only high speed I had, but I'll probably get another one. I get a lot of requests for that game.
    57:08
    Seems like it takes a lot of abuse. That's a fast player. I can see lots of things wearing out quickly in that one. The biggest thing with that is the light motor, the motor at the top of the game that makes the light beacon go. That wears out.
    57:23
    Yeah, I was going to say it's probably going all the time. Yep, it goes all the time because they're in a track mode. when it's in an arcade it's always going off and on all the time there's a little gearing in there and the gears kind of wear down and then it just sits there and kind of shakes around all the lights kind of you know on so uh yeah it has to be replaced i think marco sells them for like between 40 and 60 bucks for a motor so sure it's good to have one of those in my stash at least to you know to have sure and you start thinking about your what you said previously owning an arcade you probably never get any sleep oh my god let me get that i gotta shut that off I got a ball bone. I got to go get the ball bone. I have a friend who actually owns an arcade. He actually quit his job. He quit his – actually, we just did a podcast with him recently. He quit his day corporate job because he's doing the arcade and the corporate job. He's making good enough coin with the arcade and so busy with it. It was in Providence, Rhode Island. and just doing, I don't know, probably a thousand people coming through there at night at 10 bucks, 10 bucks a pop and food and drink and so forth. And then he opened up another place or he's about to in near me in Worcester.
    58:39
    But yeah, what he tells me, it's like, I don't think I could do what he does. Cause it's like, I'd go, I'd go crazy with, with that. I like the gig I have with restoring games for people and for customers and, and servicing their games in their house. Well, you do a fantastic job. The videos are outstanding and it's like, I wish I had the tools to do that or the space to do that or, or just the know-how to do that. So you do, you do a fantastic job. Oh, thanks. Well, it sounds like you guys are coming right along. You guys are on the, a good learning curve with what you're doing. I saw some of the pictures of your games. They look great.
    59:17
    You know? Yeah, they, they were pretty filled. That's the, that's the way we got to buy them. I mean, it would be nice to just kind of go, Oh, there, There's one for $5,000. There's one for $3,000. Let's just go. So we just scour the Facebook marketplace or Craigslist or, you know, some people that, you know, their kids are long gone and, you know, turn into a clothes horse in the basement. So if we can get them, and most of the time they light up. Like this one's probably the one, the blackout is I've been on this the longest. The Atari didn't take this long, which amazingly that no one's around to really do those. Yeah. It's taken me so long. Yeah, let's play a great little game. in fact whenever I see a Space Riders again I'll think about it because it looks great the artwork looks fantastic just it reminds me of the Roadrunner looks similar to it the artwork on that game it plays well the flow is pretty good I mean it's not a fastball by any means but there's some very interesting shots and he loves drop targets so we try to get something with drop targets if we can get our hands on it typically my brother-in-law has a Middle Earth that he has. And, you know, he'll probably, he's totally saying, hey, do you know nobody who wants to buy this game? You know, because he had a whole collection of like eight games. And over the years, he's been selling them off to make a little money and that kind of thing. And he's running out of room. So he had some nice games too, Stargazer, Power Play and some other games. But he's under his two games now, Stern Catacomb and Middle Earth. He likes the, they love the Catacomb. They're probably going to keep that, but they're probably selling Middle Earth at some point. he's down the cape cape cod is that the one with the ping pong ball in the back glass the catacomb yeah well it's not a ping pong ball it's actually um yeah it's like a phenolic phenolic ball phenolic some kind of thing like that i forget the term yeah it's got like a little it pops and it drops into a slot almost like yeah yeah yeah it's like a little um bag of tell back there And I own that game too. And the problem with the game is too much delay of game. Every ball, when you lose the ball, it goes up, then you do it. It should be, if I was going to redo the software on that, I think that should be like a bonus ball at the last ball of the game You get to do that to maybe get the high score so you can win a free game it should be like a special thing versus every ball i have two things one i have a youtube channel myself it called pinball planet we recorded all three of our machines downstairs three or three or four hundred hits on each one it's a But he basically shows everybody the game and describes the artwork, who did this, who designed it. And then he'll play a game and we'll lay some music over that to show people how it plays. And he'll go into some of the fine tuning, like here's a picture of somebody on the back last or doing this or doing that. So he's very good at describing all of that. And he's an excellent player. So we put a little channel together and it's fun to kind of keep up on it. But it's nice because you have to have another machine to do. And we only have the three or four right now. Two, you should go to the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, Nevada. We're thinking about going there soon. And they just recently got a new building, and they're, like, putting all their machines there. And I think Tim Arnold, the owner of the place, I think he said it's three times the size of the normal building in Las Vegas.
    62:48
    True. I know Tim. I actually helped him 1996 I think it's called Pinball Fantasy it was out in Las Vegas Herb Silvers was doing a lot of it and Tim Arner brought his collection there I think at the end of the show I was talking to Tim how many volunteers can help us move some games back to my place and you can come by and look at my collection and go pick me I'll help you dude you know so helped to move games out of the place and so i got behind the scenes of the show and uh got to see his whole give me the whole tour of his place tons of old got leaves all like lined up in almost like an aircraft hangar building with this and they're all set up you know um interesting guy and then at that point he's starting to try to get his um his his museum going and he got funding for it he's making good money at it um but i guess because of all the stuff happening this past year that so now he's kind of hurting for dough so he's looking for donations or looking for some kind of kickstarter or whatever to have the money to finish his building that you were just talking about Griffin and he put a big thing out on Pinside and I think people actually contribute to it so he can actually finish up and pay the construction people and then move it all over there so he can actually you know do his thing but I haven't gone out and seen his museum.
    64:20
    I've just been out there in the late 90s and hit some pinball shows. That was one of them, but I haven't been out there since. So I'm due to go out there again and check that out. Have you been to any pinball shows? Have you been to anything like Allentown?
    64:35
    No, we haven't. COVID kind of put a wrench in everything lately, but I always wanted to go and most of them are a pretty good hike from here. I know there's an Allentown show. It would probably be the closest one to us. And, you know, it would be great to just kind of rummage around and see what's what. Those are fun. And there was a pub here not too long ago. It went out of business, unfortunately. It had 40, 50 games in there. You could kind of have chicken wings. Wow. That's great. I felt bad for the guy because, like, hundreds of other businesses kind of went down the drain this year. just could not go of it because there was nobody he wasn't open yeah exactly felt so bad for this guy because we loved going there and and supporting him and supporting the hobby and so yeah to to answer your question we haven't been um in many places this year and hopefully maybe by fall we can take a launch out to vegas and see tim arnold's new place and hopefully but so even previous to this past year because no one there's been no shows at all everything has been canceled but previous to this you guys didn't go to shows before this like in 18 2018 and nothing like that no okay no because i'm um there's a pintastic show or there wasn't until this past year um in stirbridge massachusetts that i've been a part of that's running for about five years now and i've been they they tagged me for being the best in show director so i do all judging on best in show to try to get um you know the people to bring their best games and i judge them give put blue ribbons on games that would encourage all the best games to be on the floor and people would you know competition so that was that was a good gig for a while you know but uh what you had another question griffin you had another thing you were saying about um i interrupted you i forget what you were um there's another place in alameda California called the Pacific Pinball Museum. I don't know if you've heard of it. Yes, been there. That's the one I was telling you about with the Christmas tree lights hanging down into the place. There's pictures online. Have you seen the pictures of that place? They had some pictures. They're really gorgeous. No, but they do have an art Stenholm room, the guy who did our Funland machine.
    67:02
    Okay. I think ABC or abc or one of the one of the local the networks picked up on and we've been watching some videos uh they did a news story about uh the guy that started it just just a couple of friends and some drinks in the back and then suddenly it became a cool place but yeah it looks really nice there's a lot a lot of places that once we can fly we would like to see yeah back in the day in like 2004 I think it was called Lucky Juju Pinball they were only open one night a week and you would pay a certain amount of money and you couldn't stay there all night till midnight and play pinball at the time he only had like 25 30 machines and once he had 50 he knew he had to do something with them. And so he opened up a museum.
    67:57
    And you hear also the Lucky Juju. He had a trailer behind the car that he put machines in there. He'd bring around different shows. Be a Lucky Juju. One of those silver, you know, 1950s to 60s silver things that you'd camper. He'd use that for putting pinball machines in and bring them to different shows. I never knew that. yeah great way to travel love those trailers they're sharp yeah yeah oh yeah yeah so anything else i should know about uh your uh your exploits with pinball and any other uh thoughts well i do know most of the manufacturers okay which what's what's your favorite manufacturer um I think I have four Gottlieb, Williams Stern and Bally okay and here's all of them we thought and thought and thought for like 20 minutes thinking of the manufacturers and we got all of them I think so we got Williams Bally, Gottlieb Data East, Zachariah, Stern, Chicago Coin, Capcom, Interflip, Resell, Playmatic, Sega Saw, and Astro Games.
    69:29
    Astro Games. They're the one who only made one machine, which is called Black Sheep Squadron. Oh, yes, Black Sheep Squadron. Yep.
    69:39
    Seen it online, but never played one. I remember the TV show back in the day. Yeah. William Conrad. I dare you to knock this battery off my shoulder. That guy. Yeah. Battle of the Network Stars.
    69:54
    Oh, yeah. Let's play tug-of-war in these goofy gym shorts. There you go. Yep, that's the one. See, now you're dating yourself. I know. Yep. You know that? Howard Cosell would do it. Oh, yeah.
    70:11
    Yep. Well, all pinball is good pinball. I mean, even if we see one that's all beat up, we'll usually cry and say something like, oh, what have they done to you?
    70:25
    Especially at the museum, he walks in and goes, oh, my God, that Superman. You know, half the lights are out. There's circuit board issues. And he's going, what did they do? Right. And when we tried to put a quarter in, it got jammed. And we pushed the start button so many times it got jammed. And we had to get security to come over and, like, fix it and stuff, like the people who work there. And they had to, like, fix it, and they got it unjammed, and, like, it's just terrible.
    71:02
    He sounds like you, Dave. It's like, oh, man, what kind of – you look at the hack wiring and tape and glue and all these things. It's like, well, let's just get it going. All the connectors are burned because.
    71:16
    Because these operators like, you know, we just we just need a quarter to go through it. So we don't care anything else is get it running enough that a quarter can go in and keep making money. That's pretty much the arcade thing back in that time frame or even today. Kind of, too. Yes. One of the biggest thrills. And I won't it won't be a long story. I went to college in the Bay Area of California, just outside San Jose. And Sunnyvale is where all the Atari offices were and where they built the machines. And when I was in college, I was reading stories about how pinball died. And then they were just throwing machines in giant garbage bins and hacking them up. And I had to drive by the offices. Of course, they're empty now. But it was just really strange just driving into the parking lot on Boragas Avenue and seeing the giant overhead doors where the warehouse was in the back where all of these were shipped off all over the world and it's so cool to just have a have one that came out of that door yeah that's neat that's neat i i talked to uh the arcade i grew up at funny games in framingham i had years ago and one of the guys who actually he came over to our place at a party we had a friend of a friend and it's like well i know you it's like well you're the guy that gave quarters to me and actually helped me, you know, had a stuck ball. He'd fix the thing. It's like, oh, yeah, you know, so he was the guy. He's older now. And the cool moment was, was he was here playing my games and he had a stuck ball. So times have turned. He had to come to me and say, hey, can you free the stuck ball for me? So it's kind of weird that the learner has now become the master, so to speak. You call us anytime. We could talk all day about this. And we'd love, I'd love one day, who knows, come see your collection. and over in town you can come and see ours. Okay, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I'll show you around the game. We'll give you the dime tour, you know.
    73:12
    Sure. I'm going to be doing my latest video coming soon. I'm going to do a video on hot dogging. I'm going to do a video on my Bobby Roy just finished up. Did you do Xenon? um i don't think i did do xenon yet a youtube video no but i think we did uh a podcast podcast on it yep but on a youtube bid the reason why i wanted the hot dog and because i might sell this down the road i don't know and i'd like to get it on tape you know or on to video so that i have that for the potential customer down the road i can kind of send it to them you know i i i don't want to sell it, but I don't know, because it's it has like a nice let's see if I can bring this over here.
    73:59
    It has a nice new old stock, clear-coated play field. And this game usually beat the crap. Yeah. I've seen a lot of them on YouTube that are beat in the middle.
    74:15
    Wow, that's sharp. This is a neat game. Having the inline drops there. Yeah. This flipper is kind of useless, the upper right one there. Although I think right now it's showing backwards for you. Everything's reversed. There's a flipper on the kicker there. I didn't notice that. Yeah.
    74:36
    Was Hot Dog in Bally's last wide body or his first? Well, this is 1980, so it's... I'm pretty sure it's the last one. Probably the last one. I think you're right. I think the other ones are from 79.
    74:53
    So, yeah. Well, I think Space Invaders was from 82. Space Invaders was 79 or 80. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's 80.
    75:07
    This is the... Xenon. I love that game. Welcome to Xenon. There you go. Susan Cianci, I think it was. or musician programmer slash new age artist of some kind. Ooh, Flash Gordon. Yeah, Flash Gordon there. Wow, look at the reds on there. I kind of like machines that have regular colors. Touch-up is much easier. Hey, that's red. I can just get red. Right.
    75:34
    I put little red accents in there, like the red bulb over somewhere over there. Nice. I had an Embryon once It had the little mini flipper Try to save it in the out lane Fathom I like Embryon, I have that game too It's a fun game And then this guy here One of my all time favorites Ooh Margaret Hudson artist I have the special thing I have the Britney edition The Britney Spears Is that her? That's her, yeah Oh, no kidding I put her there Oh, you did I'm like Was there like a second back glass? That's weird I'm like, wait a minute How did we miss that?
    76:23
    Yeah, she fits well there I'll take you downstairs to show you the Real quick I want to show you the The power play Yeah, I did notice all your games There were all ballys like Bally Xenon, Bally Flash Gordon, Bally Hot Dog.
    76:43
    And you can see the maid has not been down here in a long time. Oh, I saw Black Knight there on its end. Oh, yeah, that's a customer game. And so I've got basically a whole place of work in progress. But this is the – Somehow this one, Harlem Globetrotters and the $6 million man seems similar to me. yeah i like out of all those i think harlem's the best game yeah but uh this this game it's to do the to get the clear out of all these inserts here all these star rollovers what a pain that's a pain no we did those on the atari space riders when i cleared it i didn't do anything i just cleared it and just had all the mechanisms out of there and then i took an exacto after it dried and it wasn't they just sort of crumbled right out of there it was actually quite easy for me i took a dremel with a diamond tip to it and i got them that way it worked out great my wife just uh just touched up the cabinet recently so that came out nice there were a couple of bumps and bruises sharp cabinet and we do the uh i buff all the metal that's all you know yeah we get nutty like that over here too we don't i don't have a buffing wheel but a very fine wire wheel sometimes will do it. Okay. This is my workhorse here, my buffer. Oh, yeah. I need that. I need a buffing head. I got to do that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I take everything to it. I honestly think Bobby Orr Power Play and Evil Knievel are very, very similar.
    78:20
    Thank you for having us. I enjoyed the podcast. I'm glad to have you both. and it's great to have a young person like yourself Griffin so into this and into the old school pins like you are it's great keep them alive going forward so more people like you in this you know you gotta carry the torch yep well yeah we really appreciate you having us on for sure and we'll keep listening and keep watching and I just I like the restoration just because I learn things about cupped inserts and how to fix that, how to fix that. And I will go, hey, sometimes, wow, I didn't know that I could do that. Why not try that? You know, so.
    79:06
    Yeah, sometimes it's a little trial and error. Sometimes it's just asking other people what they've done and find the best ways to do things because people have all done it before. And what works and what doesn't work so well. And it's great. It's always a learning process. So especially if you got both of you have attention to detail, which is in some patience. And that's what it takes, you know, a little bit of know-how. Yeah. So it's great. We couldn't have done it without people like yourself. And the people on Penn's side have been very patient. I mean, I don't consider myself a newbie, but I do need some clearer instruction than most. Like, OK, the black lead goes here and the red lead goes here. And why is that? They've been very gracious and we appreciate that. The community has been fantastic.
    79:51
    Yeah, they're great. Lots of good information there. Lots of good people there. And it's a good repository of anything pinball. Well, it's awesome having you guys and Griffin. It was great to finally meet and see you and talk pinball. Yeah, thank you. You know, good times. All right. Well, you guys have a great night and great talk with you. Yeah, you too. Dave, thanks again. Thank you. Our pleasure. Take care. Have a good night. I love your channel too. Hey, thanks. Thanks, Griffin. I'm going to check yours out some more too. Oh, thank you. Sure. Take care. Take care now. Bye-bye.
    80:44
    Sharing the same desire Turning like wildfire Dave! Who? Dave! D-A-V-E Yeah, Dave! Right. So anyone out there that wants to explore getting their games worked on, getting the games restored or buying a restored game from me, you can check out my website at pinballdoctor.com. That's pinballdoctor, all spelled out. Or you can reach me at dave at pinballdoctor.com. Or you can reach me at drdavespinball at gmail. And that's D-R-D-A-V-E-S, pinball, at gmail.
    81:43
    Outro Music