Star Trek Pinball Shop-Out: Cleaning, Maintenance & What We Learned

Wild Dog Arcade·video·20m 58s·analyzed·Feb 8, 2026

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.020

TL;DR

Star Trek pinball comprehensive shop-out: rubbers, cleaning, waxing, and ramp restoration tutorial.

Summary

Gary from Wild Dog Arcade demonstrates comprehensive maintenance and restoration procedures on a Stern Star Trek pinball machine, including rubber replacement, playfield cleaning, waxing, and ramp restoration. The video covers practical techniques for playfield servicing, emphasizing the use of clear silicone rubbers for light transmission, plastic polish for ramp restoration, and proper cleaning methods. The restoration resulted in a machine that looked freshly restored from the showroom floor.

Key Claims

Star Trek pinball has three separate ramp assemblies that require removal for proper playfield servicing
high confidence · Gary demonstrates physical disassembly of the machine, showing removal of right ramp assembly and identifying three distinct ramps that need servicing
Clear silicone rubbers allow more light transmission to the playfield compared to standard dark rubbers
high confidence · Gary explicitly states: 'I'm going to use all clear stuff' and later 'Almost all of them are clear. Like I said earlier, couple of these I ran out of my clears...some light gets out onto the play field'
Plastic polish designed for car headlights is effective for restoring clarity to pinball ramp surfaces
high confidence · Gary uses plastic polish on ramps: 'It's kind of designed for headlights of cars. Uh, it's meant to be used on plastic, so I find it really good for doing these kind of plastic ramps'
Jet Seal sealant and paint protection works well for playfield waxing and removes black rubber residue
high confidence · Gary states: 'I find it's a good wax and it does clean off the black rubber gunk pretty good'
Star Trek pinball has optical sensors (optos) that require reinstallation as part of ramp assembly
high confidence · Gary demonstrates opto placement during reassembly: 'There's some variety of optos that got to go in place' and installs multiple optos during reconstruction

Notable Quotes

“Magnet on a stick. It's your friend. It's always handy to have a magnet on a stick when you're working on a machine. Cuz if you get washers that fall in, it's a great way to catch them.”
Gary @ Early maintenance section — Practical pro-tip for pinball maintenance that becomes a recurring theme; demonstrates experienced technician's workflow optimization
“I have successfully stripped down most of the playfield here on our Star Trek machine. I have actually changed out all of the rubbers. Almost all of them are now a clear silicon. That way uh some of the light gets out onto the play field.”
Gary @ Mid-video status check — Summary of rubber replacement strategy and rationale; clear statement of maintenance philosophy prioritizing light transmission
“The big thing with these plastic ramps, they might get a little soot on them from all the mach in the game, but the biggest thing is the ball track. And that's where this plastic polish does a pretty good job of smoothing out the surface.”
Gary @ Ramp cleaning section — Identifies wear patterns on ramps and explains why plastic polish is effective for ramp restoration
“Don't worry, you're not going to be able to get out all of the uh all of the ball tracks without spending thousands of hours trying to polish this thing out. Um when it's all lit up, it'll look good.”
Gary @ Ramp polishing section — Sets realistic expectations for restoration; acknowledges limitations while emphasizing visual impact when game is operational
“Once you've done the inside, don't forget to do the backside cuz the back is going to have some dust on it, some other items like coils and solenoids always make a little bit of fine powder basically that just from the carbon scoring.”
Gary @ Ramp maintenance detail section — Practical maintenance detail about carbon dust accumulation; demonstrates comprehensive service approach

Entities

GarypersonEdpersonWild Dog ArcadeorganizationStar Trek PinballgameStern PinballcompanyPinball LifecompanyJet Sealproduct

Signals

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community_signal: Wild Dog Arcade producing educational content on pinball machine maintenance and restoration, demonstrating commitment to operator and collector education
high · Comprehensive step-by-step video showing detailed maintenance procedures; live streaming schedule mentioned ('stream live pinball on Sunday and Wednesday evenings, Eastern time')
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operational_signal: Adoption of clear silicone rubbers as preferred playfield rubber material to improve light transmission and visual appearance
high · Gary states: 'Almost all of them are clear...some light gets out onto the play field' and 'I'm going to use all clear stuff'
?
product_strategy: Use of Pinball Life Dura Bands flipper kits during routine maintenance, indicating aftermarket flipper upgrades are standard practice in professional restoration
medium · Gary mentions: 'Pinball Life Dura Bands on our flippers for this round'

Topics

Rubber band replacement and maintenanceprimaryPlayfield cleaning and waxing techniquesprimaryRamp disassembly, cleaning, and restorationprimaryOptical sensor (opto) installation and positioningsecondaryPinball machine maintenance best practicesprimaryPlastic polish application to pinball rampssecondaryFlipper service and band replacementsecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.82)— Gary expresses satisfaction with restoration methods and results; demonstrates enthusiasm for maintenance work and shares knowledge generously. Video concludes with positive assessment: 'It looked like it rolled off the showroom floor, rejuvenating this machine into the future.' No criticism or negativity present.

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

Starting today. Welcome to Urban Starfleet Explorers. [music] I am your host Ed and today I have traveled and discovered a fully restored arcade. And inside [music] I have found a movie starring an engineered named Gary. He shows us how to fix and maintain your [music] Star Trek pinball machine. And we are sharing this knowledge and footage with you. Here we go. All right, everybody. We're going to be doing a little shop out work on our Star Trek machine we just got. Going to replace all the rubbers, clean up the playfield and stuff. So, enjoy. All right. First [music] thing I'm going to do is I'm going to remove this right ramp assembly because I want to get at all the stuff underneath of it. So, it's going to be a variety of screws just to do this. [music] Grab myself a [music] magnet. Magnet on a stick. It's your friend. It's always handy [music] to have a magnet on a stick when you're working on a machine. Cuz if you get washers that fall in, it's a great way to catch them. All right. [music] What's holding it back here? Okay. Small screwdriver. Yeah, these take the [music] smaller head Phillips. Take that off. All right. So, this back panel [music] here is kind of holding me in. See if I can get that [laughter] screw out so I can rotate that out of the way. Ooh, there's a spacer in there. That's going to be fun. [music] Let me get a needle nose so I can grab that spacer behind there. And spacer. All right, first [music] piece of plastic out. All right, what I'm seeing is I've got wire head down right there. All right, that should let me get my hand in there and in here. All right. Now I can do the the rubber stuff. Okay. If I take this protector off, I can get to I pop those off and then I should be able to pull the whole thing out. Get a wrench. that screw and spacer. All right, let's [music] see if I can get the winch in there. Two of the obstacles. Let's take off this other two. And that whole [music] ramp will lift right out. And that should do it. Okay, now I can get at all of these things cuz I [music] got rubbers in here, rubber here, rubber here, and I'm just going to shop it out. I'm going to use all clear stuff. And there's [music] the connector for that. All right. Now, I need a quarter inch nut driver on the back. Okay, that is actually now free. So, I should be able to remove vengeance here. All right, let's see. You're free. Magnets's free. Pull the cable out. Now, where are my mounts for this? I don't know if I need to take this off or not to be nice. That goes all the way back in there. And out they comes. All right. So, this plastic's out. All right. So, this has got a squirly rubber. So, these got the post here. Let me yank these rubbers out. All [music] right, these are the post rubbers. This one's been replaced with uh something different, like [music] a tournament bumper. It's like super hard. So, I'm going to [music] be removing that. I'm putting regular silicon rubber on there. And I think the easiest way for me is just going to be the exact knife and get off [music] of there. [music] There we go. Yeah, it's this really hard hard rubber. So, I am going to not use that. I'm going to put some sleeves on there. All right, let me go through my stock of stuff. I have a whole bunch of rubber. Two boxes of this stuff that I bought. I can find the right size. Those are a little bit on the small side. Okay. So, it looks like I am going to be putting on some clear post rubber here. Yeah, cuz all of these have been changed out to this urethane stuff. Here's [music] a size in between. Let's see. That not what I want. [snorts] All right. So, we're going to put [music] the smaller ones on and call it good. All right. Let's try a half on this back one here. Half. Half it [music] is. There we go. All right, that one's good. All right, let's move on to the post. The rubbers back in [music] here. Um, I'll do the all of these in this region. Clean it, then put everything back in, and then [music] I'll move on to the other side. All right, these are the lane guides I'm working on. All [music] right, this one has an interesting one. Goes to another little post. Must have been a [music] catch point they found. So, I am going to change out the rubber and then put that back in. All right. So, needs a five I think it's a 5/16. Yeah, 5/16 [music] on one side and a 7/16 on the other. So, [music] this one's fun because I have to get this stretch it onto another little post hiding under here. And it'll be this one right [music] here. And that, my friends, that one is a three/ quarter. 3/4 right in there. It's [music] a nice clear rubber. And then put the front two screws back in and I'll be done [music] with that area. All right, that area done. So that those so I can move on [music] to that and the rest of these. Okay, I have successfully stripped down most of the playfield here on our [music] Star Trek machine. I have actually changed out all of the rubbers. Almost all of them are now a clear silicon. That way uh some of the light gets out onto the play field. So, we've also done uh the Pinball Life Dura Bands [music] on our flippers for this round. So, uh now comes the fun part of I got to do a bunch of [music] wax work, clean it, and then reassemble all of the ramps. That's quite a chore. Here we go. I'm [music] going to be doing some waxing here. And what I typically use is Jet [music] Seal sealant and paint protection. Uh, I find it's a good wax and it does clean off the black rubber gunk pretty good. So, here we go. Have time to have some fun. All right, got the wax on. Let it dry for a little bit and then I'm going to keep polish it off. Once it's all done and polished, then I can reassemble all the ramps. So, this has got a lot of pieces to [music] ramps. There are three different ramps you have to remove and lots of auxiliary little things like, you know, the optical sensors [music] and stuff like that to get it out without dismantling part of the bottom of the playfield. [music] So, it's going to be worth it in the end. It'll play really beautifully. All right, that looks good and waxed. Nice and smooth. All right, next up on the cleaning on the playfield portion [music] of it, I'm going to use some just isopropyl alcohol, IPA here, and I'm going [music] to wipe off the flippers, targets, and things that I may have touched with [music] wax. that don't want wax on it or you know ball schmuts as well. [music] So just kind of clean those off from me handling them touching them [music] and that way there isn't any stray wax anywhere. So yeah, [music] so this has got all new rubber throughout this game. So everywhere there's [music] a piece of rubber, it's got something new. Almost all of them are clear. Like I said earlier, couple of these I ran out of my clears. [music] So, I got a couple of black bumpers on those. But, yeah, it's gonna [music] play fantastic. The [clears throat] other thing I'm going to do while [music] I am at this point is I'm going [music] to take a little bit of this. This is super lube. I'm going to lube that spinner a little bit. That way, it [music] works fantastic. So, I'm going to just apply it right [music] on the shaft. So it gets in the hole and then yeah, this is not an optical spinner, so it has a little bit of resistance. Not quite as good as those, [music] but yeah, they also do that to yours. And that is it for the clean [music] portion of it. Now I'm going to move on to actually cleaning the ramps cuz they are a little dirty. So I need to kind of disassemble them and clean them. All right, these are [music] the three ramps out of the game. You can see some of them are pretty long and extensive, but they're a little dirty. You know, I need to clean them, wax them, and stuff like that. So, I'm going to go ahead and start to dismantle some of the pieces I left intact here, clean it, [music] reassemble that part, and move on to the other three. Okay, here's the right [music] ramp. So, first thing I'm going to do is this is just take this last piece off here. right. Now, it's disassembled. All right. On the plastic, I'm going to use something different. I'm going to use a little bit of plastic polish. It's kind of designed [music] for headlights of cars. Uh, it's meant to be used on plastic, so I find it really good for doing these kind of plastic ramps. [music] So, pretty much The big thing with these plastic [music] ramps, they might get a little soot on them from all the mach in the game, but the biggest thing is the ball track. And that's where this plastic polish does a pretty good job of smoothing out the surface. It's designed to clear out headlights, so it works really well on this kind of stuff. So that way, your plastic ramps will look nice and refreshed. Don't need to go too heavy with this stuff. So, and it helps to leave it on there a little while. Uh, don't buff it off right away. Let it let it kind of dry out and [music] then that's the easiest way to buff this stuff off. Yeah, you'll probably see a lot of high wear on the [music] ramp entrance. That's where the balls are coming in at high velocity. So, you'll probably see uh see some clouding where the balls go. This will help reduce that. Yeah, it's helped already. I'm going to do another application on this portion in [music] particular just because of the higher wear. This is where it comes in high velocity and feeds down to this flipper slower. [music] So, it sees less wear on this side of the track. It's going to see the most here and in the curve. All right. Using a clean part of the rag, then I just buff it out. Once this this stuff busts off pretty good once it's dried out. I mean, don't [music] worry, you're not going to be able to get out all of the uh all of the ball tracks without spending thousands of hours trying to polish this thing out. Um when it's all lit up, it'll look good. You won't have any nice big horrible cloudy spots on there. So, like [music] right now, you know that it's already looks a lot more transparent. Um there is actually some dirt on the box backside. So once you've done the inside, don't forget to do the backside cuz the back is going to have some [music] dust on it, some other items like coils and solenoids always make [music] a little bit of fine powder basically that [music] just from the carbon scoring. So that'll find itself onto the backside some of these items. So just do a light [music] wipe with this stuff again and you'll be good. And this one I don't want to put too much on. So, I'm just going to put it on the rag and dust off the backside. And then when you're all done, you know, look for spots you've missed of the polish, you know, cuz it's easy to clean off [music] when it's out. But once it's in the game, if you forgot some stuff on the bottom side, it's in there until you take it out ever again. Might do a little bit more right here. I see a ball track still in there. Now it's better. So yeah, you're going to want to do this if you have them [music] out. This is a great time to clean up your ramps. Makes them look a whole lot better. You know, maybe not [music] 100% brand new, but pretty nice and shiny. So when this goes back in the game, it'll look really great. Now I'm going to move on off camera and do the other ramps and uh rejoin you during the assembly. All right, time to put the stuff back in. So, first thing going back in will be the left ramp assembly. And that is needs a few things assembled in place. Oops. So, it's going to be going, you know, somewhere about right here. Get it under that. But I got to put some optos on and things like that. There's some variety of optos that got to go in place, which are going to be fun. And a flasher to grab all my hardware. [music] All right. Optos for over here. Opto those for back here. Get out of there. All right, let's get another set hooked up. Okay. Get the correct set, the shorter looking set, cuz this other one is for the upper ramp. Okay. It's all tangled up with the flasher assembly. Okay. Flasher gets a nut bolt. All right, [music] let's put some more opticals in. Optical screws. Okay, we're going to do those. Need a quarter inch driver. Unfortunately, due to the [music] data DK, the rest of the footage was lost. However, we were able to recover almost [music] everything that Gary wanted to show us while he shopped out his Star Trek pinball [music] machine. and I was stunned to see the finished results. It looked like it rolled off the showroom floor, rejuvenating this machine into the [music] future. We want to thank you for watching this video. If you enjoyed it, please comment, like this video, and subscribe to our channel. We also stream live pinball on Sunday and Wednesday evenings, Eastern time. Hope to see you then.