Centaur Pinball Playfield Swap Process Part 1

Cary Hardy·video·14m 2s·analyzed·Dec 14, 2018

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.021

TL;DR

Centaur playfield swap teardown documentation: removal, organization, and preparation for CPR reproduction install.

Summary

Cary Hardy documents a detailed time-lapse playfield removal and teardown process for a Bally Centaur pinball machine, preparing it for a CPR reproduction playfield swap. The video covers backbox cable removal, playfield mounting on a rotisserie, rail replacement, mechanical component documentation, GI line removal, and undercarriage disassembly, emphasizing the importance of photography, labeling, and systematic organization during restoration work.

Key Claims

Centaur was designed by Jim Patlaw and produced by Bally, inspired by the classic 1956 Balls a Poppin' which was the first flipper machine with multiball
high confidence · Historical game design fact stated authoritatively by content creator
Paul Ferris created the artwork for Centaur
high confidence · Content creator crediting artwork designer by name
The original wooden rail on the Centaur was already damaged, cracked, and split, necessitating replacement with new wooden rails
high confidence · Direct observation during disassembly process
Using a rotisserie during teardown provides major benefits for accessing and documenting the playfield
high confidence · Demonstrated throughout the video process
The original playfield had excessive staples in the GI line that were not all necessary; the replacement used significantly fewer staples
high confidence · Direct observation and comparison during GI line removal and planned reinstallation

Notable Quotes

“Patlaw did an amazing job on the design for this game. The gameplay is very entertaining and fun, and depending on how well you play, it can be a very difficult game as well.”
Cary Hardy@ 1:43 — Praise for the original Centaur game design by Jim Patlaw
“Once again, another play field in which it looks like someone took a belt sander to it and fell asleep.”
Cary Hardy@ 2:03 — Humorous commentary on the worn condition of the original playfield despite Paul Ferris's artwork
“This is why, because we were just taking it apart right there still inside the machine, and both of us never thought to take pictures.”
Cary Hardy@ 3:42 — Self-critique of failing to document trough area removal early in process, lesson learned for future work
“You definitely want to take photographs of where the cables originally went or you can label them as you see fit, but it's highly recommended that you do not accidentally hook the wires up the wrong way.”
Cary Hardy@ 2:57 — Critical best practice advice for backbox cable removal during machine disassembly
“if you're doing a playfield swap on a machine that works already as it is wouldn't it make sense to rebuild it the same way because you know it works”
Cary Hardy@ 7:09 — Core philosophy for using old playfield as reference to ensure new one replicates working configuration
“I trace exactly where the GI line is on the old plate field where I'm removing the staples. I'm just following along with the pen marking where the GI line is going around all the light bulbs and mechanics or wherever.”

Entities

Cary Hardyperson JasonpersonJim PatlawpersonPaul Ferrisperson Centaurgame BallycompanyCPRcompanyBalls a Poppin'game

Signals

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community_signal: Content creator actively documenting detailed restoration process for educational value to pinball community; approaching 100 YouTube subscribers milestone
high · Video explicitly documents step-by-step teardown process with explanations; creator mentions channel growth and subscriber count goals
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design_philosophy: Restoration approach emphasizes maintaining original working configuration by using old playfield as master reference, ensuring new CPR playfield replicates proven mechanical layout and routing
high · Creator explicitly states: 'if you're doing a playfield swap on a machine that works already as it is wouldn't it make sense to rebuild it the same way because you know it works'
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community_signal: Hands-on restoration work demonstrating systematic process improvement over course of project (early lack of trough documentation recognized as mistake; later adoption of ink pen marking technique for GI line)
high · Creator acknowledges failure to photograph trough area early and discusses learning from mistake; adopts ink pen marking method mid-project for better permanence than pencil
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product_concern: Original Centaur playfield exhibits significant wear (belt-sander appearance) and wooden rail damage, necessitating complete replacement with CPR reproduction playfield
high · Visual documentation of damaged rail that was 'already damaged pretty bad,' cracked and split; playfield condition described as worn despite Paul Ferris artwork quality
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technology_signal: Use of rotisserie equipment and systematic documentation techniques (photography, ink pen marking, cardboard substrate method) representing modern best practices in playfield restoration

Topics

Playfield restoration and swap processprimaryDocumentation and photography best practicesprimaryGI line removal and reinstallationprimaryRotisserie use in machine disassemblyprimaryCentaur game history and designsecondaryReproduction playfield manufacturing (CPR)secondaryBackbox component removal and labelingsecondaryContent creation and YouTube channel growthmentioned

Sentiment

positive(0.78)— Content creator is enthusiastic about the restoration project, respectful of original designers (Patlaw, Ferris), and maintains humorous tone while delivering practical technical information. Some light frustration with excessive original staples and lack of early documentation, but framed as lessons learned rather than criticism.

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.042

What's up everyone and welcome back to my channel where I talk and do everything pinball. If that sounds interesting to you then hit that subscribe button down below. In this video I'm going to be showing you a time-lapse footage of how Jason and I removed the top and bottom of the Centaur playfield and got it prepared for a complete playfield swap. Again this is time-lapse so it's not going to go into every little bitty detail but I will discuss what we are doing and why we are doing it throughout the video. So let the show begin. Whoa. The only question is, man, what are we going to do? Here we go. Destroy Centaur. Centaur, a pinball machine designed by Jim Patlaw and produced by Bally. This game was actually inspired by the classic Bally's 1956 Balls a Poppin'. Balls a Poppin' was the first flipper machine with multiball. Patlaw did an amazing job on the design for this game. The gameplay is very entertaining and fun, and depending on how well you play, it can be a very difficult game as well. But one thing that majorly stands out to me on this game is obviously the artwork. Paul Faris did an amazing job on this game. Once again, another play field in which it looks like someone took a belt sander to it and fell asleep. But again, this is only going to be temporary. For this play field is about to be removed from the machine, completely stripped down top and bottom. and we are going to be putting in a reproduction play field from CPR. Now, right here we are removing the cables from the backbox boards. When you're doing this, you definitely want to take photographs of where the cables originally went or you can label them as you see fit, but it's highly recommended that you do not accidentally hook the wires up the wrong way. Most of the boards are keyed to where it won't let you do it wrong, but some are not. Here we are removing the trop area portion so that way we can easily mount it to the playfield rotisserie without anything being in the way. Now the sad part about this is that none of us took any pictures or documented what we were removing where we were removing it from and this will not take effect till towards the end of our rebuild process and we looking through our phones wondering where the hell is the documentation on the trough portion, and this is why, because we were just taking it apart right there still inside the machine, and both of us never thought to take pictures. On to the rotisserie out of the centaur cabinet. when mounting your play fill to your rotisserie you want to make sure that none of your leaf switches in your trough area or anything that basically the metal rack for your rotisserie just make sure that nothing is being damaged while you are mounting it with your c clamps you don't want to just sit there and just press it down into the metal clamping and you're meanwhile your leaf switches or your trough switches are getting bent or twisted up so just make sure that everything is clear whenever you're mounting that down which is something that we did. Now this area of the play field was around the rails and these nails are essentially just kind of wood screws that kind of just are pulled out and we had to like wedge them out without damaging the metal or the wood. The thing is this wood right here this rail is already damaged pretty bad we realized that when removing this rail so we decided to make all new wooden rails due to that one piece of wood that's already damaged and cracked and split. You're going to see us throughout this teardown taking out our cell phones and taking pictures or videos. This is going to be very helpful on the rebuild process. You also see the major benefits of using a rotisserie while you are tearing this thing apart. here's a good overview of what the playfield looks like as of right now and uh yeah we just got a few little mechanics to remove flippers pop bumpers and some targets Everything that sticks out on the other side of the playfield is going to be undone now. I think at this time I'm like on beer four or five. I don't know. I don't think I'm that deep in. Maybe two. No more than three. I don't know. So as you can see, Jason's already going over the underside of the playfield, documenting where everything is currently at. Here we are clearing the way because now we're going to be removing the playfield from the rotisserie and beginning the tear down process of the undercarriage. Here you have it. Everything right here is about to be removed. But we're not going to be removing it and taking it off the playfield. All we're going to be doing as of right now is just unscrewing every mechanic, every light, and going to be undoing every staple that is tying down the GI line to the underside of this playfield. So what we doing now as you can see Jason is going over the playfield very slowly to make sure that he has documentation of where everything is currently located on the playfield because the major thing is the guys if you're doing a playfield swap on a machine that works already as it is wouldn't it make sense to rebuild it the same way because you know it works that's essentially how this is working now if you don't have any kind of master playfield to build from that's gonna suck because we utilize the old playfield throughout this playfield swap because we wanted it to be essentially identical to the master because we knew it worked that way getting the staples out of all this GI line was really a pain in the ass because they put a lot of staples in this GI line and when we rebuild it we We put nowhere near as many staples in the line because it really wasn't needed. We put them around any kind of area where there was any kind of droopage in the line, but other than that, I'd say we easily put in less than 20. They put in, I don't even remember. I'm not even going to lie to you on how many staples I had to remove for this damn GI line. we add documentation of how this trop area is put together and removed so that way we have a better idea on how to rebuild it. Then we go right back to tearing out the GI line staples and removing all of the screws but keeping everything in its current place. You might be able to see the screw pile next to the plate filled right down there on the ziplock bags starting to get bigger and bigger over the time being. It's kind of funny. Something else I started doing throughout this GI line removal is basically taking an ink pen, not pencil, take an ink pen. That way it's much more permanent and not easily washed off for whatever reason. And I trace exactly where the GI line is on the old plate field where I'm removing the staples. I'm just following along with the pen marking where the GI line is going around all the light bulbs and mechanics or wherever. And when the GI line comes to an end, I put a giant X in that location. That way I know that GI line does not go any further than that point so there is less confusion when reapplying the GI line to the new playfield. And I really wish we would have had a clock on the wall just to show you the time lapse amount of time that it took us to remove this entire back side of the playfield. Even in time lapse you can see how much time and effort is having to be put into this one guys There is surprisingly a lot of stuff on the backside of this plate fill when it comes to unscrewing and screwing things in I mean you don really realize how much is on the backside of the plate fill until you have to remove every damn screws that keeps it held together. Here we are at this point where essentially just going over everything just to make sure that we have everything ready to be easily removed. And how we're going to be removing the backside of the playfield is using a large piece of cardboard. You can use a sheet of wood, whatever you see fit, as long as it's able to be slid up underneath all of the wiring and mechanics. So we're just going to be taking a small sheet of cardboard and starting from the flipper area and just sliding it up underneath, while the other person, in this case Jason, will be placing everything on top of the cardboard. and we're just going to be sliding it down keeping everything as close as possible into the position as which it was on the play field this will keep us from accidentally getting confused on where certain things go or wires getting tangled up for whatever reason like christmas lights they are and just it makes it just a lot more neater and easier whenever you're putting it back together again now the game we played during this whole process of sliding it off of the play field is to count how many times which one of us missed a component on whether it be a screw that was holding something down or a staple which was holding the GI line down. So let's see how the count is. There's one staple for me. One screw for Jason. One versus one right there. Oh, two screws for Jason. Oh, two staples for Carrie. So it's 2v2 right now. Ah, three staples for me. Oh, three screws. Oh, four screws. 4v3. And it looks like I think that's everything right there. Four screws, three staples. Not too bad. But there you go. Everything's off the playfield. The playfield is completely clear. So there it is. The playfield is completely clear. and bottom. But what's next? What's the next step on this process? That's going to be in part two. Thanks for watching guys. That's going to wrap up this video for Centaur Playfield Swap. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button and if you like what you've seen here do not forget to hit that thumbs up button. The commenting and the likes and the subscribes really help this channel to grow and it's been doing well the last month and I want to continue to do so. We're getting close to that 100 subscribers mark. I'm pretty excited about that. It's not a lot but whenever you're dealing with such a niche hobby i mean that's pretty damn good that's all for now guys until next time peace out