Figured I'd should update anyone that might follow this. What's happened in the last 2-3 months?
Well I had my first pinball meetup at gameworks, which I thought went fairly well. Feels like running a club (or even getting one started) is going to be a tough battle. Seems most pinball collector/players just wanna play and fix their own machines (though I do have an un-official invitation to go see a guy's 16 pin collection down in aurora in about 2 weeks). I don't think most people really realize the benefit of a club.
I also acquired my 3rd pin, a williams jokerz!
So far I've replaced the pinball glass (tons of scratches), touched up the cabinet paint (lots of cracks), gave the playfield a nice cleaning, and had to already replace the display. The original kept crapping out, so I spent the $150 to get a modern LCD version (less power, will last 20+ years). I still have some general illumination issues to work out, and although I have general sound, there is no music (error shows up during diagnostics), but it's not the roms.
I've decided I'm going to fix my 1968 bally gator as good as I can (going to replace the solenoid coil on the 1st player 2nd reel score), see if that fixes the issue I'm having. Come next spring, it's going to a garage sale and I'm getting what I can for it (which will probably be at a loss). It's a bit disappointing considering I felt like I had to fight to get it at $150 (non-working), and yet I can't seem to even get $200 for it cleaned up, rubbers replaced, bulbs replaced, contacts cleaned, flipper coils replaced. I don't regret buying it, as it was a small investment, and I learned a lot as my first pinball, but I'm probably going to stick to pins I REALLY like (hence why I am completely restoring my space shuttle).
On that note, I'm also setting aside a pinball fund. This is money that's not part of any paychecks, this is stuff I sell, side work I do, etc. I don't plan on buying a pin soon because I know if I do, it will make me not want to work on space shuttle. My next step is to figure out why sound isn't amplified. Could be a bad pot, could be a bad amp chip. Once I get that working, I am probably going to do a complete playfield swap. This scares me, but at the same time I couldn't think of a better pin to do it on. It's a fairly simple playfield (only one ramp, not very layered), and I will be motivated to finish it.
So in the meantime, I will keep saving up ($550 so far), and someday maybe I can buy a pinball that doesn't already have issues. Ideally (my dream) would be to own an earthshaker or black knight 2000. I remember playing earthshaker for hours and hours at a local arcade about a mile from my house. Black knight was at an arcade much further, but I went there a lot and I remember how much I loved the soundtrack.
Well I had my first pinball meetup at gameworks, which I thought went fairly well. Feels like running a club (or even getting one started) is going to be a tough battle. Seems most pinball collector/players just wanna play and fix their own machines (though I do have an un-official invitation to go see a guy's 16 pin collection down in aurora in about 2 weeks). I don't think most people really realize the benefit of a club.
I also acquired my 3rd pin, a williams jokerz!
I've decided I'm going to fix my 1968 bally gator as good as I can (going to replace the solenoid coil on the 1st player 2nd reel score), see if that fixes the issue I'm having. Come next spring, it's going to a garage sale and I'm getting what I can for it (which will probably be at a loss). It's a bit disappointing considering I felt like I had to fight to get it at $150 (non-working), and yet I can't seem to even get $200 for it cleaned up, rubbers replaced, bulbs replaced, contacts cleaned, flipper coils replaced. I don't regret buying it, as it was a small investment, and I learned a lot as my first pinball, but I'm probably going to stick to pins I REALLY like (hence why I am completely restoring my space shuttle).
On that note, I'm also setting aside a pinball fund. This is money that's not part of any paychecks, this is stuff I sell, side work I do, etc. I don't plan on buying a pin soon because I know if I do, it will make me not want to work on space shuttle. My next step is to figure out why sound isn't amplified. Could be a bad pot, could be a bad amp chip. Once I get that working, I am probably going to do a complete playfield swap. This scares me, but at the same time I couldn't think of a better pin to do it on. It's a fairly simple playfield (only one ramp, not very layered), and I will be motivated to finish it.
So in the meantime, I will keep saving up ($550 so far), and someday maybe I can buy a pinball that doesn't already have issues. Ideally (my dream) would be to own an earthshaker or black knight 2000. I remember playing earthshaker for hours and hours at a local arcade about a mile from my house. Black knight was at an arcade much further, but I went there a lot and I remember how much I loved the soundtrack.
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