Pinball At Home

I became interested in pinball during the sixties. I grew up with games like Gigi, Ice Parade, and Cross Town. After a lifetime's devotion in the arcades I decided in 1990 that I wanted to own a machine of my own. Living in Blackpool, I started looking in the obvious places - the arcades. I quickly found that not many arcades are manned by the owners these days and that, even if you find an owner, the likelihood that he has been waiting for you to go in to make him an offer is pretty slim.

I did find several people who said things like; "Old pinballs? Oh we smash them up!" I even found one who agreed to look out some old non-players for me only to have him ring the following day to say that his partner had been wielding the sledge hammer even as we had been speaking. The reason for all this violence towards pinballs? They are "always going wrong," or "nobody wants to play the old machines and they're not worth anything." It's the old story: "You're the hundredth person I've told... there's no demand!" Finally I found a firm who rented amusement machines to the licensing trade.

They had a stack of five pinballs in their warehouse, dismantled and left in an untidy heap in the midst of video innards and cabinets. They had been in the same place and position for at least five years. At long-distance glance (because you couldn't get near them for the videos) I could see two Flash machines and the backflash of a Gulfstream. There was no chance of any of the games being in a working condition the firm told me. "You might get one Flash working out of the two..." I made an offer for the five machines as a job lot.

The offer was accepted and we returned later with a Transit van. We left with six machines not five - I think the owner felt sorry for us. "They're nothing but trouble, you know..." I did not even know which machines I had until we got home and unloaded. Of the two Flash, one had been re-wired by a maniac, probably with vertically-standing smoking hair, and the other had been er… on fire... It had even been attacked by the Fire Brigade. It turned out that someone in a pub had pushed a cigarette end through a hole in the back of the backflash. When the smoke appeared the Fire Brigade were called and the fastest way into a smoking pinball machine is to use a hatchet, right?

Besides the two Flash pins, I also had a Tri-Zone, a Time Warp (with banana-shaped flippers), and two electro-mechanicals. One was a Lucky Ace, the single-player version of the better-known Dealer's Choice and the other, with the Gulfstream backglass turned out in reality to be a Spanish Eyes. "Ah yes," the firm responded, "I seem to remember someone breaking a glass and that one was a spare!" So, sadly, no pub had a Gulfstream with a Spanish Eyes glass!

The mechanics from the firm (once they could stop laughing) advised us to try to mend the electro-mechs first. So Spanish Eyes was placed on legs, the pins on the connecting plugs given a loving rub down with a bit of wet & dry paper and with a fire extinguisher handy we switched on. Nothing! Switch off and re-clean all contacts which had spent five years apart from their sockets. Re-check for the tenth time the fuses and for loose or dangling wires under the playfield. Switch on again. Nothing! Ok, so it's time for a brew and to wonder what we were going to do with six coffins, six display cabinets and 24 rusty metal legs. I mean, apart from anything else, they stank! Mildew was growing inside them from five years of damp and the musty smell was making Fran think twice about having one in the living room.

Now I work with computers. So the last thing you ever do is read an instruction book! But with a brew in one hand and an offspring asking when she can have a go on the other, the idea of hiding behind a manual seemed a good idea. Spanish Eyes, it transpired, does not automatically light up when plugged in and switched on. It remains dead until the left flipper button is depressed, upon which the attract mode (lights only) is activated. Having finished the coffee I pressed the button. Lights! I tried the replay button. Action! The game reset, and the ball was ejected into the plunger lane. The flippers worked. The plunger was weak but the spirit was willing. The ball entered the playfield via one of the five roll-overs. We had lights and action, but no music. The chime bar was not working. The game targets and bumpers worked but there was something wrong with both ball counter and the small reel which counted off the replays given.

Both these turned out to be purely mechanical problems. Parts that the beers had obviously reached had been where they should have left well enough alone! The game was a first-night success. It needed a good cleaning and lots of new bulbs and the odd bit of soldering to get it to work properly. The chime solenoid was replaced by one from the burnt-out Flash and we had music!

Cleaning was a delicate operation. Get a backglass damp for any length of time and the paint starts to flake. Spanish Eyes was made in 1972. If it had been laid up since 1985 then it could have been out on site for 13 years. From the amount of nicotine on the back surface of the backglass it looked as though it had spent all 13 years in the smokiest tap room imaginable. For overseas readers, a tap room is where men in flat-caps drink beer and show each other their ferrets and play dominoes etc. Sometimes they shove them down their trousers. The ferrets I mean - to shove dominoes down your trousers would be silly wouldn't it?

The playfield was in a similar condition to the backglass and the paint had worn down with years of neglect and rusty balls running over it. In places the bare wood showed through. We had been warned against soap, and abrasives were out of the question. The remaining paint would have just come off.

Water alone, in the form of a damp cloth, made little difference and almost in desperation I tried a drop of saliva on a cloth. (This was the most genteel way I could think of to say that!) It worked a treat, the nicotine disappeared layer by layer and muddy colours became brighter. One or two extra tiny spots of bare wood appeared. Some sacrifices have to be made... The game now plays very well and just needs a new plunger spring and nylon sleeve to bring the playing up to top notch.

The playfield still needs some work, though, and is waiting for me to pluck up enough courage to start colour matching. I have sought advice on which types of paint and the best methods to employ. The answer to all requests has been the same - "It's impossible, you can't do it!" I'm afraid I take the view that if it was not possible then Williams couldn't have done it in the first place. (We were later to find out that a screen printing process was involved which was a bit beyond us.) I would think twice about tackling a complicated design or a playfield where colours faded into one another but, surely, in these days of airbrushes, masking tape and a blob of Dulux on a two inch brush it must be worth having a go! If I get brave enough I'll tell you how I get on. (Several years later we were to achieve some success with those small Humbrol tins of paint that you use to mess up your Airfix kits!)

Oh yes - and as you can see - the cat was very appreciative of a silver ball to chase around after!

This blog entry started life as an article in the Pinball Owners' Association newsletter, 1990.

Coin Slot Machines Index