This is a story of one of my “grail games” that, well, most people would scratch their heads at. Sometimes you want a game that nobody else cares about. There are a variety of reasons for this, but what you like is what you like. This is one of my stories.
This game pick up is a bit bittersweet. It reminds me of another game that slipped out of my hands and how different types of collectors in the community look at trading, buying and selling differently.
It’s a pretty heated argument among the pinball community whether or not there’s any true objective “ethics” involved in the buying and selling game? Everybody has their opinions, and I have mine, which is, I don’t step on other peoples’ deals. I honestly believe if you take care of others, you end up better off than if you play the dog-eat-dog, first-person-with-the-cash-steals-the-deal type strategy in pinball acquisition.
Here are two videos of me completely rebuilding the flippers and flipper assembly on a Gottlieb System 3 pinball machine (Waterworld) – many of this information will basically pertain to most flipper systems on other machines like Bally and WMS, Stern, etc. I go through the whole process of replacing all the major wear parts on the flipper assembly even including the base plate and end-of-stroke switches.
Here’s part 2 (sorry I rarely edit these videos so sometimes my camera breaks it into separate files)
Part 3
If the above is too slow, check out this time-lapse of rebuilding the flipper:
As work continues restoring this Gottlieb system 3 pinball machine, “Waterworld”, I rebuild the broken VUK (vertical up-kicker). This is from a series of videos where I rebuild a number of the core components on this game that’s been on location for probably more than a decade.
Here’s a short video showing the removal and maintenance on a drop target bank from a Gottlieb System 3 pinball machine – Waterworld.
Another video from my restoration work on this Gottlieb Waterworld pinball machine – actually two videos in this series where I talk about trying to isolate a problem with the optos on the game and comment about the design of the game and how the optos work, how to test and figure out what’s wrong?
But there’s more… I discovered an issue on this particular game, and possibly on other Gottlieb games that use this style of opto bracket… more info here:
Here’s a short video outlining my process of creating some custom artwork for drop targets for a Gottlieb System 3 pinball machine: Waterworld. I thought I might create some custom images to commemorate the huge budget of the movie’s production 😉
One note – after you put the decals on, put some heavy mylar over the decals to keep them intact – just the decal and triple thick isn’t enough to keep the graphics from not being damaged by the heavy pinball.
Check out the video!