It was a nice day, so I decided to take a pinball backplane, bottom board and bring it outside and dissect the basic components there and discuss how they work.
Pinball Feature: The Inner Workings of an Electro Mechanical Game
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Pinball Philosophy: Old and New World Art & Themes
In this pinball philosophy video, I talk about the differences between what I call the “new world” and the “old world” in terms of pinball aesthetics.
Let’s play our fixed Gottlieb Target Pool!
Yay… we got the game working again…. let’s go over the basic gameplay and see how it plays shall we?
How to replace or repair EM pinball latch relay parts/articulating arm/rollers
Ok, that’s a mouthful huh? This is a continuation of a previous series of videos I’ve done on fixing deep ruleset issues in EM games, and now that we’ve found what’s wrong, let’s fix it!
First, here’s a video on how to replace the latch relay – there’s another post where I demonstrate how to remove the backplane from the game so it’s easier to work on.
And in this next video, if you don’t have a replacement part, I show how with a little ingenuity and a #4 tap, you can fabricate your own roller for the articulating arm.
Now that it’s fixed… let’s see how the game plays!
How to remove the inside/backplane from an EM pinball machine?
Sometimes when you have to do more extensive work to relays in an old electro-mechanical game, you can’t bend over the cabinet. You need to get all those assemblies on a bench to service. I go over how you can remove the insides of a game so you can more easily access the components.
The next video in this series goes into repairing a broken latch relay.
Making your own pinball head door.
This is a short video demonstrating a pinball head back cover I made with a piece of 3/8″ plywood. Very easy to make, and what I like about it, is the wood actually makes the sounds of bells in the head sound a little warmer and less loud, which I think works well in home environments.
Jello Biafra on Pinball
Lately, I’ve been going through many old videos I have on file and I came across one I thought might be fun to share. This features Jello Biafra (who may be best known as the front man for the iconic punk band, “Dead Kennedys” but also a well known social activist). I’ve worked with Jello for many years in music-related things and a few years back he was at the PinChurch and started talking about pinball, so I flipped on the camera and captured a fun little moment of him talking about his childhood interest in pinball.