Pinball

Hello readers. One hobby of mine is Pinball, as in the Pinball Machines that were once found in bars, pubs, fast-food stores and arcades but have now mostly disappeared from the view of the public.

Photo of personal collector's collection (August 2009)

Most machines have been moved into personal collections (may contain 1-3 machines) or collectors (who usually have more than 3) such as this one:

Photo of personal collector's collection (August 2009)

These machines were once part of my dad's collection, some have been sold and others he still has. He collected them and could repair them with his understanding of electronics and many, many hours.

Over the years my interests increased, I learnt more and more about how these machines worked and how to fix them just like my dad. I eventually learnt about Photoshop to try and restore artwork on the machines.

Playfield art for Wild Fyre 1978 restored in Photoshop by Mildflame

Scanning the damaged artwork.

It was always an interesting adventure!

I eventually got to the point where I wanted to test my skills and knowledge. I had learnt all this information and I wanted to see what I could do with that I knew. My dad gave me his worst machine for my birthday. I asked for a challenge and I sure got one! For my 14th birthday I got a 1979 Williams Flash and to this day I still haven't seen a Pinball Machine in worse condition, at-least not in person.

I had to learn how to airbrush in order to touch up all the paint that had flaked off the playfield and paint any areas I could get or make decals for. Luckily I could buy a decal for the worst part and stencils for the cabinet. If you are interested in how I did these stages in detail I have it all posted on a forum however the forum requires you to be a member to view the thread. If you really badly want to see the rest of the thread register here and you can find the thread here: http://aussiepinball.com/index.php?topic=6396.0

Taken September 2013

However after painting the cabinet and playfield, applying according decals, spraying the playfield with a clear for protection, assembling the machine and re-populating the playfield it has become to look like this: 

The machine still has some things it needs doing such as touching up the paint on the backglass and some minor electrical work but I'm proud to say I took on my biggest challenge yet and came out with my biggest success.