The Games Room - "The ArcAde"

The games room has stalled since the pinball league meet.  I had been planning on the work being completed by now but with work commitments, rugby and other distractions I hadn't had time to sit down and plan the layout etc.

I have now found an electrician who will hopefully be starting work at the end of this month.

The plan is to upgrade the power from the house to the garage and then to run power from the garage up to the Pin Shack.  New MCU's will be installed in both the garage and the log cabin.  I am also taking advantage of the work taking place to add external electrical sockets and additional lighting in the garden.

Click images to enlarge.

"The ArcAde"

The electrical layout:-

A 3D model of how I expect the games room to look when it is fully completed :-

A short video walk through...

The Pin Shack

The electrical layout:-

UK Pinball League Meeting

On Sunday 17th April 2011 I held my first pinball meet.  I had a couple of concerns, firstly would all the pins hold out... they did and secondly would the power trip... it didn't!

The following are a few photos from the day.

My daughter, Charli, is getting some early practice in

The competition went well and the following are some photos from the afternoon's play

The results were as follows:


Position   Player    Score    Points
1 Phil Dixon 89 15
2 Nick Marshall 88 14
3 Adrian Head 75 13
4 Alex Hooper 74 12
5 Aid Cooper 69 11
6 Kate Morris 67 10
7 Tony Smith 54 9
8 Terry Sullivan 53 8
9 Mike Buckley 52 7
10 Dave Langley 48 6
11 Paul Reddington 42 5
12 Paul Marchant-Smith 38 4
13 Charli Head 24 3
14 Frank Triberus 22 2
15 Ava Marchant-Smith 14 1
16 Katie Cooper 8 0

Overall I came third and Charli was top of the three children. Easter eggs all round for the kids!

I think home advantage paid off!

I had a great day and would definitely host a future meet... if I get asked again! :-)

Belated Update

It has been a while since the last update as I have been really busy at work.

The Pin Shack is now up with just the roof left to complete.

The following are some of the photos of the log cabin being built.

The base is being prepared, the clearing and construction took just a day.

Once the base was completed it took just a day for two of us to get the floor bearers down and to build the walls and roof from the ground up.  I need to thank my father in law for all his assistance! 

The roof on and the main cabin is complete

The pin shack has arrived!

Yesterday over 1.5 tonnes of wood arrived!

 So I had to move it off the drive!

Next step is getting the base down.

The Games Room

It's been ages since my last post.

Work has been very busy and I never seem to have any free time.

I haven't had the time or space to work on the Indiana Jones project pin but now the spring is coming I am going to make time!

But first... I have decided to convert my garage into a games room.  I have been thinking about converting the garage for about 5 years and never got round to it.

The Workshop

I had a dilemma.  If I convert the garage into a games room I won't have a workshop, where do I keep the kids bikes and what about the garden tools and the lawn mower!


So I have bought one of these log cabins...

and one of these side stores...

The whole workshop will be 6.5 meters (including the 1.5 meter side store) by 3 meters.

I am off work next week so I am dedicating the whole week to the workshop project!

Saturday - Off to the Rugby - well maybe not the whole week! 
Sunday- I will be clearing the ground for the workshop. The workshop is going in the top corner of the garden.

Monday - I will be finishing off the ground clearance, leveling etc.
Tuesday - The workshop is being delivered.
Wednesday - The mixer, compactor, 5 tonnes of hardcore, sand and gravel and 18 bags of cement is being delivered.  Work on the base will start. I will hopefully be able to get the hardcore down and compacted.
Thursday - I will be mixing and laying the concrete base.
Friday - relaxing... hopefully... while the base is left to set.
Saturday - Rugby - Worcester Warriors vs Cornish Pirates
Sunday - Rugby - THREE games of rugby including the watching the England womens in the Six Nations.

The following weekend I will start work on assembling the log cabin as it all comes as individual planks!  I always enjoyed playing with Lego so I am looking forward to this! :-)

The Games Room

I started to look at how I could convert the garage into a games room a few months ago.

I decided to break the work down into small manageable 'chunks' to make life easier.

The planned stages are as follows:-

1. Replacing the rear window with French Doors.(so I can get pins in and out once 2 and 3 are complete!)
2. Bricking up a side door.
3. Bricking up the "up and over" garage doors (but leaving them on so there is no visible change from the front of the house.)
4. Strengthen the roof joists so I can use the space for storage.
5. Getting the power and lighting extended and fitted.
6. Building an internal ~2M x ~3M – AV room (possibly)
7. Installing a ‘loft’ hatch and ladder.
8. Dry lining and insulating the walls and ceiling with Kingspan or similar.
9. Adding additional insulation in the roof.
10. Boarding the ‘loft’ floor.
11. Fitting an over door heater (possibly Air Con)
12. Putting in a suspended floor with under floor insulation.
13. Decorating.
14. Putting down a laminate floor.
15. Playing pinball and drinking beer!

Work Started TODAY!!  Stage 1 is complete!

The Plan of Attack

The success of any project relies on having a good project plan behind it!

I have been working out a strategy on how to best attack this project.  As this is intended to be a 'keeper' I am going to be giving this pin the 'full works' with a thorough strip down and rebuild.

I have decided on the following approach but I am open to other suggestions:-

1. Electrical - Due to the loom being previously cut and repaired, I am going to check all electrical aspects first.  I have already completed the switch testing and all switches and optos are functioning except for one or two I need to sort out.  The continuity back to the main board is all OK as most switches in the matrix are responding, this indicates that wires in the columns and rows are fine and the problem lies with the switches themselves.  I am probably going to have to buy a few micro switches as some are a little 'sticky'. 
2. Playfield Clean - Once everything electrical has been tested and rectified I will then start the main playfield strip down and clean.  First, I am going to remove everything from the upper to give it a thorough clean.  I then move on to the underneath of the playfield.  I am not intending to remove everything from underneath at the same time as I am worried that I will struggle to put it all back!  I will be working from the front to the back and clean and tumble as I go.  I have been thinking about fully removing the loom but unless my confidence grows I will continued as planned, a bit at a time.
3. Metal Components - All metal components will be tumbled and all rubbers, star posts etc. will be replaced.  Depending on how the hardware (nuts, bolts, screws etc.) clean up, I may purchase a whole new set, especially for the upper playfield.
4. Plastics - The plastic ramps and playfield plastics will be washed and then polished with Novus.  I may flame polish the plastic ramps to remove any ball marks but they don't look too bad at all, I think they should be fine after a good session with some Novus 2.  None of the playfield plastics look too bad either and I can't see any scratches that would need to be flame polished out.  I have never flame polished before so I am a little nervous about trying this!  THIS IS NOT HOW TO FLAME POLISH - but well worth watching!
5. Metal Ramps, Wireforms and Ball Guides - The metal will then be polished and re-grained where necessary.  Certain parts will also be sent away to be electro plated in gold.
6. Playfield Waxing - The playfield will be cleaned and waxed with 5-6 layers of yellow Carnauba wax.  I use Harly Pure Wax which is totally pure and contains no additives that can cause later issues with the playfield, plastics etc.  I will then reassemble the upper playfield.
7. Testing - Once everything is back together I will give the pin some thorough testing to make sure everything is back working.
8. Cabinet - I will then move onto the main cabinet which I intend to fully strip, fill, prime, paint and add new decals.  I will also be restoring the shooter gun but I haven't decided yet whether to get that gold plated too.  I will then ad new siderails, legs, lockdown bar, flipper buttons etc.
9. Speakers - I will be replacing the existing speakers with some more modern and higher grade components.
10. Mods - I don't like too many mods on a pinball machine unless it adds to the overall playing experience or improves reliability.  I believe all mods should be reversible though, if you put them on you should be able to remove them with no damage.  I have 'modded' one of my current pins, a Twilight Zone where I added additional light at the back, added light to the gumball machine and replaced the clock lamps with LED's to reduce heat.  I may add one or two 'tweaks' to the IJ such as:

• LED's, 
• a moving propeller on the bi-plane, 
• the "lost" plastic and light board, 
• the kit to illuminate the jackpots on the speaker panel 

 Well thats the plan.  Any comments on the approach would be appreciated.

I couldn't wait for the key!

As I only work until lunchtime on a Friday, I got impatient and decided to bite the bullet and take a large drill to the coin door lock and open the IJ up.  Who needs keys!

Once I got the pin open, I decided to clean some of the playfield to see what lay under all the grime.

I am really pleased with the way it cleaned up.  I only spent five minutes with some Novus 2 but the dirt lifted beautifully and the colours came through as you can see below.  I probably won't spend much more time cleaning until I do the full strip down but I do find it very satisfying to remove grime!

I still haven't found any wear on the playfield except for near the E N T drop targets.  This area is always susceptible to damage.  As previously mentioned though, I am not too concerned as I intend to add a 'Cliffy' protector here anyway.  The protector will cover the area and prevent further damage.

Tomorrow I will be taking some 1000 grit sandpaper to the wireforms to see how they clean up.  A lot of this rust seems to look at lot worse than it actually is.  I am hoping that they'll clean up ok without having to be replated.  I still intend to get everything gold plated but if they clean up to my satisfaction I may delay the gold treatment.

Balls Of Steel - Pinball Plastic Scans

Broken Plastics

Very often plastics are damaged on pinball machines.  Common plastics can be located quite easily but for rarer machines this can be difficult.

The Balls Of Steel website contains thousands of high resolution scans of pinball plastics that can be downloaded and used to reproduce the broken or missing item.

As far as I can currently determine, my IJ only has one plastic that is broken and needs replacing, the "Jackpot" plastic as shown on the left.  Fortunately this plastic is readily available and I will probably just purchase a new one.

The following links will help me out if I decide to reproduce the broken  plastic myself:-

Indiana Jones scans on the Balls Of Steel site

How to recreate plastics

Plastic Protectors


One additional thing I will purchase is a full set of plastic protectors.  These are made from an impact resistant plastic (PETG) which don't break from ball strikes.


This photo shows the protectors with blue protective film which needs to be removed before being installed.

The protectors are the same shape as the original plastics but protrude about 1mm further out and therefore protect the original plastic piece.

Cliffy's® Protectors

Once the IJ has received its full playfield clean and wax I am going to add some metal protectors to save wear and damage in particularly vulnerable areas.

Protectors for various pinball machines are produced by Cliffy.

This photo shows a number of protectors fitted.

Ramp protectors, stainless steel ramp flaps, plastics protectors and the 3 drop target slot protector.

Further details of the IJ protectors can be found on this direct link.

Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure Restoration Project - Day 0 - Photos

The following are the photos of the IJ that I used to decide whether to buy the table or not....



The boards all look fine and boot up with no errors.



You can see from this photo why it got the nickname 'The Mega Rust Bucket of Doom'!

The door was replaced before it was delivered. As I mentioned in a previous post, it was locked and I don't currently have the key! If it doesn't arrive by Saturday I will drill the lock out as I always use 'show' locks with identical keys on all my pins.



For some reason someone must have had thought it was a good idea to cut the main looms between the head and the table! Luckily the seller has spent some time rejoining them!



The play field is really dirty. You can just see where Indy has been cleaned a little. On closer inspection I can't see any issues at all and it should clean up very nicely.



The cabinet decals are faded but this does not matter as I am going to be replacing them all when I shop the pin.



A close up of the bottom left of the play field shows some of the rusty wire forms.

These are going to be cleaned and plated in gold. I am giving the pin the full gold treatment with gold wireforms, siderails, lockdown bar and legs.



Here is a closeup of the bottom right of the playfield showing the multi-ball Idol.

So far I have not noticed any issues with any of the plastics except for the centre drop target area.

The Idol needs some work as it has worn and lost its colour in places.



Here is the top right of the pin showing one of the two planes.

The ramps all look intact with no damage that I have spotted.



The Bi-Plane has a damaged tail which I will look at repairing.

I have sourced a replacement if this can't be fixed.

The ramps are going to be re-grained and polished professionally.

I can't tell if there is any wear behind the drop targets but I will be fitting 'Cliffy' protectors to the pin to save any further wear in the vulnerable areas. I will add some more information on the Cliffy protectors in a later post.



The 'Path of Adventure' (PoA) looks to be in good shape.

I intend to add an LED mod kit to the clear red plastic areas.

The ball divertor that should be located at the back of the PoA is missing but should be on it's way with the keys!



Another shot of the upper playfield.

The ramp 'flaps' need to be replaced but generally I am very pleased with the playfield, plastics and inserts.



The underneath of the playfield is not too bad except for some rust.

Once I have stripped both the top and bottom, I intend to tumble as much of the metalwork as I can.