Whitewater for sure.

Sttng and wh20 and TZ

I vote for Whitewater, and those seven ramps.

Probably best to play these at a buddy's house, huh?

I am just getting ready to do a full shop on my STTNG. Any tips on the best way to go about it or just dive in?

STTNG is pretty easy really.
whitewater isn't bad once you've done it before.
Baywatch kinda suxx. LOTR suxx having to deal with soldered in spotlights on inlanes and usually broken wires inside balrog harness. and WPT dealing with the back panel. I think 1/2 the games assemblies are tied to the back panel.

Hey,

I didn't find TZ to be terrible, but it was the first machine I tore down to the wood. That was a mistake; not a good way to ease yourself in...

Luke

Here in Iceland pinball machine are hard to find.

I am very lucky to own the few i have

Corvette is a real PITA because of that huge right ramp.

Baywatch was the only one I ever gave up on. SEGA machines are all pretty tough....

BSD was a surprisingly big PITA, the coffin for what it is takes a lot of twisting, and removing of wires and connectors that seem like they are being forced too far, and the subway ramps, and getting to some of those lightboards ugg. JD is up there too.

I didn't find, sttng, tz, or really any other machine to be too tricky. A lot of DE/Sega's don't feel like they were built to be shopped very easily.

I'm currently shopping an NGG and with like the 16 some odd coils, 2 ramps, 2 VUKs, the 2 gophers mechs, the spinning wheel, the upper playfield and the two metal ramps.......I think this is the toughest one so far....and I did a whitewater about 2 years ago and it doesn't even compare.....

Elektra three p layfields is nut so many bulbs and flippers

You guys are making me nervous... I just know there is tons of black crap hiding in the corners on my routed game.

Wh20 was my first shop out. Every thing else seems much easier after that experience.

Sega used WAY too much different types of hardware. Baywatch was pretty tough. I remember having to take ramps back off more than once because forgot something underneath.

Whatever game I'm currently tinkering with

Demolition man ain't much fun to strip down...

More coils typically = more PITA.

TAF topside was pretty easy. Then you realize it has 5 pops and 4 flips plus the book case plus the hand plus...

Basically, lots of crap stuffed in on the bottom side.

Most anything with an upper playfield seems to be a pain.

I've shopped White Water a couple of times. While I don't like doing it, it was not really difficult - just a little slow and time consuming. It just requires organization, and a lot of space to place the removed parts. The manual provides a general order of ramp removal.

No matter what game, it's important to take time labeling and documenting everything (place items in separate freezer bags with hardware as you go, and mark them in numeric order). The time you spend on the removal will save you time and frustration when putting it back together.

The key is organization and plenty of space before you start. And take pictures as you go. Super helpful later.

The hardest one is always your first one ....title means nothing

Not to mention that the damn playfield doesn't slide out , but I still love the game .

Sega games in general...I hate shopping them. It really appears as though they kind of winged it as they went as far as design. So many things seem juryrigged at the last second as you observe how they assembled stuff. But as someone that has shopped most electronic pins at least once, I would say STNG ranks right up there as most difficult. Especially if you are doing. LEDs under the playfield, which requires pretty removing most of the ramp assemblies underneath. A bit unusual for a Williams game.

An obvious tip for newbies, and for people like me who are not so mechanically inclined....I require all my guys including myself to "map" a game as you are taking it apart. We take photos of everything, then print them out and code all the parts. Then, it's quite easy to reassemble just about any game! Been at it 35 years and this is by far the best system I have come up with. Also, other people can jump in if another was in the middle of a shop job. Get a few plastic boxes with bins with dividers and label on the printout sheet where you placed the hardware (iD each bin of course). When we unplug the connectors we use different color labels for wach one. Do these steps correctly, and write good notes on the photo pages, and you should have few problems. Even new people can come in here and correctly reassemble a game after going through just one pinball with someone that is trained. I'm sure there may be better ways but the extra time is worth it and I haven't discovered anything better.

I wouldn't say white water is difficult to shop, it's just expensive to shop.

Another vote for WH2O.

Damn, that was rough!

My first complete top down shop job was WH20. Turned out great, but holy hell. Talk about trial by fire (or water, I guess).

Everything else after has been much less intimidating.

Agree with the Sega comments because Frankenstein was a pain. We completely cleaned and restored a Spiderman that had been in a fire as our first shop job, then I thought I knew what I was doing and tackled a good cleaning/LED change on Frankenstein. It took me more than twice as long and it wasn't even that dirty. There were stapled in lights, ramps on top of ramps, and teensy areas that I had to take apart and redo more than once.

The talk of NGG being a pain scares me into thinking maybe I'll just leave my wonky Bud and opto for now instead of tearing it apart.

Any 90's pin that the pf doesn't pull out and only pivots up. Those have crap behind or under that you can't get to and you have to pull the playfield to strip/polish it. So annoying.. Space Jam is one I try to avoid buying due to that reason

IMG_1721.jpg

Iceland! That is awesome! What games do you have? Can we have a pinside road trip to Iceland and play at your house!

TZ isn't too bad.

WCS is the worst one I've done.

Great....... I have one that is coming up to be shopped soon

Another vote for Demolition Man . Theres always the problem which ramp goes first, second etc.

^^ +1
I use the "Take two pictures of every step you make ..." (even if it seems sooo obvious, it makes all the difference later) put everything separated in a box which has many compartiments. Descibe every step you make in one line.

Putting things together read the desciptions and watch the pics in reverse order.

STTNG, WH2O and TZ beeing proposed as hard... on WH2O and STTNG definatly the numbers 1 and 2 (for me...)

WH20 wasn't really that bad ,, the inter twinding ramps with the Up kick to BigFoot was tricky ..

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/wh20-complete-pf-shop-out-2-morrow

I agree w/ that 100% ,, lOOk for my BSD Complete Shop Thread soon .. Live on a Saturday !!

HS2 wore my hands out w/ All the polishing w/ Mothers etc ..

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/hs2-in-the-b_r-grg

Dirty Harry was alot of Fun ,,, and I Love to Flame Polish ramps !! from old 2 New lOOking..

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/dirty-harry-is-in-the-b_r-grg

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/flame-polishing-ramps-video-b_r

Spiderman was Tricky ,, DM was a Puzzle also

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/08-spiderman-is-n-the-br-grg

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/demolition-man-in-leds-b_r-s

the Most Tyme consuming Non-Stop Shop was WCS .. 17 hrs , hell yes a Break was taken , actually me & S.tastic worked 13 hrs strait on a Sat- and finished it Sunday morning .. Ya Gotta Love it !!

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/wcs-shop-day-this-sat-the-24th-of-nov-

Demo man was tough to get back together. Was like a puzzle.

Does anybody else usually have a few extra screws/bolts/etc when finished??

HAhaha no...

I am in the process of doing a BSD right now and it does not seem to be that bad. TZ was another story......

I saw the title of this thread and straight away thought STTNG, all those subway ramps and diverters!

Safecracker. The underside of the playfield has so much stuff on it - all in such a tight space.

Do you guys tumble all your parts together or in small groups that go together?

Black Water 100 wasn't much fun

I second that!

I would vote corvette and TZ. Didn't really like shopping those.

Hey,

In regard to tumbling, it depends on how you approach things. You can do a bunch of stuff together, but you better know what goes where when you empty the tumbler. I picked up a second tumbler used, and would consider getting a third or fourth one just for parts separation. All where you want to spend your time; I'd rather have all my parts for one assembly in the tumbler and run more tumblers than take a ton of pictures from a ton of angles (which I've done). Just my two cents.

Luke

Whitewater is the hardest. Theatre of Magic was by far the easiest!

They are called factory spares