Adventures of a new pinball owner.

By undrdog

November 21, 2019

This story got featured on November 26, 2019

Tonight was my first bit of time to spend with the Mystic. Earlier in the day, I tried to see that all the plugs were well seated. It booted up and started a game. The left flipper shudders like crazy. The right flipper was dead, although at one point before I bought it, it was working. Maybe I could work on that some.

So, this evening I brought my box of Church's Chicken and my backpack of stuff back over. I had my box of goodies from a pinball supplier: two bright new pinballs, Novus 1 & 2, leaf switch tool, some other assorted things, polishing cloths, a multi-meter, an adjustable C wrench, needle nose pliers and a fluid level. And a mini vaccum cleaner.

The only thing at the new place right now is the pinball machine, so I brought a folding table and a chair.

Looking at Pinside, I learned that you don't use a fluid level to level a pinball machine. Downloaded a recommended app that came with absolutely no instructions and wasn't very intuitive- the cross hairs all lined up, but the notations showed that things were off. Weird. Spent a lot of time leveing my folding table with the fluid level so I could calibrate the app. No matter how many times I calibrated it, it would not read zero on both axis. What is calibration if not telling the fool thing to set to zeros?

Decided to try to level the machine anyway. Nasty, old, rusty, stuck leg levelers. Between my C wrench and my needle nose pliers, I was able to move one leg a little. Note to self: bring vice grips next time, and get a digital leveler at Harbor Frieght.

Might as well clean the playfield. Successfully wiped the playfield down with a clean damp rag. Let's try the Novus 2. Test in an inconspicuous spot. Really? Can someone please point to an inconspicuous spot on the Mystic playfield? Thank you. Decided to try a solid colored area. Didn't notice a difference. Let's try one of the squares in the nine square layout. Maybe I'll have one nice clean square. Didn't notice any difference.

Kind of late to pretend I know how to check the fuses, as recommended by one of the pinball guides. Besides, what good would that do, not having any spare fuses around?

So, my first evening with my new Mystic I successfully wiped down the playfield, installed two pristine new balls and cleaned the glass. Ta Daaaa!

Stay tuned for our next episode when our hero saves the day by vacuuming the dust out of the box.

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No photos are attached to this story.

Vacuumed it all out. Cleaned the playfield with naphtha (all the places I could get to without taking anything off the playfield). The lower playfield was pretty clean. The top was dirty- area with the saucer hole and pop bumpers. Waxed with Mother’s (all the places I could get to without taking anything off the playfield)

Still couldn’t work the back leg levelers. Letting some liquid wrench soak in.

Left flipper still machine gunning. Some general illumination sets not lighting. Technician will be here Wednesday. Once he gets me up & running I’ll tackle any subsequent problems myself.

Mystic is all working now. Ball hits the glass off the center drop targets. Captive ball too easy. Middle pop bumper not sensitive enough at top center. Pop bumper area in general not as lively as the Mystic at BOS. Hope increasing the slope and getting new rubbers fixes it all.

Ball got seriously stuck on top of two lowered drop targets on the right bank. Not sure if the set can be raised more flush with the pf. Maybe increasing the slope will help with that, too.

Great game. Needs some fine tuning.

Looked at the pop bumpers tonight. Didn’t have time to take them apart, but the contacts were pretty far apart. Closed them down and now they really kick butt. Can’t wait until I get new rubbers. This thing will rock.

Need new light sockets in two of the pop bumpers. Might as well do all three. Could use new caps if I can find Mystic caps.

All that's left to do is the rubbers, raise up the drop targets, and raise up the Special insert. And replace some GI sockets. And switch the GI to warm LEDs or go to incandescents.

keep up the awesome work, sounds like your getting close

Its done. The Special insert is now back up level with the playfield. The pop bumpers kick butt, the slingshots no longer shudder (fingers crossed!). Its a fast, fun machine. There is nothing left I want to do to it.

Well, except I might go to a seven digit display. And one pop bumper keeps burning out its light, but that's ok. They are cheap.

And I have new drop targets to install. It came with bullseye targets, and they should be explosion pattern.