7 Years ago I found a project STTNG on Pinside. It cost $1500 plus shipping. Those were the days. It was a non-playable re-import.

The negatives: It was missing the sound and power board, the DMD, the glass, the Borg ship, and the lockdown bar. It also was missing many playfield parts. The playfield itself was in poor shape. The Klingon and Romulan ships were destroyed. The metal rails were dented. The legs needed to be refinished. There is no latch on the back. The translight is worn in spots.

The positives: The wiring harnesses were intact. The artwork on the cabinet was in pretty nice shape with little to no fading. There was a couple of small scratches and chips in the art but its not obvious. The cabinet and head wood was solid.

Back when I received my game, I didn't really know how to start. Then I came across a topic started by Pinside member sc204 (Stuart). He was doing a complete restore of a STTNG and documenting it in great detail. It was just what I needed. Here is the link to his excellent thread. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/star-trek-tng-next-chapter. When he finished his game, he sold it. Stuart lives in NY and sold it to a guy in Texas. As fate would have it, The guy that bought it lived 10 minutes from my home and allowed me to come play it. It was even nicer in person. It was HEP quality.

I followed his thread and tried to copy everything like he did. I'm afraid I do not have his skill, but I've tried my best. I worked hard for about a year, and made a lot of progress. I bought a lot of missing parts and cleaned up everything that was savable. But personal life suddenly got in the way of the project. Life issues drained my restoration money and my desire to have anything to do with my gameroom. I put the cabinet in the garage in a corner and the playfield on a rotisserie in the gameroom. And there it sat for over 5 years untouched.

Fast forward to March of 2021. I go to my gameroom upstairs and see my other pins sitting unplayed (IJ, WCS, LOTR). I decide to play some games. Next thing I know the old juices are flowing. I looked over and saw the STTNG playfield sitting there. So I made the decision to get back to finishing the restoration. However, I didn't remember where I left off. So I'll post pics from the beginning and document where I came from, where I left off, and where I'm at now. Spoiler alert, I have not finished yet, but getting real close.

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More before pics.

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And a few more before pics.....

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As you can see, the playfield was in poor shape. Not having the knowledge to attempt repair, I jumped on Pinside and looked for a replacement playfield. That's when I found Ron Kruzman and his excellent work. He happened to have a STTNG playfield already clearcoated and for sale. I snagged it up. While I waited for it to arrive, I built a rotisserie and attached my playfield on it. I then started tearing down the playfield as methodically as I could. I took a ton of close detailed pics for future reference. However, having sc204's excellent documetation helped a lot as well.

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I stripped the playfield. I tried to label things to keep it all straight. I bought a tumbler in order to polish all of the little parts that would fit in it. I also bought a lathe with polishing wheels. All of my focus was initially on the playfield as I waiting to receive the new one.

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Thanks! I'm going to be adding daily until I get caught up to where I am at today on the restore. And be sure to check out sc204's restore I linked in an earlier post. It's the one that helped guide me.

Here's the stripped playfield. No way I could repair it myself. I still have it and am not sure if its worth trying to sale or if I should try to convert it into wall art.

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Here is the Kruzman playfield. He does excellent work. These pictures do not do it justice. He shipped it in this incredible wooden crate. I can't recommend him highly enough.

He also sold me a bunch of NOS STTNG plastics, including one signed by the man Steve Ritchie himself!

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Wherever this thing sat for years, it must have been very hot. All of the ramps and other playfield plastics were heat warped. Next was time to take apart all of the mechs and tumble and polish. I had to buy all new ramps as alpha, beta, and delta ramps were ruined. The Alpha ramp didn't come with the pinball sticker, so I had t salvage the one from the old ramp. It worked out pretty well.

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Thanks Brother! I'll have continued progress up tomorrow as that stuff was in year 1 of the restore. In real time I am waiting in great anticipation for all of my trim powdercoating to get done and returned by Ron Stone. It's gonna look awesome!

I got the new playfield on the rotisserie. I labeled the ends of the harness to help make it easier to swap. After cleaning switches and mechs, its time to get things back together.

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Here's some close up pics of switches and lights going in place.

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8 months into this restore, here is where the playfield was at. I tried to anticipate any mods that I could place now to make it easier. I got PinStadium lighting and lasers for the cannons wired in.

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Next: Subways cleaned and installed.

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Gun taken apart and bagged for future powder coating.

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Got new apron stickers. I measured the old stickers to ensure proper placement. I sanded and repainted the apron and then placed the stickers. I also took out the transformer. I took it apart and cleaned it and painted it as well.

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After populating the underside of the playfield, I started stripping out the cabinet. Once I got it stripped out, my wife had surgery and the restoration came to a halt. The cabinet and head sat in the garage and the playfield on the rotisserie went into the corner of the gameroom. Everything sat in its place untouched for 5 years.

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It took me a couple of weekends to straighten out the garage and find all of the parts I left in boxes all over. Once I got everything together, I got to work with the cabinet. The artwork was still very good, so I taped everything and got started painting. I had painted the bottom of the cabinet white before I quit years ago, so that was one less thing to do. This was mid April of 2021.thumbnail_64040295990__0B4E3060-0A32-4F43-9312-ACA9FAC35985 (resized).jpgthumbnail_64040294536__95D7900A-1A00-485B-81F6-6A51473D40D6 (resized).jpg1 (resized).jpg3 (resized).jpg2 (resized).jpg

Bythe end of April, I had the cabinet painted and started putting in the transformer and other parts I had cleaned and polished. It felt so good to back in the hobby I loved so much.4 (resized).jpg5 (resized).jpg6 (resized).jpg7 (resized).jpg8 (resized).jpg

I got Covid in the beginning of May. While I was home I restored the apron and the backbox. The apron go a good sanding and paint. Then I placed new decals.

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All of the armor and ramps were just powder coated by Rob Stone and in the mail as I write. Here's the link to the results on the bottom of page 56. They are the last pics of STTNG parts in black chrome and Illusion purple. They turned out great and are the last pieces of the puzzle before I finish putting it all together!
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/powder-coating-services-offered/page/56

That's Awesome!!! I couldn't agree more on WPC projects. I got a Road Show project a couple of months ago. I'm hoping to add another wide body Superpin project soon if I get lucky. I need to update this thread. I have the head on the cabinet and the powder coating parts done. It's looking pretty sweet.