Can I join this club with my newly acquired Big Game?
This was not one of these," hey, some guy has on old pin in his garage that he wants to get rid of" deals. This was me actively looking for a BG. After considering Mata Hari, Joker Poker, Fire, Sinbad and a few early SS pins, BG went on my wish list. I suppose that as far as wish lists go I was lucky because I have only been looking for a BG for about 6 months.
After watching a lot of youtube pinball videos for almost a year and thinking I want this pin, or I want that pin, eventually, I came to the conclusion that BG is the pin I want. A few weeks ago I got lucky when I was doing a semi-regular within-driving-distance-Craigslist-search turned up a BG in Oklahoma City. The ad had been up for 19 days. And he still had it ! And he was willing to negotiate on price. I felt like I had been rained on by the pinball gods. I went to see and the game checked out. So, for $30.00 worth of gas and 6 hours of time I was home with a BG in the house at a decent price.
I have had it since Thanksgiving and have been going through all the cleanup stuff that needed done. It was a dirty machine. I have overhauled the pop bumpers, removed and cleaned the drop targets, re-sleeved all the coils and rebuilt the flippers with all new parts. I have 3' levelers on and have the back jacked up all the way and the fronts all the way down. It is steep slope and it plays fast. No. It plays very fast. And I'm loving it.
I have made a couple of mods for it and have more planned.
1) I have made a polycarbonate play field protector and now that I have a few hours of playtime I am very happy with the results. All the sunken inserts are covered up and the ball does not get hung up by play field imperfections. Eventually, I would like to restore the play field and clear coat but my custom made (ahh...homemade protector) means I get to really enjoy the game NOW!
overlay_on_table_(resized).JPG
2) I read someone else's post about the teardrop breaking off of one of the plastics by the 1-2-3 drop target. Someone else suggested some sort of washer. Because this PF plastic is close to the spinner a washer would not work. I made a protector from some scrap poly that completely surrounds the plastic. You see it with the white protective paper still on.
3) That big piece of plastic in the upper left by the BIGGAME lights look like it takes a lot heat from the four bulbs it covers and mine was/and is still warped badly. So, from more scrap poly, I made profile of that plastic and raised it up from the lights. Like this:
I also see where someone else is (still) looking for a spinner. Since Stern shared a lot with Bally, I may have found a spinner here. No guarantees but if you need a spinner it might be worth it to call and get some measurements.
Thanks for reading.
http://www.lakesidepinballparts.com/playfield.html
http://www.lakesidepinballparts.com/blya3460.jpg