Two years ago a good friend of mine called me as his brother had told him that there was a pinball machine in one of the storage buildings at his work that they wanted to get rid of. He asked me if I was interested in it and said I could have it for free if I hauled it out of there. Of course I was interested!
He didn't know the name of the pin but said it had been in their storage building for quite some time. We scheduled a time for me to come out after work the following day. I met him out there and he took me into their storage building. The pinball machine was sitting all by itself in a room of a large storage building. There were no lights or power and it was blazing hot inside the building. Good thing I brought my tools and flashlight!
That's when I saw that it was a Black Sheep Squadron. The playfield glass was gone and the playfield itself was filthy, with a nice coat of dirt over everything. The backglass looked like it was in good shape. In the bottom of the cabinet I found 6 extra score displays which was a nice surprise.
Unfortunately the backbox was locked and there was no key to be found. I drilled it out so I could get the backbox off. The battery was still on the MPU and there was some corrosion on the board tho it wasn't too bad. I clipped the battery off, broke the machine down and loaded it up in my Jeep. By the time I was done I was sweating bullets. I got the pin and put it in my garage where it sat for the last two years.
Just recently I brought it into the house so I could star working on it. Today I stripped the playfield and cleaned it up. I was amazed at how bright and vibrant the colors were after removing all that dirt and grime. It was missing one insert but I found it in the bottom of the cabinet. Quite a few of the inserts will need to be reglued as they are uneven.
I'll post more once I get further into the project.
Here are a couple before and after pics.
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