the ball guide ?

its length is 2-31/32
its bally part number used to be M-121-27

none of this will help.. you will only find it on someone wrecking a playfield. and no one wrecks ebd's.. that would be stupid

BUT ... the secret is.. the same wire was used on speakeasy and hotdoggin... finding a wrecked one of them will be easier

good luck on your search

If you can't find one, then just bend a new one from stainless wire.

Piano Wire is okay but won't have a nice finish on it. I have found that Stainless Steel welding rod is just right for the job. I bought some at Home Depot. Not sure if they still sell it though.

I don't think piano wire comes in that heavy a gauge. Most good hardware stores (lowes, Home depot or Orchard supply) usually hae metal rods in the hardware areas. try looking there.

Bike spokes are pretty good substitutes...

Piano wire is spring steel and is a bitch to bend in a radius that tight when the diameter is that big, also the stuff will easily rust. But piano wire is great for making springs if you ever need to make a custom one.

Look up the nearest welding supply shop in your area (or a place the sells various compressed gasses, even places like Tractor Supply or a good country hardware store). They will almost certainly stock various diameters of stainless steel TIG welding filler rod, that is what you want to buy. The rod will normally come in three foot lengths and will have the alloy stamped onto the rod at the ends. Do worry about the alloy, just buy the cheapest stainless alloy they stock.

The stuff is great steel that will never rust and it will easily bend and not spring back. Buy a piece or two of several of the diameters, you will find it comes in handy for all kinds of jobs.

No, you will snap the old, already bent ball guides if you go to unbend them. Just start with fresh stock like we are all suggesting.

Take your broken one and match the diameter when you go to buy the suggested rod stock.

0.093 stainless rod and a wire bending jig is all you need. You can get both at amazon. I made custom ball guides for Xenon because both of mine had broken and I didn't like the two piece design anyway.

http://www.amazon.com/SE-Bender-Fixture-Aluminium-8593WB/dp/B005M5TSFG/ref=sr_1_1

IMG_0642.JPG

If it's the 2 and 11/32 one, I have a spare you can have.
Let me know.
Jim

piano wire,bike spokes of varying widths and believe it or not.... ski tags that hang from your jacket work awesome!
Go for a ski trip and come home and fix your pin

I think I know which metal guide you are talking about. It's probably one shown in the picture I have attached:

19s.jpg

It's not that "odd" or uncommon for them to break and you'll find them broken a lot more often than the other wire guides on the playfield. They break when the flippers are not adjusted correctly. The flippers are never supposed to touch the metal bars. There is supposed to be a small gap like the ones are in the picture. I bet your flipper was touching the broken one wasn't it?

Over time though the set screws in the flipper pawls loosen and the flippers start hitting the bars. I remember in another thread someone didn't believe me when I told them about this. I've seen it many times before on Bally pins. I've seen several Eight Ball Deluxe machines with these broken-off too. Sometimes both sides are broken-off.

The first thing you need to do is get the broken-off part out of the playfield. Then you can easily make a new piece and install it.

What I do is buy new ones if I can find the correct length. In this case I don't think I've ever found exact replacements so I end-up buying longer ones and bend them to size. You can get them from the parts suppliers like Marco and Pinball Resource or you can just buy some stainless steel wire and make your own.

I have an assortment of them:

IMG_2335.JPG

I just use a vise and a pair of pliers to bend them and then cut the legs to length.

The guides below the flippers are short. You can re-swage the ends if you want by crushing them in a vise. This helps secure them to the wood but you can also just add a drop of super glue in each hole before you install them too and that will usually do the job.

Just remember to adjust your flippers afterwards so you don't break them again. You may need to rebuild your flippers to get them to stay in position. After 40 years they tend to be shot. Do it once and you'll never have to do it again.

The proper way to set the flippers is to line the tips of them up with the dimples in the playfield that are located where the ends of the flipper bats will be. That's what the dimples are there for. They are just marks the factory put there as reference points for flipper alignment. If you have an aftermarket playfield or can't see the dimples, just make sure there is a gap between the flipper bats and the metal wire guides and the flippers are straight.

thinking about it and reading it again you're most probably right.. my info above related to this one below..

477325-i2.jpg

It was fairly common for these to break at the top on later games due to how strong they got hit and how much play games like EBD saw. Also, many of the were staked at the bottom with a small fin to help they cut into the playfield and stay. This made the material weaker right below the top of the playfield surface and they would break off leaving the lower tip in the wood.

DotheDoo,

I really like your swooping feeder lanes. It appears on a number of games but usually with a thicker material so they would hold their shape and position. They could be a killer especially on games with the mini post like Xenon since it could go up and out, rattle a bit, and then drain. Which SUCKED!!!! LOL.

Welcome to the pinball hobby. Unfortunately not every part for these old machines is currently available or being reproduced. You are probably going to have to make your own but fortunately it isn't very hard to do.

So it sounds like this is the one you need. As you can see I'm holding a replacement I made for one of my EBD restorations.

IMG_2340.JPG

Below is a picture of an NOS wire guide and one I made from scratch out of 304 stainless steel for an Eight Ball Deluxe with the correct dimensions displayed. The wire diameter is 0.092".
IMG_2359.JPG

Here you go. Marco has them for $1.95 each.

Wire ball guide rail 3 inch.
P/N #12-6466-12

http://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/12-6466-12

(edit) Oops my bad. They are out of stock.

I think Pinball Resource has them for like $1 each.

Give Steve a call tomorrow.

http://www.pbresource.com/

just to be picky ...according to the bally parts book its not technically 3inch .. its 2-31/32.

is that just due to how bally measured them? or are they slightly different?

they probably measured from center to center and the 'overall length' is 3 inch.

I measure them center to center. The overall width is 3.092".

They fit perfectly and match the originals within a few thousandths of an inch.

Bally was out to lunch then dude. Maybe they measure the inner diameter for length, who knows. Just trying to figure why they say different in the book. Real world measuring is the way to go.
If it works then it matters not.
Play some games man!

It's only a 0.030" difference. All it takes is a slight squeeze at the ends to make a 3" into a 2-31/32" or visa versa. Either will fit good. Bending them by hand you will have a hard time getting much closer than that plus I doubt Bally held very tight tolerances on them in the first place.

I reverse-engineered mine though and the originals measured 3" so that's what I went with.

Picture a poorly lit workbench. A middle aged woman with heavy gloves on standing next to the bench with a bag full of cut-to-length wire on one side and a growing bag of bent ones to her other side. For 8-10 hours a day she will pluck a new wire, bend it over some sort of measured jig on the bench that forms them all to relatively the right size and then chucks it into the "finished" bag. She might do one size before lunch and a different one after lunch. Remember, engineers wrote the manual. Blue collar folk put 'em together.

Or they just had a much older version of something like this...

Good answer but no worries either way. They made some great games then thats for sure,and thats all that REALLY matters. Love EBD.
MacGyver one up from a chrome bike spoke and play play play. Order the factory piece next time you order stuff.
Win win.

My Fireball 2 was missing the wire guide behind the upper flipper. A coat hanger wire worked for me. Will try the welding rod route in the future. Thought about a bike spoke as well.........

You can buy stainless steel wire the exact diameter you need.

I purchased 36" pieces of .092" stainless steel wire to make mine. They cost about $15 each. If you just need one you can always buy a longer one from the pinball suppliers for a couple bucks and cut it down to the correct size and bend one end.

One method. The holes are not drilled through.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/cowboys-vs-aliens-a-side-by-side-rehab-project/page/4#post-2821897

look on the other side to see if the hole its in goes all the way through. if it does. punch it out from below with a pin punch ( or a little nail)

Use a small punch or Nailset and tap the broken piece till you see the bulge on the backside of the playfield (it's about 1/16" below the surface).

Use a sharp razor knife and cut the wood fibers so the piece can exit cleanly.

Finish tapping the part through until it can be gripped by ViceGrips.

I've never had one I couldn't get out from the top side. They usually break-off flush or with a small amount sticking up. Even if they are slightly below the playfield surface I can usually get them out from the top side.

I use special cutters called "gate cutters". They are used in the plastics industry to trim gates from injection molded plastic parts. Unlike traditional diagonal cutters, gate cutters have a flat face with the sharp edge on the flat which enables you to grip the broken off wire.

PremFlatFaceGateCutters.jpg

You can buy this type of flat-face gate cutter from McMaster-Carr or an injection molding supply company like IMS. The gate cutters make it real easy to remove unbroken wire guides too but if the wire is broken-off below the surface you can use the tips of the gate cutters to get a grip on it and then pry it out by pushing down on the handles. The angle of the face makes it a perfect lever. As you can see in the picture I place coin or a piece of sheet metal underneath to prevent damaging the playfield when prying.

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