Glad to discover I'm not the only person expending time and money on a cosmetic job for this title!

3J.jpg

Granted, mine is a 3 Jokers, but I've found that it is mechanically identical to Straight Flush.

I found an extra Atlantis sitting in DirtFlipper's garage. Finders, keepers!

Atlantis.jpg

Truthfully, this game was delivered from outside the area and Dirt's place was a much more convenient drop-off spot. I have the pleasure of being only 15 minutes from his house during the week.

Oh, I wouldn't say that. It was actually his find, but he let me chase it. Credit is due.

This is long overdue, but I bought Stashyboy's restored Blast Off in May and had it shipped from New York to Minnesota. It was a bit of an ordeal for him to coordinate pickup with the local STI subcontractor—they were utterly disorganized—but I'm grateful for his patience. The game looks great and plays like gangbusters. It's nice to get a plug-and-play game every now and then.

WMS Blast Off

This is a tad belated, but I finished restoring my keeper Lucky Hand last month. The score motor board was a terrible mess when I got it. Somebody had removed all the lacing around the harnesses, so wires were hanging loose all over the place. I would have liked to properly redo the wax lacing, but learning the right technique was a headache I didn't want, so I used zip ties instead. In the unbundled mess of wires were also non-factory modifications that needed correcting. Fortunately I had another Lucky Hand to use as a reference in undoing these hacks. Once the wiring was fixed, I went about rebuilding everything else. A decagon unit in the 10k score reel was badly pitted, necessitating replacement from a parts machine. Everything else was a straightforward disassemble/clean/rebuild. Besides the mechanical rehabilitation, I also made some judicious touch-ups to the cabinet and used waterslide decals to make the keylines around the inserts nice and black again. I also used decals to restore the letters/numbers on the drop targets. Miscellaneous: new sticker for the coin door, new pop bumper caps from PBR, side rails regrained, and total play meter (for tracking post-restore games) installed. Lastly, I lucked out and scored a Ron Webb reproduction backglass long after he sold out.

Pre-restoration: wiring mess on the left, reference on the right
Restored score motor board mechanics
Restored playfield mechanics
Restored playfield, high view
Restored playfield, low view
Restored cabinet, right view
Restored cabinet, front view
Restored cabinet, left view

Thanks, Hoov!

My Dimension and 2001 need lots of work before I can make the comparison, unfortunately. You'll probably learn for yourself before I am able to get mine restored!

I finished my Gold Strike restoration last weekend. It was a big project. The previous owner stored the machine in a shed on wet ground, so the bottom rotted off, mice moved in, and lots of rusting happened. I had to give it a donor cabinet, a Wade Krause playfield, a Shay backglass, and a lot of love to make it nice again.

Gold Strike
Gold Strike
Gold Strike
Gold Strike
Gold Strike
Gold Strike
Gold Strike
Gold Strike

Thanks! It's a barrel ceiling with recessed lights. My 80-year-old mother-in-law designed it.

Good eye, Hoov. I have Neptune instead of Hit the Deck, but the rest of your guesses are spot on.

I found another pic of Gold Strike that shows the other side of the game room. To the right of Spin-a-Card, which DirtFlipper restored, is Blast Off, which stashyboy restored.

Other Side

Blast Off is the oldest working game in my collection, but I have a Palooka and Flipper Clown in the restoration queue. Until I get around to fixing them, it's the old guy (50 in May!) on the block.

Are you saying a Jacks Open that underwent an 80-hour restoration is worth the same as a non-working bard find? There's not a fixed, inflexible value for EMs. Values for these games are fluid, going up or down by hundreds of dollars due to a myriad of factors. Labor and restoration work are one of them, and they increase value.

Finally finished my Centigrade 37 a couple days ago. It was a hell of an ordeal, but all's well that ends well.

5 Line-up Low (resized).JPG
Playfield Low Angle 1 (resized).JPG
3 Playfield High Angle (resized).JPG
2 Full Frontal (resized).JPG
1 Side View Left (resized).JPG

4 Playfield Low Angle 2 (resized).JPG

Thanks, Mark!

I just sprayed over the top of the magenta. It was faded, of course. The base white and yellow were 99% intact and just needed a few spot touch-ups. I posted about it here:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stencil-circles#post-3390526

Blast Off still getting enjoyed. Still one of my top five games in cosmetic excellence.