Great thread Rat! Here are two that I have owned and the one that I currently own.

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.....and still forgot.....

Yeah, I think Robin must be having some major heartburn the last couple days. The site has been acting strange.

Nice pins! This thread makes me want to go find some more EM's......Just so I can post pics!

disappointing that your pic(s) wont post. I wanna see it!!

Aarrgghhhhh! NO PICTURES!!!!

Ok, so you three who wish you had a C37....I would like your opinion. My playfield is near perfect as far as paint goes, but the inserts are faded and cupped. Faded is not such a big deal to me because colored led's can handle that. Cupped however drives me crazy. I can't stand seeing the ball change direction on its way around. So here's the question. Would you like it more or less as a potential buyer if I had the pf surface leveled and cleared? And possible new inserts too.

No.

"Dirt flipper" said [Just curious - was yours the C37 that popped up on craigslist in NE a few months back? (it was a great deal, and was gone in an instant, IIRC).]

Yes this is that one. I am not the guy who bought it though. I missed the deal by about ten minutes. Sold for $200 to a guy near me. I hopped on a nebraska pinball Facebook forum and started asking who got it. A day or so later, the new owner revealed himself. I congratulated him on the find and offered to help fix it up. Made it clear how much I wanted that game and that it would have a good home with me. We kept in touch and I offered a little advice on repairs. About two months later, he decided to sell it to me. More than $200, but still a good price. I really appreciate the game and his sacrifice to sell it to me. He could have sold it for twice what he let it go to me. Great guy and a new pinball friend.

I like the idea of leveling the inserts. Some are cupped bad enough that the ball will get stuck in them. Only four have printing on them. Maybe five.....can't remember if the special insert is printed.

Dude! Really? That's just mean! .........cool though, but mean, but cool!

I think benepinballs in Omaha might have a lead on one. (Eldorado)

Nice! Did you do any insert replacing?

Should have bought both!

....or that....I guess....

Drooooool!

So, is it all you had hoped it would be? Worth the wait?

Congratulations!

In my opinion, they are easier and just as fun.

I see your point. The built in diagnostics are a great help. Something that EM machines don't have. For me though, understanding board level circuitry and troubleshooting is the bigger challenge. I can "see" the entire "circuit board" inside and out with an EM. Things are hidden inside chips on modern machines. This is why EM is easier for me. I work better with the mechanical than the electronic.

I have learned by trial and error. I'm a "take it apart to see how it works" type.

I subscribe to the pinball ninja blog http://www.pinballninja.com
Go here to donate and gain access. http://pinrepair.com/donate/

I read and often refer back to the EM repair guide written by Clay harrell. http://www.pinrepair.com/em/index.htm

These resources plus the heaps of help from experienced EM guys on pinside have really allowed me to understand how my EM machines work.

I am finding this more and more true in my pinball life. I'm currently trying to sell ny BK so I can buy two or three EM's around me. Moving back in time!

BTW, Thanks for the compliment, but I am far from a pinball master. Just a guy who really loves this stuff and loves taking the opportunity to help others even more.

You mean there's more???

I'm sure I'm missing something here.......

That explains it AND why I didn't get it. Don't know Zappa's music at all. No opinion either way, just never tried it.

Very cool, but why have two identical games set up for play side by side? Just curious...

Got it. Which do you enjoy playing more? The Replay or the AAB?

Not mine but one I'm trying to talk a co-worker out of.

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Jeff, that's awesome!!!! Jubilee is the first EM I ever opened up. It was also the game that started me and my best friend in the pinball hobby. Read my profile story for more.

They look like gorgeous backboxes to me. Can we see the rest if the machines?

I picked up a golden arrow last night. Moved it to pinball room today. I hope to have time to set it up tonight. The. Ill post a pic if it sitting next to the one made right before it...c37.

Got it lit up and playing! Not in the lineup yet. I have it out in the room so I can service it easier. Playfield is pretty dirty and will take quite a bit to clean. Backglass is very nice! Cabinet is starting to flake. Notice the custom slingshot plastics? I found the originals in the factory envelope tucked under the bottom board. Schematics and install manual and many score cards and replay cards too! Left original sling plastic is broken across the top hole. Right one is good. Upper right plastic is broken too. Not bad though for $175.

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I agree. Thanks to Rat for starting this thread!

Following this thread motivated me to go after this pin. I am looking forward to cleaning it up and playing a bunch. Now I have two Wedgeheads and two early SS Williams AND I have a third wedge in my sights. Sweet Hearts! It is in bad shape. Playfield glass is broken and game has been sitting in a garage/shed for years. Lots of dirt and flying bugs been in there. The backglass is about 1/3 gone as best as I can tell. I am going to ramp up my efforts on the owner and see what I can accomplish. I'm thinking of offering $50 because I know what I'll have to put into it just to get it to play again!

Hey ShameGov!, I'm pretty close to you and would love to help out if you need some tech advice. I have a couple wedgeheads and love them! Congrats on the game. Hope to hear from you soon!

I'm getting the itch again! On the prowl for another EM. Thanks Rat!

I like the pingulp on the EM.

Nobody got this!?!?!

A Wedgehead called Square Head?

I amaze me!

Do you suppose Williams had a game called "Reverse Square Head"?

Somebody stop me!

The guy getting bashed on the head kinda looks like Miley Cyrus.

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There are two pins around me that I feel the need to rescue but can't seem to get the owners to part with them. Even though they will probably still sit and rot in storage.

Hmmmmm...

That was a fun time. I was just discovering pinside at that time too. What a fun introduction time that was. I am glad to hear you are considering another game, or two, or three.....

Thanks Chris. Like I tell my wife, there are much worse addictions I could be spending my money on.

Just found a '67 Bally Rocket III today. I hope to make it mine soon!!

Does this qualify as "enabling" myself?

Hope I can make it work. Zipper flippers, ball return gate in right outlane, ball kickback in left outlane, light box planet animation! Looks really cool! Definitely a shooters game.

Do you have any experience with one?

I also bought a Paragon recently too. Hope the owner of the rocket will let it go.

Thanks for the kind words. I have crashed into life pretty hard the past few months and have not been able to contribute as much as I would like to. Hopefully I can rejoin the pinball world both here and with my friends at home soon. Too bad a person can't make money by posting on pinside! O-din, you'd be a millionaire!!

I shall do my best! If I get it, I'll make a video of gameplay just for you!

Very cool, Congrats!

Hoping to get this game and restore it, but the owner seems pretty firm on her too-high pricetag. It does not work (motorized reset bank runs constantly), Playfield is pretty badly worn, glass is broken but nicely duct taped! Owner bought it years ago as an "investment" spent $200 then and wants a return on her investment now. I live 75 miles away from it and can't be sure if I could even repair the reset bank. There are obsolete/unavailable parts on that unit that could be broken. I will stay in touch with them and hopefully make a deal at a fair price for each of us someday. My fair price would be no more than $100 given its condition and distance and the unknown of the reset bank problem. What do you guys think?

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I'm not necessarily looking to flip the game. I like to buy and fix and play and see......

If I like it, Great! If I don't, then I dont want to be too upside down on it. I think to resell this game would take quite a bit. Doubt I'd be able to even move it with the playfield as is. If I could buy it cheap enough, it would be great as my first playfield restore project. Otherwise I am not interested.

Looks like a really fun game though. AAARRRGGGhhhhhhhh!!!

Um. Would you believe I found a playfield? It is not perfect but WAYYYY better than this one. $100 gets it for me. Now I feel better about the game. I may pursue it further and bump my price up a bit.

No and I don't have a ticket oak either. We shall see!

Hope you find it. I'm out.

Pics of my abra cadabra coming soon.

Triple Action appears to have the widest out lanes I have ever seen. I would hope it is set for a minimum of 5 balls, per play.
Seeing some older games here on this Topic is great. Keep posting pictures. Thanks.

Not so fast my friend!!

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I dont know for sure on the left gate. It never made sense to me.

RAT!!! where did you go? How have you been? I definitely noticed your absence and am glad to see you back. Got me an ACD while you were gone. Still in transit (sort of) but I own it! Really looking forward to playing.

Congrats! I hear nice EM's are fairly hard to find for a reasonable price Down Under.

Congrats on the new sweet hearts! Look what I got! More pics to come soon.

All three in the back of my grand caravan!

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The abra cabinet has been "touched up" maroon color was painted by hand with a brush. Backglass is more than top notch. It really is perfect. There is a little burn marks on the back where the score reel lites are. No flaking and bright vibrant colors. Funny because about three weeks ago I pulled the trigger on a new repro from bgresto. The fireman picked it up for me at expo. I'll see it tomorrow.

Trick-or-Treat!!

Welcome to the club!

Safest way to hit that lower bullseye target is backhand. Don't let the Open Elbow get you when trying to cradle on the right flipper though.

The fireman is my best friend. Close to 20 years. Wish I could have gone to Expo this year. He and I made the previous two years together but I screwed up this year and used up too much of my vacation time from work. Next year will be different. I'll be there.

Don't think I know John Fetters unless I know him through pinside under a different name.

Greg picked up a couple backglasses for me from Steve Azzam of BGRESTO.COM.

One C37 and one ACD. I'll see them tonight and get pics. The cool thing is the fact that the glass is perfect on the ACD i just picked up yesterday. Some side by side pics of those two glasses will be pretty neat. I'll post them here.

I may have an extra glass if you end up needing it.

Check these out. I didn't think I would like captain fantastic but the more I study this backglass, the more I think I'll like the game.

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Thanks for sharing Drano! Searching now for my own plutonium. I wonder if Michael J. Fox has any left???

Drano, did you buy a set of spray caps or did the can come with one? What cap did you use?

Wonder how I can research this. I wasn't aware that there were larger or smaller stars. Just thought the stars were added after the fact to "cover up" some inappropriate images. Hmmmm.....

Yup! Starred version. Thanks for the help AlexF.

Just listened to the TOPCast episode with Dave Christensen on Sunday. Vary interesting interview. Clay really did a nice job with that Internet radio show.

Just opened up my new BGResto ACD glass. Sitting side by side with the original I just acquired this sunday. I have just decided that Steve will do all my glass reproductions from now on! Beautiful work!

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I added pics to my post above. What are your opinions?

I will post lit comparisons as soon as I can. The game is broken down in the garage for now.

He made a custom mask for me. Notice the three bubbles closest to the edge of the glass? I will be able to light those too.

I want to make the bubbles light up with colorchanger LEDs. Either for GI or possibly as a 100,000 indicator.

I wanted it to be more of a stealth mod. At first I just thought it would be cool to GI lite up the bubbles that were not masked from the factory. Obviously Gottlieb changed their lighting plan after the backglasses were made. Since I was going to go through the trouble of lighting the three or four unlit bubbles, why not make it so I could lite all of them. Then I saw a discussion about ACD and ended up reading a common complaint about it. There is no 100k light! I could kill two birds with one stone now!. I need to figure out how to get it wired up so it will light up as the reels roll over and it would also be cool to have them light up in game over mode.

I think I will put red lights behind the monster's eyes and (wouldnt it be cool if they could fade between bright and dim?), warm white in all the other lit areas except for the bubbles of course which will have color changers or perhaps blinkers! that might look like popping bubbles.

This makes the mod even cooler then. Doesn't it?

What a cool reward to see when you do have that one awesome game! Not that I expect to ever have an awesome game, but every now and then.....!! I'm getting better I hope.

When I bought my C37, somehow I had it in my head that it was the last Gottlieb Wedgehead, Then I bought Golden Arrow and looked at the date.....Hmmm

I know I read something somewhere about C37 being the last something. Anyone know or am I just smoking something I shouldn't be?

OK!

Any other ideas?

Thanks for not calling me crazy, by the way.

Glass on?

Totally doing this mod. Dont know when, but I think I'll contact boilerman for help. He made it sound pretty simple.

So, I read the description on pinrepair.com of C37 and Clay talks about the thermometer as a bonus unit that counts the bonus down at the end of the game. This doesn't seem accurate to me. I see it as more of a progress indicator showing how close you are to lighting the special. Have I been missing some bonus function on my game? Is there a repair I need to make? My thermometer does not reset until I start a new game. In addition, it does not have a step down coil, just a reset coil.

http://www.pinrepair.com/gtb/cent37.htm

Gives a whole new meaning to "backhand".

I'll show lit pics as soon as I can.

You are right on the blue and if you look at the flame, there is a bit of a difference too. Neither concern me as the quality of the reds and purple is so nice. Those are what I see either peeled or faded on many original glasses. The first thing I look at on an ACD backglass is the "M" of the wizards lapel and the purple of his robe. Next is the white of the eyes of the monster and in the title of the game. Those tend to be a bit flaky too.

Thats what I thought.

Mine works great by the way. It did not when I got it, but all it took was a complete disassemble, clean (including inside the holes of the plastic roller guides), lube everything that moves very lightly with superlube gel (including the pins that the plastic roller guides ride on), and reassemble. Resets like a charm every time.

Until I fixed it, I would only play one game in a session. After that game, I'd start another game to get the thermometer reset coil to fire and then turn the game off and walk away. A few hours later, the thermometer was down and ready for another game. Not ideal. This didn't last long.

Duck dynasty edition!!

I have already shown some pics of my Golden Arrow. Now for a shiny fresh video or two.

Still a little work to do on the playfield switches and I havent even touched the backbox mechs yet. This one is going to be really nice!! The cabinet is the sore spot. Pretty flaky on the paint. I may do a repaint.

I measure the cabinet dimensions. Photo the cabinet as straight on as possible and from a good distance to avoid lens distortion. Then I create a line drawing of the cabinet based on the dimensions I measured. I do the drawing in Illustrator. Then I place the photo into the illustrator document and size it to fit the cabinet drawing. There is a little stretching at the corners to do because of the lens distortion. Once I have the image where I want it, I take some virtual measurements of key points of the design and compare them to the cabinet itself. If they are pretty close, I leave it alone, otherwise there is some more stretching and fitting to do. Once it is all sized and aligned right, I create a drawing over the photo of each color. Put them in separate layers and now I have all my colors ready to make stencils. A plotter cuts these drawings out on paint mask film. Cool!

I really want to do a repaint on Golden Arrow, but I really really want to play it for a while first!

I wish I could have some success on the mask I'm working on for you!

The bell is actually mounted in the lower cabinet on the left side. It gongs for what I consider an EM Jackpot shot. 10,000 points! Not many EM games have a shot worth that!

How bad do you want it? I'll meet you in KC with it.

Very Important!

"SOAP POISONING!!"

NOoooooooo!!!

Rat, that playfield looks amazing! THe colors are so bright and I cant see any swirl marks. Very nice.

Did you do any cleanup or is this how you got it?

I like the contact adjuster that pinballlife.com sells. It has a 90 degree adjuster on one end and a 45 degree adjuster on the other end. I have yet to find a switch I cant get at!

They don't beep or anything, so you will still be able to lose it just as easily. BUT! You won't have to call Steve and explain why you need to order more.

Glad you are having fun. I know how you feel!

Stuff yet to be fixed, but it doesn't really matter right now.

Pretty cool! Nice collection hiding behind the Slick Chick too!

Welcome to the EM club! It's much more fun here and there is a lot less drama. Great looking machine by the way!

I think we all do.....

^^^^^ this explains a lot.

Hate to do this guys, but look what I just brought on today! Sadly, it's not mine but I will have it here for a while. As long as it takes me to shine it up and play it for a while.

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Oh the carnage!

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