New blood here. I purchased my first machine, Sinbad, last September and became immediately addicted to pinball ownership (a very common affliction, I later found out). The machine has been a dream so far- zero issues, flawless playfield, amazing first pin experience.

Nabbed my second in November (Flash Gordon -woo hoo!) and while I'm certain this machine will probably stay with me forever, I was quite abruptly introduced to the *other* half of pinball ownership: maintenance and repair. Nothing major (in hindsight, that is. When you have no idea what is going on under there- EVERYTHING is major), but just enough stacking issues to send me over the tipping point. When I was just at the level where I thought that this hobby was not for me, something clicked- I started fixing things. First bulbs, then sockets, then wires, then drop targets, etc..etc. Every fix made me a little bolder for the next one. I bought a soldering iron. I bought a multimeter (with no idea how to use it at the time). I actually became addicted to the maintenance.

So addicted in fact, that when my FG was all fixed up, I decided to jump in with both feet and get a genuine 'project pin.' I found a Stern Galaxy that would fit the bill nicely. She needs a little bit of everything, touch ups, connectors, board work, drop target bank/flipper/pop bumper rebuild. Time to test my resilience...

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Oh, it has been an undertaking for sure, but if I want to be serious about this hobby- forum lurking and youtube marathons only get one so far. I see pictures of magic eraser working, but how hard is too hard? What if my color matching skills are terrible? How do I use this G-- D--- multimeter?! These questions are only answered from experience, and if I don't want to mess up my nice machines, I need something I won't mind making mistakes (and learning) on.

After scraping off the.. ceiling tile debris? (I think it was ceiling tile. Don't even want to know how it got there), my first task was cleaning. Lots and lots of cleaning. Playfield was a mess, but not completely unsalvageable.

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I think it's from a Bally Night Rider. She spins well, so for now it'll do.

Yeah, that rectifier board is toasty. I already picked up a Rotten Dog one, but it looks like Great Plains Electronics is located here in Omaha! That could certainly come in handy at a later date...

Plastics are surprisingly really good except for - yep- return lanes. From what I've researched, those busted tips are pretty standard for this title. At least it makes trapping the ball easy..as long as I never want to untrap it.

My project is actually much farther along than I've posted, but I wanted to upload my progress step by step so that any other newbies out there can see that even something this daunting can be tackled a little piece at a time. There's even a good chance that I've already secured a trade, but if there is one thing I've learned in life: a deal's not done until it's done, so for now I'll keep working on it. That seems to be especially true with pinball. Luckily, all of my interactions with people in this business/hobby have been incredible and encouraging so far.

After cleaning the grime and old wax off with some Naptha and a microfiber cloth, it was time to tackle the ball swirls. Every inch, and I mean every inch, was covered with those little black devils. The playfield almost looked pixelated there were so many spots. I used Magic Eraser with 91% alcohol to clean. There was little to no factory clear left on this thing to begin with, and I knew I was going to be re-painting and attempting a clear coat later, so my goal here was to scrub and scrub until the ball swirls were gone. It worked pretty well. Not perfect, but well.

It was in this step where I learned with ME when hard was too hard.

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couple more

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one more set

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Let's get in touch and see if we can locate some parts! I will get some pix posted soon!

Sounds good, and welcome to pinside! I have already traded my Galaxy, but I would be more than willing to help out in anyway I can. Between Flash Gordon and Galaxy, I have learned quite a bit about this era. At a minimum, I could help you out with the best acrylic paints I used to touch up my playfield.

Speaking of touch ups... Couple before and after shots.

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Before and after under the spinner. The previous owner tried to do some touch up work, but the color wasn't quite right. I had to freehand some of the text; this was before I learned about waterslide decals.

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Another set.

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Last touch up set. Again, this was before I learned about waterslide decals. I knew I couldn't match all the text, so I just wanted to try and make it look complete.

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