West Dundee, IL
If you ever get tired of pinball I'm sure a museum would hire you for art restoration.
(Topic ID: 225528)
Linked Games
Addams Family, The
Bally, 1992-
Airborne
Capcom, 1996
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Alien (Heighway Pinball)
Heighway Pinball, 2017
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Black Knight
Williams, 1980
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Bram Stoker's Dracula
Williams, 1993
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Centaur
Bally, 1981
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Centigrade 37
Gottlieb, 1977
-
Champion Pub
Bally, 1998
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1 week later
1 week later
Quoted from High_End_Pins:Will make an appearance as an active project in the near future in this thread.
Popcorn popping!
2 weeks later
1 week later
Even though I may never own a HEP, I love knowing that so many examples of worn out (or worse, in this case) games have been converted into showpieces. It's like if someone went through a city and converted every derelict house into a mansion.
That's one place where I feel a lot Pat's WMS designs suffered; exposed wiring, switches, etc. He used a lot of those rubber switch covers which are better than nothing, but still... meh. Great job tidying things up where you can. Insane attention to detail, and relentless pursuit of a clean look.
Quoted from High_End_Pins:Cleaned the fan blade and put it on the shelf with the motor. Then put it back together for now until I have the motor in hand. Might be a month
Bungee cord a box fan to that sucker. 
2 weeks later
Why are gear boxes packed full of grease instead of lubed with something like liquid teflon? Seems like it would be extra work for the motor to chew through all that grease, and eventually it dries out & jams. I'm sure there's a good reason since it's always been done that way.
Quoted from LTG:Was liquid teflon available 26 years ago ?
I guess I meant, why is it still done now?
My old jukebox had thick grease all over the gears. I wiped off everything I could reach without full disassembly, then added a healthy (but still relatively miniscule) amount of liquid teflon. Seems fine.
Again, I'm sure there's a reason it's still done that way, just curious.
1 week later
Quoted from High_End_Pins:Also heading to the warehouse will be my beer collection as I gear up to take part in Dryuary.
Thread unfollowed. 
Just kidding, I could sooner give up beer for a month than the HEP thread. Can't wait to see what the new year brings. Happy 2019 to Chris and all the regular viewers (droolers) here.
3 weeks later
The more piece-y the coin door gets, the worse it looks to me. I don't mind solid blue for a perfect blend. Or classic black. Definitely agree with whoever said the coin door shouldn't be a focal point. Art should pop; hardware is a necessary wart.
1 week later
Chris posted a t-nut installation guide earlier in the thread. Pretty cool method:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/hep-this-week-9-17-18/page/45#post-4803466
1 week later
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3 weeks later
1 week later
Quoted from chad:What is that contraption on TZ?
Cooling fan?
Edit: nevermind! But I'll go ahead and leave the advice here for any other Munsters owners.
Quoted from High_End_Pins:Stuff coming in.
If you're tweaking that Munsters premium for a customer, I have one very specific piece of advice. On the lower playfield, fast shots to the right ramp will jump the opto 90% of the time. (Backhands are the fast shots. It's tough to make that ramp at all from the tiny left flipper.)
For my friend's LE, we wedged a small piece of clear plastic over that part of the ramp as a ceiling to force the ball down and break that opto on every shot. I'm sure your solution would be more elegant.
1 week later
2 weeks later
1 week later
Quoted from High_End_Pins:T nut is roughed in just an effort to make it blend in not over the top or anything.
Holy shit, I still had to look for it.
Quoted from High_End_Pins:He is starting out in a good position he is only 21 and has all the tools here to make it happen as long as he is committed to it.
Good for Curtis! Being young makes all the difference. I never really got in shape, and starting now would be... challenging. If he sticks with it, he'll be ripped like his old man in no time.
You call that traffic?!?
Curious to see what you do with the Tron LE. Hard to believe that game is already eight years old. When I had one I played it so much that I had to shop it out twice, just in home use.
Oh, and if you need NOS ramps or Hallmark lightcycles, I know a guy.
1 week later
1 week later
Quoted from High_End_Pins:For whatever reason they don’t make these Lane guides in purple so clear should work. Those may require a purple bulb though.
Factory red guides a no-go I take it? I'm also averse to clown puke, but color-bombed that exact area on my Stern Star Trek pro. The lane guides are blue, but it's kind of a light blue and is totally washed out by a white LED, so I went blue there. Not a hindrance to gameplay since it's so far up & out of the way.
2 weeks later
Quoted from High_End_Pins:He hasn’t lost a huge amount of weight *yet*
...but I bet he's replacing some fat with muscle. Curtis is an inspiration. Keep it up!
1 week later
Will the low gloss ramp eventually show a shiny ball trail? If so I'd consider high gloss for preventative purposes. But I agree the low gloss will better blend into the playfield. I don't want ramp glare in my face when I'm playing.
Quoted from Kawydud:We had the worst Fed Ex guy in the world at work, made so many complaints about him. He moved down south
South of New York? I think he moved to Matthews, North Carolina.
Quoted from High_End_Pins:Polishing of the TZ parts
Sanded from 800 to 1500
This shapes them and cuts any grain or dust nibs flat instead of just rounding them off.
Sorry for the nitpick question, but which (if any) grits do you step through between 800 and 1500? I have a CPR Centaur playfield with graining, and was hoping to shave it down & polish without having to reclear. End result doesn't need to be perfect, just minimizing grain is the goal.
Blacked-out TZ mini will really enhance the illusion of a ball being thrown around by a mysterious force, as opposed to bouncing off white rubbers, colored posts, etc.
Curtis looks fitter already. And he's more of a man than I'll ever be if he can stand a beard in the summer. 
As crazy as that "hose the whole game" method looks, it's genius. My least favorite part of tearing down & shopping an old game like that is my hands turning black every five minutes from the grimy old parts. Hate having filthy hands so I'm constantly washing them during the job. Then when I'm done my fingertips are black for days.
Quoted from RC_like_the_cola:I'd do orange pop skirts maybe to match the basketball if you aren't too far to swap.
I'm not sure orange would pop enough against the hardwood floor background of the most visible bumper. Loving red on this one.
Not tryin' to shoot you down, just thinking out loud.
1 week later
Quoted from Mr_Tantrum:My comments are in no way intended to be political nor do I want to start a conversation on the topic.
Then don't.
Quoted from TxJay:OOooo touched a nerve...
Relax, Texas dudes, I'm a meat eater. Just a pet peeve when someone says "I don't want to be political or start a discussion, but... (insert comment here)." You're bascially saying I want only my opinion to be heard, then shut down any further discussion. Here's an idea, just don't go there in the first place.
Apologies to Chris for contributing to the derail. This is the best thread on pinside. Let's get back to pinball, steak, beer, fitness, and just all-around good living.
1 week later
Quoted from High_End_Pins:This doesn’t look like much but it was a chore.
Oh, it looks like plenty.
Quoted from High_End_Pins:I wonder how much of it has to to with them no longer being able to put the Royal Mounty on the label?
My guess is the very limited supply of maple syrup bourbon barrels. They probably want to try aging other brews. Nothing in the article says CBS is gone forever. It took a six year hiatus before; it'll be back. Incidentally, my favorite beer of all time was aged in those same barrels: Founders 2009 Nemesis, 12% ABV wheatwine. It was truly the nectar of the gods.
Quoted from High_End_Pins:Fall is just around the corner
Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest is great! It's one of my favorite styles, so I try a bunch of them every fall. Sierra Nevada is this year's winner... so far.
Speaking of eating shells, Lotus of Siam in Las Vegas makes the best shrimp I’ve ever had: garlic prawns. Absolutely MASSIVE shrimp fried with the shell removed from the meat, but still attached at the tail. It’s like having a garlic kettle chip with every prawn.
Dammit now I’m starving.
1 week later
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Quoted from High_End_Pins:Not sure how much longer I will continue because it has gotten so long and potentially boring but here we go with another week.
Hopefully not boring to you; definitely not boring to me! I look forward to this thread every single day, and learn something almost every day as well. Hard to believe I don't have to pay for it, but as the old saying goes, "the best things in life are free."
1 week later
Quoted from High_End_Pins:More importantly I revised the yellow stripe with some more aggressive patterns a bit more in line with what was originally there. Not identical but giving a very similar impression.
Sweet, love it! I didn't want to say anything before since cameras can lie, but the first splatter was barely visible to me. This new one screams late '80s, early '90s neon "X-treme" culture. I like it even more than the factory art, because it was derivative of the blue/black area. Too much of the same pattern.
1 week later
1 week later
Quoted from High_End_Pins:They tend to stick out just a little too far if you are using regular bulbs or LEDs with domes.
The solution is to use leg bolt hole protectors around them
Brilliant.
2 weeks later
Quoted from High_End_Pins:Four target banks,three flippers,jet bumpers,vari target,spinning dial,subway ,and more all in this little area.
"Let's build a small game," Pat said. "It'll be cheap," he said.
2 weeks later
Quoted from High_End_Pins:Dracs face and the blue are done neither will be absolutely perfect matches because there is so little paint needed I couldn’t justify mixing pints or quarts to attempt to match perfectly even then it would be guaranteed.
What a horrible match, you talentless hack! 
(j/k of course, even your less than perfect work looks perfect from here)
2 weeks later
I'm not normally one for colored flipper bats, but translucent blue with green rubber looks great on a machine where blue & green are central to the gameplay. White bats stick out like a sore thumb on that deep, dark playfield.
1 week later
Quoted from j_m_:the canadian mountie appears to have fallen of his horse on your bottle.
I think they got sued or were asked to stop using the mountie. It's no longer Canadian Breakfast Stout, it's just CBS. I thought Canadians were supposed to be polite!
1 week later
Quoted from DefDumBlindKid:Now, whose coming over for Midnight Madness??
I'll be right over! ...with a box truck.
1 week later
I know we all say it, but it can't be said enough. This work is truly jaw-dropping. That's a ground-up remanufactured Spirit, made to quality standards no manufacturer could ever dream of. I feel lucky just to read this thread. Can't imagine what unwrapping one of those would feel like.
Quoted from High_End_Pins:Here is a comparison between the HEP paint scheme and the BTC.
One is a perfect match to the apron the other is probably somewhere more in the realm of original but a bit too drab.
Also the BTC stencil work is questionable. Bally logo on the head, woof. Is that freehand?
2 weeks later
Quoted from High_End_Pins:I like to set these 1/8 to 3/16 lower than the factory for a couple reasons.
First the priming and painting can add a 1/16
Second the replacement playfields And plastics can be a little thicker
Just one more reason why you're the G.O.A.T.
Quoted from High_End_Pins:The idea of being able to get beer out of a baby bottle is intriguing
You could try the method my little guy used at two weeks old. It says milk right on the bottle!
IMG_0922 (resized).JPG
Quoted from Nihonmasa:Could I ask what you use for this chemical cleaning?
Someone asked the exact same thing last month. Chris answered in this post:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/hep-this-week-9-17-18/page/120#post-5422827
3 weeks later
1 month later
1 week later
Quoted from ReadyPO:I know you don't post game play videos but you do test them so it would be great to see this one in action if possible when done.
Yeah, this is the first time I've been jonesing for a HEP gameplay video. I've played nice examples of most of the other stuff.
Seems counterintuitive but I find that frosted warm LED's reproduce the incandescent glow better than a clear/retro LED. The clear LED itself looks more original, but I'm not a fan of the light throw. There's definitely no perfect substitute.
Quoted from robotron911:Bravo. I've seen every post on this thread and you do unparalleled work, but this is your masterpiece.
Agreed. This goes beyond mere pinball restoration, into historic preservation.
Normally I'd say Chris should use the woodrail to advertise his services, but I doubt he wants to do another one! 
Quoted from PinMonk:HEP White Glove delivery origin story?
For some reason my brain started playing the Curb Your Enthusiasm music to that photo.
1 week later
I can imagine why the originals were riveted on a location beast like TAF. I've seen those twist-on flasher domes pop off. Better to have a dead flasher than a dome blocking the drain. For collectors and home use I'd rather be able to change a bulb without tools.
1 week later
Add one more voice to the Tommy chorus. Can't wait to see how that one turns out. Sold mine before I got around to a full tear-down shop job. I always meant to replace those ugly, opaque slingshot posts with good fashioned yellow or amber star posts.
1 week later
1 week later
There's those pearly whites!
I haven't paid a lot of attention to this new trend of adding glitter to repro playfields. Does it add any complexity to your sanding/reclearing process, or is it already locked down tight under the factory clear? Normally I'm a purist but I actually don't mind it for small pops like the lime green on IJ.
1 week later
Quoted from High_End_Pins:I switched from red inlane guides to clear after power up because I want the gray plastics to match up and the red guides were color flooding them causing a mismatch although they looked great with the game off.
This is an excellent observation & choice. I wish everyone had your instincts. Whole lotta clown puke out there in the collector community.
1 week later
Quoted from radial_head:Wow, the low-res half toning on the cabinet artwork looks terrible! What were they thinking?
They were thinking "please don't lock the doors, please don't lock the doors." Low-res screened cabinets are a holdover from the mid 2000s when Stern was on the brink of bankruptcy. Tron is one of the big titles that turned things around. Later runs had much nicer decaled art.
Quoted from High_End_Pins:They are spicy!!!!!
Appropriate shirt.
1 week later
Quoted from dmieczko:After seeing the Kornfreak planes installed, it's hard to look at anything else...
I found them a bit gaudy, as well as the sculpted, overly painted idol/path plastics. No knock on Chris, the customer is always right (or at least paying to be wrong). This current IJ is perfection my semi-purist eyes.
At first I was like, "why does Chris hate doing just playfields, or just a cabinet? Money's money." But after seeing so much perfection go out the door, it must be disappointing to send something out having only touched a piece of it. In a way your name is associated with this game now, despite all the flaws and factory shortcuts everywhere but the HEP cabinet. (And I also understand the point about stand-alone playfields clogging up the whole-game workflow.)
Really curious to see what needs to be done (or can be done) to one of those pixelated early 2000's Stern cabinets. If I recall correctly, Tron LE and first run Tron pros were the last games with low-res printed cabinets before the current decals were introduced.
Quoted from PinMonk:I didn't realize they upped the resolution for the replacement run TRON cabinet decals.
Stern changed the cabinet art process entirely between Tron runs. They went from cabinets that arrived at the factory already direct-printed, to decals applied at the factory. Transformers was next, the first all-decal Stern game. Many of those wrinkled badly at the legs, hence the introduction of metal (and then cheaper plastic) cabinet protectors to keep legs from digging in. But I digress.
Seems like powder is rarely up to HEP standards, and he bascially treats it as primer. Makes sense when you compare the average powdercoat to a high-end custom automotive finish, which is pretty much what Chris does. Apologies if I put inaccurate words in his mouth.
One-slot coin door was Stern's misguided attempt to save money because they assumed (correctly) most Tron LEs weren't going on location and assumed (INcorrectly) collectors wouldn't care about the single slot. Collectors lost their shit. "It doesn't match!" "You gave us less than pro buyers!"
I know a hobby operator local to Stern who (understandably) carried his Tron LE coin door into the factory, plopped it on someone's desk, and wouldn't leave until they gave him a two-slot door. You need that redundancy in case one gets jammed.
3 weeks later
Quoted from High_End_Pins:Today is my 48th birthday so I doubt I will accomplish much but we”ll see it is still just a Tuesday
Mine was last Tuesday, it sucked. Hope yours is better! I'm sure dark liquid will be involved.
2 weeks later
1 week later
Quoted from High_End_Pins:All new targets game uses 20.
And the sad thing is, 12 of them you never shoot on purpose! Not hating on F-14, I used to own one and loved it, every game has dangerous shots you avoid.
1 week later
Quoted from High_End_Pins:Marshall had to get some teeth fixed. Nothing major just a couple routine Cavities and a cleaning.
For the average person that is not a real big deal but when it comes to Marshall it means he has to go to the actual hospital and be put out via anesthesia.
Marshall, I empathize with you buddy! Ever since I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, I feel claustrophobic or suffocated by all those instruments in my mouth, unable to swallow. I can take the pain of dental work but not the dry mouth & rubber dam.
Couple halcyon pills and I'm as sedated as you can possibly be without going under actual anesthesia. At that point they could pour gravel in my mouth and I'd be like "whatever."
Quoted from ToucanF16:I’m coming to your house for trick-or-treat. You can keep the candy. I’ll just take the steaks!
You keep the steaks; I'll take the beer!
Quoted from High_End_Pins:I changed the curly ramp lamps from green to traditional.
It’s supposed to be a film strip so in my eyes I just like that idea better.
Good move. In addition to the film strip thing, green was clashing with the teal pops & snackbar mod, which are both in the same line of sight as the curly ramp. Green bowl lights are far enough away that they don't clash. Perfection.
3 years later
Quoted from High_End_Pins:It will be back probably with only the rants in a dedicated playlist.
Yay! HEP is my must-see TV and I'm usually on top of the videos, but I was busy hosting pinball league over the weekend and only caught the first couple minutes of the TZ rant. Got back online this morning and thought I must've dreamt the whole thing.
Quoted from High_End_Pins:I think if there’s enough interest in that sort of thing I will tell the rest of it in a part 2.
Anything you want to share, we'll be glad to listen. No pressure though of course. Seems like the unlisted video approach is great for this kinda stuff, no random know-it-alls stumbling onto your more personal videos via the youtube algorithm.
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