Future Spa
Bally, 1979Share your biggest pinball mistakes. Laugh at others miseries and let them laugh at yours.
So I was going to clean these and I use an ultrasonic cleaner on some of my pinball parts so I decided to try it on these....... well it didn't go as planned...... take a look at the before and after photos
I had just gotten my Williams Jive Time shipped from California by STI and loaded out onto my driveway, perfect flawless beautiful cabinet on one side and the other side was not as nice but still very good, had to make room for it in the garage and a $100 rotting (not literally but it had a really rough base and is honestly probably burn material) arcade cabinet still complete and heavy I was moving out of the garage to make space fell off my handtruck towards the pinball machine, nearly knocked me to the floor and cut my hand up pretty bad, and left a large noticable gouge in the otherwise flawless side of this cabinet (not the worse side) and black paint scuffs all the way down.
The only time the hobby has made me almost cry angry tears because I had been waiting for that game for months and it took a lot of work and hours to save up the money to buy it and ship it out here on my low budget and I knew there is no fixing something like that perfectly or putting back what was lost. No time machine here...
Posted my misery at the time on Pinside and they noted how it could have easily knocked over the game, broken the backglass, and done much worse to either me or the game and that made me feel better. It's been in a row of games since that day I got it just like everything else and I haven't even seen the side of it since I brought it down anyways as it's not only in a tight row but is also the second to last game from the left wall in a tight corner so it is very rare that you would even glance down at it or be able to see the side let alone the mark.
Live and learn. Still a beautiful game by the way.
Quick edit: Oh, and I shrink wrapped the whole machine just to bring it down the basement stairs, LOL. Was not taking ANY more chances.
Quoted from Jaywoods06:Share your biggest pinball mistakes. Laugh at others miseries and let them laugh at yours.
So I was going to clean these and I use an ultrasonic cleaner on some of my pinball parts so I decided to try it on these....... well it didn't go as planned...... take a look at the before and after photos
Ummmmm.... Wth did you do?
Leave them in overnight with the heater on?
Never seenan ultra do that to anything.
Quoted from Jaywoods06:Share your biggest pinball mistakes. Laugh at others miseries and let them laugh at yours.
So I was going to clean these and I use an ultrasonic cleaner on some of my pinball parts so I decided to try it on these....... well it didn't go as planned...... take a look at the before and after photos
The heating element is ok to use with metal parts, but is best avoided when cleaning plastic parts.
One time (and I'm not sure if anyone was even aware of this before I attempted it), I made the mistake of trying to de-rust older metal coin mechs. That ended up stripping the cadmium finish off the coin mech down to the bare metal. I should have left them alone. Oh well.
Brought home a beautiful Black Knight. Didn't check the head to make sure that the lightboard was properly fixed in position. Well, you can guess what happened....it wasn't, and the metal brackets on the lightboard rubbed against the original, perfect, flawless, like-new....did I mention perfect?....backglass, wearing away the ink in two spots. I was furious with myself then and every time I think about it I am furious with myself now.
The time i removed the backglass from my Black Knight, put it on top of the machine. Which then promptly explodes
be thankful it wasnt something hard to replace, like a backglass or hard to find plastics. its funny to see how warped they got, but those mean zero..... buy more and be happy you didnt mess up unobtanium
I went to move my Dealers Choice, and the head fell forward onto the cabinet. The bottom of the head still bolted down, came away from the rest of the head. Unfortunately the power cord was laying across the top of the cabinet, and stood out just enough for the backglass to hit, which of course shattered.....
Several years ago, there was a Bally Playboy on Craigslist just 5 minutes down the road. Photos showed it worn and faded, it didn't work, asking price was 1800, obviously ridiculously priced. Then it went down to 1650, then 1500, then 1200. Then several weeks later it showed up again with no price listed. I went to check it out and found this mess. It was stored on a garage floor with no legs on, and someone had tried to pick it up by the head, ripping the neck and the back right off of the cabinet. I wound with a nice Playboy backglass and all the hardware, mechs, etc. for 75 bucks, but unfortunately it was a destroyed cabinet that didn't need to be.
What should have been a routine ~two hour Mylar removal last year on my Black Rose turned into one catastrophic mess. The clear lifted on several inserts and I was forced to do my first full playfield tear down, detailed restore and clearcoat - with its own set of bad mistakes. It all turned out for the better with lots of lessons learned, but not without a lot of cursing and head-in-my-hands moments. I now have a very nice playfield in my Black Rose, but with so many hours invested in it I feel compelled to say I'll never sell it.
Full restore thread here if anyone is interested: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/testing-clays-clearcoat-brush-method
Quoted from jibmums:Several years ago, there was a Bally Playboy on Craigslist just 5 minutes down the road. Photos showed it worn and faded, it didn't work, asking price was 1800, obviously ridiculously priced. Then it went down to 1650, then 1500, then 1200. Then several weeks later it showed up again with no price listed. I went to check it out and found this mess. It was stored on a garage floor with no legs on, and someone had tried to pick it up by the head, ripping the neck and the back right off of the cabinet. I wound with a nice Playboy backglass and all the hardware, mechs, etc. for 80 bucks, but unfortunately it was a destroyed cabinet that didn't need to be.
What a shame 
Quoted from jibmums:Several years ago, there was a Bally Playboy on Craigslist just 5 minutes down the road. Photos showed it worn and faded, it didn't work, asking price was 1800, obviously ridiculously priced. Then it went down to 1650, then 1500, then 1200. Then several weeks later it showed up again with no price listed. I went to check it out and found this mess. It was stored on a garage floor with no legs on, and someone had tried to pick it up by the head, ripping the neck and the back right off of the cabinet. I wound with a nice Playboy backglass and all the hardware, mechs, etc. for 75 bucks, but unfortunately it was a destroyed cabinet that didn't need to be.
Some bad head, fits well with the theme 
Poor machine, though.
Quoted from pinster68:turned into one catastrophic mess.
If it's any consolation, pinster, you did a fantastic job on that game.
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Millbrae, CA