Love it. sounds like a low dough project. Has anyone seen a stars game sell lately? How much do they sell for.
I went on a pf buying tirade this month and a TOTAN gold and a SS just got delivered yesterday. as soon as I sell 2 and pay my creditors, I am going to see about buying one of these pfs. I really dig um, and it looks great installed. Maybe someone will sell a game all ready converted sometime this year. people get tired of titles, and only have so much room or money.

The other idea I have been kicking around for years is I have a nos stingray pf set aside...

Those red flippers look cool too

Here is a taxi I finished for a customer. It was a bit of a trouble maker. When it first got here I sanded it down, nice and flat, and when I went to clear it 10-14 days later, I could feel it wasnt flat any more. The wood was still curing. Now that the pf makers can make the pfs "Just in Time" , rather than carry an inventory, I cant tell how old they are. Many times when I would clear them and they were fresh new, I would do my regular thing, and after the final coat, block sand it flat, and 2 months later, the inserts raise a little. super frustrating. So I let this one set for like 3 months, by then, it didnt seem to be moving any more, before I got started.
Then this week it gave me some lip. I was polishing it out, and when I got to the finest polish I could see some little issues in the clear, i didnt see before. Its because of the light colors, even when i use my big magnifying glass, since the surface is sanded a matte finish. you cant see the little miniscule stuff.
Its funny looking I bet, because when I am done block sanding the first grit, I use a big sherloc holmes magnifying glass and one of those lights on an arm that I can move all over. Of course I broke the glass, and now I use a chunk of it, until someday I replace it. The chunk is about 5 in, so its still functionable.

Well thats the excitement of "the trouble making taxi" pf. Evidently, taxi is the owner's wife's favorite game, and she is just as excited for this as he is. which is very cool. If you have ever thought about getting a taxi, you should know it was designed by the same man who did IJ (one of the best games ever made)], Mark Ritchie.

Today is the worst day for pics. its very dark, and pouring rain/freezing rain

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I don't quite remember, but on the original pfs, is zombie santa so weird looking?
Also every time I do this title, I discover the run over cat, which at first is kinda funny that it is there, but it always reminds me of my cat Puff, who got run over in my driveway by the meter reader. he stopped, and looked at her, got back in the car and drove off. I was in the kitchen, looking out the window wondering what the hell he is doing.
I called the power company furious, and they told me the meter readers are contractors, so they have nothing to do with it. They wouldnt tell me the name of the driver or his boss or the company he worked for. I really wanted to find him, and where he lives, and drive Doug, my F250, over to his place to run some shit over.

I did a bunch of prepping yesterday, and I am going to finish the line up today. Its funny, some days I just do not want to sand, and there are days ;like today, where I am in the mood to rock em out.

I have done a bunch of nos pf's that have the invisible number across the center, and I had forgotten if I can sand that out. I can. This BSD had it. Also on this bsd, which is nice NOS, the holes for the pop bumpers were not drilled. for some reason a lot of nos pfs are drilled and dimpled, mylared, but not the pop bumpers, and often not the side rails. I have always wondered about that. TAF is a perfect example with those 5 pops. none are drilled. They have the 3 big holes, but not the holes for the lug nail/screws or the 2 wire holes. Lucky I had a template for bsd and I added them. I dont counter sink them because with my clear, and the install kit, you cant counter sink them by removing the clear.

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This is a ghost busters and its super common for the holes to have wood burrs. prob from the bit on the cnc machine getting dull, any way, they are perfect for grabbing clear and growing, so I try to watch for them and take care of them. Its another perfect use for the kruzman pf install kit.

There was some pretty harsh scratches at the bottom of this pf, from being stacked with another pf that had those flipper adjustment rolls, or pins. Its really important to take those out for storage, because they just stick out enough and they are sharp enough to really damage another pf. I got about 90% of the scratches out, but I cant sand any deeper. I will apply a thin coat, and see what is left.

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KIss, nos congo, and 9 ball, all hand sanded. now I go over it lightly with the DA sander to get rid of all of the scratches from hand sanding on one area. It was too rainey to open the big door, so the DA sanding waits till the next day.

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I think that 9 ball is getting its last coat.

some more prep work. I always like to clean up the arrow inserts on centaur, plus this one had cracks around the inserts for the in line dropps, and one bonus insert. Simpsons is a lot of prep work to do between every coat.
all that is left is Totan, and the upper pf for solar fire. I havent started the prep work on lady luck and pinbot yet, but I will once I get these sprayed.
I am doing the final block sand on matts motorcycle pf, and champ pub.
There are a couple pfs that are done with spraying and just waiting for the last coat to cure so I can do the final 2 days work. off hand they are
catacomb
quick silver
space invaders
seems like there are 2 more, but I havent been out there yet.

So its pretty slow here if any one wants to send any work, let me know

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Getting 2 cats in one pic is not easy. It seems to me that max and ruben really like it here. Its winter and they mostly sleep and I dont blame them, but I am beginning to get them to come on walks with me.
I traded a couple huge walnut trees to get the tree man to cut down the 2 beautiful trees shading the empty guest house. They were 60 footers and only 12 feet from the building, and so many hardwoods are breaking half way up in these storms.
Anyway there are going to be some huge fires. I have 6 piles like this, scattered all over the compound

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Picked up 2 more pfs for sale
a cpr gold tales of Arabian nights and a really nice IPB scared stiff with an aftermarket clear that I really like. very different style than me. Quite thin compared to mine, but it looks just right!

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here are some better pics on those pf. price is 1000 on the cpr totan gold (screened)
1050 on the IPB SS with the nice after market clear

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I ran across a super cool mod, at]]down at the bottom of the page where they sell stuff.
https://pinside.com/pinball/market/shops/1430-pr-mods/07226-stern-pinball-cabinet-volume-switch-for-sam-amp-spike-games

This would be super cool for the music games, like my sisters acdc.

I have been getting in the habit of checking the corner laminate on the older pf's and I was looking at this hulk, and whadda ya know?

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The quality control staff here at kruzman pinball playfields, is hard to impress.

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I finished up this nos champion pub over the holiday weekend. I absolutely dig this game. I hadnt played until 2005. It was on route in a pool hall in kalamazoo when I was getting sober (the last time). I would treat myself to a roll of quarters on a fri or sat, and I usually left a lot of credits in it.

With this nos, I couldnt find a populated pf to make a dimple pattern from, and I looked for months. I have noticed in the 15 years i have been doing this, what the time does to these nos pfs. 15 years ago, when they came in they were always flawless. Now with the seasons change, and the movement of the wood every year, the insert paint is cracking along the edges.

Its really easy to destroy this pf if you are clumsy. If you set it down hard upside down on that "finger" of wood, you can say good buy to it. I have never done it but I have seen 2 broken. So when I run the 13 amp/ 4500 rpm polisher over it, I make a block to hold it together

After I am done polishing, I clean out all of the holes' edges, and then apply a last coat of wax. The last pic is that last coat getting polished off

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I havent looked yet to see if the pic came out, but I noticed a reflection from a poster in the shop.

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Well you cant tell its the man in black

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Oh think about a Robert Williams pin. He has done so many masterpieces that have so many parts of the painting that could be used. You are the first person to reply to me about him. He is one of my most fav artists that are still alive or he was. I will have to check, but I am pretty sure one of his paintings had pinball in it. He is so in the the late 50's era of americana.
I actually used to make enough to buy one of his small paintings, but them days are long gone!!!!! At least I get medicaid now though it can get jerked any time the political winds change as they are.

I was doing some prep work, but the rain started again. there has been 3 days this jan, so far that it didnt rain here. I want to bring in firewood, but even though its covered its all too wet.

I have to get a hold of this pinbot owner and ask him if he wants me to repaint these inserts that are not lined up correctly.
This is one of those pfs where the wood grain really came up after the wood finally cured to its final moisture content. This wood grain is not the makers fault. Its just wood. every single plank is different and acts different. The last couple mirco pfs to come in are warped enough that it worries me a bit.

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I have 3 jobs in the studio that have to be fully hand sanded flat. 2 are proto Bally williams, and they are priceless, the other is that stars, which at least has a super thin layer of clear from screening. It takes a couple of hours to hand sand a pf. First you have to block it, then go back and sand all of the low spots in the inserts. sucks.

On this lady luck, it had what I thought was a regular, thin lacquer coat. So I used a worn piece of 600 grit on the da sander, and the second I hit the pf with it, I went right thru the paint on the side of an insert. When I sand a pf regularly, I first sand all of the inserts, because they have a high spot around them, and a low spot on the inside edge of their key line.
So I have to fix the one insert I wrecked, but I need to talk to the owner to see if he wants me to paint all of the cracked inserts. Also this pf is now old enough, that expoy-ing the back side of the inserts may be a good idea. none are loose yet, but that glue starts failing after 30 years. If they loosen after I clear, we will get ghosting. Before I started locking them in with the epoxy some of the old pfs I did like kiss got some ghosting on inserts after some years. The wood is constantly moving, especially with the seasons.

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Fixing the print on the inserts would cost a fortune. I am proposing making the inside edge of the black key line a size smaller, to cover the cresent from the alignment issue.

as for warping gravity, change of temp and humidity, and cureing/drying to its final stage are the causes of warping. The warping that wtists the pf is my greatest concern because I cant fix it with gravity and weight. as I have described before when plywood twists, it is because one of the opposing forces of the plywood is weak. Either a big split in the wood, or often there will be some wood used that is partially bark, and has no lateral strength.

If you look at any board stock like a 2x4 or 2x10 whatever, it is crowned. or I like to call it smiles. every single board is curved. The good wood not much. A good carpenter always considers the crown of his wood as he/she places it. When I make my beam to hold up the roof soon, I will screw together 2x8 and I will make their crowns oppose each other. I will also put a peice of plywood in-between them.

So plywood is made so we can have "flat wood". each layer of the plywood has its direction, and the next layer is set in the opposite direction. The more layers you have the less quality wood you can use, because its thinner pieces, and having more of them makes the strength of one bad one not much. So a twist happens as the wood is doing its final cure.
Almost always there is not a problem because they design the pf to be held, dealing with plywood warping, but also because of the weight of the parts attached to the pf, easily push it flat.
Its scares me because if I clear it when it is really bent, and then it gets straightened in the game, there is always going to be stress on that clear.

Lately mirco pfs have been arriving warped. I think its because of how they are packed, as well as the change in temp and humidity during the travel so far. Its always more dramatic in the winter. right now in michigan, its been cold and wet for 3 weeks, then we have artificial heat that goes up and down.

So much for my coffee break, I didnt realize I was going to write a book, but a lot of people freak out about it. I do. Except for twisting, its almost always fixed by me rotating how they lean.

I have to clarify my statements, because people think I have a problem with cpr. I love cpr and I am so glad they are a part of the pinball community. I love ford trucks, and every time I work on mine, I bitch about some aspect of it. Maybe I was just brought up like that. I realize I do tend to talk crap about whatever I have to work on. I dont think I have ever said out loud that the oil drain plug on a car was torqued to the perfect spec. It seems I dont say anything, but when some idiot HORQUED it on there so tight that I need a cheater bar... my mouth is running.
I just forget that when I say something here, a lot of people who dont know me or know about my tendency's can get bummed.
Heck I would too, so I will be a little more conscious of the criticism.

Its so hard for me to keep the jobs staggered. They seem to group together, even if i try not to.
I forget the title of this one, but its pretty cool, and from the pf, it looks like a really fun game. its huge which works great for a game about racing around a GP track. Compare to no fear (which is one of my fav games of the era) where you are shooting slightly straight ahead for 6 lanes all next to each other. I haven't played this game, I am just going on how its set up. maybe its not that good since I dont know anyone with one?

If you ha ve a job here and you are waiting, there are 5 that are done being sprayed and need to be blocked and polished. I hope to polish catacomb today. Space invaders was done, but I dont like the last coat, so I am going to sand it and do another. Sorry if thats your pf.

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I took pics of the packing for shipping in case there is anyone new following this thread. This crate has seen some miles.

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Thank you. I am glad to hear I dont drive people nuts with the wording of my struggles. I thought I was a loner, but I realize I am not at all, I just didnt like the people I was surrounded with. so living alone out on the country is tough for me. I started this thread to be an open convo about pfs. So I love it when people chime in, and it blows me away that we have folks from all around the world. If I was the young traveler I used to be, I would take advantage of it.
Also pics and hearing about installing the pfs also puts wind in my sails!!

Awesome pics. Its been a while since I played dr who, I forgot how much is on the top side. You have to be so light handed when installing stuff like ramps and then 1 or 2 levels of plastics.
One of the many cool things about when you do a restore is you can use the proper screws and nuts. Its seems like you dont realize it until you have to take it apart, but then you get to put it together the right way. If it was on route they will use anything including scotch tape.
I have seen many many pfs with damage to the top side of the pf from using the wrong screws on the underside. It would be a super easy mistake to make if I hadn't seen so much of it.
I have a friend in town, mike schudel, who has a rivet press and the dies and all of that stuff, if you get a ramp set that is only the plastic. Some games like the first elviria require so many rivets in the plastic set.

The work on the dr who looks so good. I think its operators that throw away the grey covers for the micro switches on the ramps. I owned several dmd games before I ever saw one of those. They are always missing!

Looks like you added some extra spot lights in the lower half of the pf? It is dark down by the flippers, plus the black paint. I like a lot of light around the flipper area. That game looks just amazing. Way better than just new. A game that is much better and nicer than it was the day it was made. Great work!!

Yes that plastic and ramp set was a mess of rivets. Glad you are installing your pf!!

Daane, that stones looks amazing!!Dam