That “typewriter” font is such a weird choice. When I restored my playfield I actually considered changing it!

Wow, I was commissioned to do a Miss World resto a few years back. From what I understand there are only like a dozen working ones out there?

A friend of mine was able to reproduce the cabinet artwork seen on the IPDB example (but we did decals instead of 6-layers of stencils, dear god.)

Anyhow, it was a weird outlier project and kind of a fun one to work on. Like everything else, if I was doing it today I’d do a few things differently, but I think it’s still a pretty respectable end product.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/bally-kiss-gt-miss-world-conversion#post-6557786

That’s awesome; I’ve owned a 14v Festool drill driver since 2009 which still works nicely (on the original batteries!)
I mostly bought it because at the time nobody made those nice quick-change specialty heads (the offset one is super useful, especially on cabinet install work.)
I have one of their compact drill-drivers as well but that doesn’t have the offset chuck. Might have to pick up this set, it would be great to have another compact driver close at hand, and a cordless dremel would be a nice addition as well.

On the other hand, he heroically rescued a number of Solar Fire playfields by re-screening them. I have two of those builds in my queue and the playfields look terrific.

I think about this a lot.
In a better world, people would have more opportunity to assess their lives at various points, and have the option of changing course if things are feeling stagnant. But most people don’t get that chance.

I make a lot of self-deprecating jokes about my “middle aged white guy rock and roll band” that I started when I was 42. I’d never been in a band before, but saw some bands my age that were genuinely impressive and it looked like so much fun, I wanted to give it a go.

I ended up discovering I can sing, and also taught myself to arrange horns. We recorded an album which is being pressed to vinyl as we speak. Probably almost nobody will hear it, but it feels good to “have something to show for it.”
Bands are something people do in their 20s for a reason. It takes an insane amount of time, energy, and money, and gives back practically nothing. But, it’s been a chance to do something completely different that I didn’t ever think I’d do. I have to be OK with mostly doing it for me.

Restorations are a little bit more satisfying only in that at least the owners get the delight of seeing their formerly basket case machine playing like new again. It’s the nearest thing to a Time Machine I’ve ever seen. Playing a beloved machine from when you were a kid and having it be as fun now as it was then, that takes a lot of skill and commitment.

I try to do as much as I can to make the game better than factory. Whatever won’t clean up in the tumbler, I replace, just because I want the game to be as clean and trouble free as possible once I’m done with it. You can’t insure against every problem, of course, but I do like people to have the cleanest, most professional looking work I can give them. It’s not a value judgment on anyone else - the line of what is considered practical/sensible is totally debatable. But I appreciate the impulse to make things as new as one can.

I got into restoring pins when my cabinet work started to get shaky. Since then, I’ve swapped over to doing pins primarily. Every machine is a chance to learn something new or improve my techniques, whereas cabinetry was really feeling stale after 15 years. It was a super lucky break and I don’t take it for granted that I have had the chance to switch things up in middle age.

I can’t deal with KISS and all that cock rock goombah stuff. I keep wondering how old I have to be for Stern to try to appeal to me with a Dead Kennedys machine or a Paychedelic Furs or Siouxsie and the Banshees game.

Dead Kennedys. Psychedelic Furs. Siouxsie and the Banshees. You know, music that was actually kinda cool at one point.

Yeah that’s what I was thinking when I didn’t order a Space Shuttle playfield right away, and then when I went to place an order they were out of stock.

I don’t like talking smack about the people who make the stuff that keeps pinball going, but FFS, which is it? Print to order or “we’re only making a hundred of these, so if you don’t have $900 burning a hole in your pocket right this minute, tough luck poor boy.”