(Topic ID: 149474)

Looking for correct screws for Bally plastics

By jibmums

8 years ago


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  • 29 posts
  • 12 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 2 years ago by Lovef2k
  • Topic is favorited by 13 Pinsiders

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#17 8 years ago

The plastics used truss head screws in the wooden side rails. Pan heads were used on the posts.

This is the general rule though. It seems Bally assembly deviated from time to time (probably when they ran out of a certain size/style or received a different lot).

Bally used #6 truss heads on some machines and #8 truss heads on others. You can use #8 because they are only 0.030" bigger in diameter and the holes that the original #6 screws were in are usually loose. My bolts have the same head size but will fit nice and tight like new, especially for the backbox wire looms and displays which used #8 a lot of the time. I do offer #6 truss heads too if people want them.

You have to remember that you can polish the OEM screws and they will look good but the appearance is usually short-lived because they were just cheap zinc-plated fasteners and the zinc wasn't very thick. They will usually oxidize quickly afterwards if left unprotected.

I've studied all the Bally fasteners in depth and manufacture several custom screws for pinball. All of my fasteners are 18-8 stainless and can be polished to a mirror finish with a slight buff or left natural to appear like the original zinc-plated bolts were. The lengths are custom and the heads are very close to the originals. Mine actually look better than original and are superior quality. Unlike the cheap originals, mine are designed to last forever (and look good too).

Custom sized 18-8 stainless steel fasteners from left to right:
1) 6-32 x 2" pan head (for posts with threaded T-nuts beneath the playfield)
2) #6 x 1.75" pan head sheet metal screw (for tall playfield posts that screw directly into wood)
3) #6 x 1.5" pan head sheet metal screw (for short playfield posts that screw directly into wood)
4) #8 x .5" truss head screw (for playfield plastics & backbox wire looms)
5) 8-32 x 1.125" carriage bolt (for Bally coin door frames & side rails)
6) 1/4-20 x 1.5" carriage bolt (for Bally playfield glass lockdown bar lever)

I have all these screws in stock and am adding more this year. You'll have a hard time finding these screws because they are not popular sizes. Also I made a point of trying to match the heads as close as reasonably possible. Carriage bolts you buy commercially will all have marked heads. Mine are smooth and I spend thousands of dollars having all of these screws custom-made.

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#23 8 years ago
Quoted from jibmums:

Gatecrasher, granted my experience is only a few years now but I've found that while Williams used panhead screws for posts, Bally used round-head screws. Or at least early Bally SS did, every single post screw, either wood or machine, I've removed from Playboy, Space Invaders, and Centaur was a round-head.

Well they are kind of in between because some of them seem to look like they have been modified/ground on. I find these on just about every machine. Very few are what I would consider to be a true round head with an almost perfectly radiused head.

This is why I say "I made a point of trying to match the heads as close as reasonably possible" because they aren't perfectly uniform and vary substantially. Some are real bad.

Below is a picture of some factory Bally SS fasteners. I have bags full of these from numerous machines. Several years ago when I approached fastener companies here in Chicago to duplicate these there was a lot of discussion as to what these really are. If you look at the heads you'll see they really aren't true round heads and to me a pan head is more representative of how these look (plus IMO a panhead looks and functions better). That's why the decision was made to go panhead instead of round head. There was no way I was going to get what look like hand-modified bolts. The bolts Bally used look cheap and were shoddily-made (probably came from Taiwan).

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#25 8 years ago
Quoted from j_m_:

do you have a website or way to order these for people wanting to do so?

Hopefully I'll have my lift channels back in stock next week and I'll post an updated parts flyer.

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