Plenty of people in the area are working on projects.

I have my TRON LE I brought to the expo, will be needing a cleanup soon....

My Doctor Who needs that darn bash target installed back into the mini playfield, I also have a new set of decals that will need to be installed before too long....

I have a Bally Atlantis that needs to be airbrushed, cleared, and reassembled, hopefully before TPF...

The Game Preserve in The Woodlands could always use a hand with pinball repair as well and are usually welcoming to have another set of hands. Beer and Crown is always welcome at the preserve as well. Swing on by on a Saturday night and you will meet plenty of us that could use a spare hand.

Nice that you have Iron Man.

I would say that what I have learned has been:

Buy a decent soldering iron rather go cheap.
Learn to read schematics.
Diagnostics are your friend.
Accept you will break something.
Buy more fuses than you need.
Keep track of which screws go where under the playfield. You can easily late run a screw through the playfield.
Make sure your game is grounded.
Don't over tighten your legs.
Only buy games you like.
It is easier to sell something that is in good shape.
You'll run out of room before money.

www.pinwiki.com is a good source to read up on many pinball machine eras and the common issues you will encounter.

Any game in particular are you still having trouble with right now?

Sounds like you may need a switch adjustment. Switch contacts sound like they are too close. You can go into the switch test and hit the target switch and see how many times it activates there. My parents' house is in Needville. One day in the next 2 or 3 weeks I could stop by in you hadn't fix that switch issue by then.

Basically you have to figure out what order to take the parts off. Once you get everything off you want, then you can clean the playfield and wax it, clean the parts and reinstall the parts. most people take pictures as they remove some parts.

I could swing by one day after leaving my parents house on the way back home near Katy.
Wouldn't be much out of the way at all.

Did you get your games working?
I'll be at the Game Preserve on Saturday to help repair games out there. They have a pinball tournament there on Saturday 8/27 at 4pm. I should be there sometime before then.

Your response was much faster than mine, which was a year later. I'm glad you're resting. What did you find out with the games you had issue with a year ago?