I like Stern's design. It's simple, doesn't need adjustment, and you can put the lockdown bar fully in-place without moving the spring-loaded lever.

30 years from now if people are trying to refurb a Ghostbusters, a trip to the hardware store will be all that's required to seat its lockdown bar properly.

Did your purchase agreement with your distributor include a delivery date?

Look, there are two ways to think about your situation:

1) You care about the delivery date enough to switch distributors, and may get a table faster
2) You don't care about the delivery date enough to switch distributors, and will thus wait

It seems you're going with option number two. That's great, your distributor will be happy, and you'll be happy that you stood by your distributor.

What doesn't make sense to me is to fill a thread about a pinball table with "where's mine?" comments. This thread has largely devolved into "what should Bublehead do". I have nothing against you; I think we can all sympathize with the agonizing wait for a new table. That said, I don't think agonizing here is helping you (or anyone). I think you have to resolve your agony either by getting your table somewhere else, or deciding to just not care.

An aside... my MBrSE is unboxing at MGC in a couple weeks. I'm psyched!

You HAVE to open it up. Who knows if there's even a pinball table in there? Maybe it's bricks! Maybe it's an old Pinbot! You really need to open it up and inspect it, or she'll be really upset when she comes home and you unbox a bunch of old encylopedias.

Is that enough justification? Maybe just set it up and throw a blanket over it.

(I say this as someone whose also-into-pinball wife was more excited than I for our first NIB opening.... so, teasing alert. )

Yeah, people say they're jealous when your spouse is also into pinball. They never believe us when we say there are actually downsides.

I think you should have led with "I have a plan for when you return. I'll pick you up at the airport and we'll stop at that coffee shop you like on the way home. You'll need to coffee because at home your slippers will be ready and Monster Bash will be all cleaned and ready to play. The first game is yours."

And try not to snicker as you say it.

This is how distribution networks work. It's the same thing you may encounter trying to buy a Tickle Me Elmo.

The only thing CGC is doing to you here is not producing enough LE's to make supply ready. But that's the whole point of an LE. If CGC said "screw it" and pumped out another thousand LE's so you could pick them up anywhere, there would be much (and justified) wailing.

Perhaps LE's shouldn't have anything cool over the top of SE's? Then only people who wanted a limited edition would get an LE.

It's not the same product, but a limited edition pinball table sold through distributors and a supply-limited toy sold through retailers give us the same effect: shopping around for a merchant to find the item.

Whether calling distributors for MBrLE's or driving to every Walmart in town for a TME doll, you're at the mercy of whoever sells the item. It's not the manufacturer's fault, unless you consider under-producing a fault.

Perhaps. Middle men are often unpopular. Why doe my cars have to go through a dealer? Why do my votes have to go through an electoral college?

Clearly CGC (and Stern, and JJP, and Spooky) like the distributor model. Farming out part of their business makes life easier for them, just like farming out IT or HR or accounting may.

There's opportunity for the distributor to make life easier for you too. Lots of people like their distributors. That's not your experience, and I certainly can't blame you for your distaste. I'm just saying your distaste shouldn't be directed to CGC, any more than you should hate Walmart for the TME frenzy, or your local car dealer for being unable to find a blue Jeep for you.

I hope you get your table soon. I really do. It stinks to wait that long for anything, especially when you have a sizable deposit. Especially when you can see them floating out into the wild.

If you do this again, I would ask:

1) What's your initial allocation of LE tables?
2) How deep am I in line?
3) If my table is damaged in delivery, what is my recourse?

Of course, you could always join me and do an SE instead! Lots cheaper and the only big loss is the topper. Heck, buy one today and join me at MGC this weekend! You might still have time to get the show deal. ($500 off)

Congrats, Bublehead! I imagine we won't be hearing from you for a few days. I hope you and your wife have lots of fun with your new....friend.

My standard approach:

Simple Green on a damp lint-free cloth to wipe the playfield, metal ramps, rubber, and cab. I do it once a month, maybe? Make sure you get the high-traffic areas good, like orbits and inlanes.

Windex or Sparkle on the glass and backglass. This glass on MBR isn't anti-reflective coated so you don't have to worry about ammonia free, but I use Sparkle on all my tables so I don't have a SNAFU with my one Invisiglass table.

Novus 1 on plastics, cause it has a little polish stuff in it, otherwise Sparkle on a cloth works fine too.

You can wax if you want to, but that takes more time and speeds the table up. Blitz is great stuff, I agree. I use a foam disc pad to apply and a lint free cloth to polish.

Simple Green the balls and wipe them off. Check balls for serious dings and replace if you find any.

My MBR came home from MGC with a few hundred plays on it and the flippers and slings were a little dirty. The playfield wasn't bad. The lockdown bar was gross, but it's clean now.

Does anybody else's Mummy make what sounds like a coil hum when the sarcophagus is open? I've only had an hour with the table so far and obviously didn't hear it on the show floor.

Spring washer? Is there an EOS in there? I've never seen what the mech looks like.

Hm, the spring washer made little or no difference.

For reference for anyone who has to disassemble the Mummy, the order is:

1. Remove three Molex connectors behind the back box (they’re keyed and color-matched)
2. Remove the Mummy’s plastic (the flat one)
3. Remove the screws holding the Mummy bracket to the playfield (11/32 hex)
4. Remove the Mummy assembly from the table

At that point I loosened the coil bracket and slipped a 1/2” spring washer next to the coil stop. It perhaps quieted the Mummy a bit, but not much if it did.

I’ll probably live with it for a while.

I also had an issue with the ball rattling around the left Bride ramp if it made the 180° too quickly. It looked like it was riding outside the habitrail and against the metal guide. In one case it flew up there so fast it rode ATOP the entire Habitrail (and proceeded to jump to the left outlane, spoiling my shot at Monster Bash). I bent the metal guide on the “outside” of the curve a little towards the habitrail to get rid of the “jump” effect and also keep the ball closer to the rail for less back-and-forth. It plays real nice now!

The beginning of my left Bride ramp habitrail is also a little high, but it only brushes the lower of the two prongs, and doesn’t get hit unless the ball is going so slow that it never would have made the ramp anyway. So I left that one alone.

Also, my Phantom Flip is drunk. Needs training.

On my left ramp, the right-most metal guide (not the wireform, the solid "sheet") was angled from left-to-right as it comes up from the playfield. It had the effect of making strong shots hit the full-habitrail portion of the ramp and bouncing back.

I fixed this by bending the top of the metal guide to the left somewhat. It's now vertical, and I haven't seen a reject on a strong shot yet.

This problem also caused the ball once to jump onto the TOP of the habitrail and ride it down! "Damnest thing I ever did see!"

Not sure; I haven't seen any other MBr's up close, nor have I owned a MB.

If I were to guess I'd say it's probably a tolerance issue. Perhaps my habitrail is more "left" than most. And perhaps my guide is more "right" than most. And perhaps my guide got leaned on a bit during install and is tilted right a bit. It can all easily add up to a janky shot.

In any case, it shoots nice and smooth now!

I tend to consider little adjustments like this a normal thing of owning pinball. I've tweaked most of my tables in this way to shoot nice and smooth, and I'm sure I'll be doing more to MBr before I'm done. I still have a couple outstanding tuning issues to correct, actually.

That reminds me; I was going to ask you all! When you guys get a reject on the left Bride ramp, does the ball ride the outside of the curve and come down smoothly? Or does it do that until it hits the back of the Phantom standup and then deflect off to the right? Cause that's what mine does.

I can't quite tell if that's intentional design to avoid a SDTM or a standup that's leaned too far to the right. I can adjust the Phantom standup, but that's going to make

@Oaken, I realize it's an expensive item, and you might expect it to be perfect, but I'd also advise you to not be particularly obsessive about pinball tables if you're going to collect more of them in the future.

Pins get beaten up and knocked around. If you ever move your pins you're likely to add some damage to them of about the scale of that scratch. And if you buy any table that isn't NIB it will certainly have damage like that.

Incidentally, my MBr's cab lost a chunk the first time I moved it. There's maybe a 1" square splinter from the bottom of the cab that pulled out, pulling some of the side decal with it. I'm going to treat it to avoid a growing of the splinter.... probably some wood glue and perhaps some clear packing tape so there's no edge to grab. Annoying, but pins never stay perfect forever.

Congrats on getting your first pinball table going! You picked a heck of a nice table to start with!

Mine is left flipper no matter the playfield angle. And on a dead bounce it always bounces to the right flipper nicely.

I get a bounce off Drac's feet if the ball bounces down the right orbit, as it sometimes does when exiting the pops. On a Full Moon Fever orbit it's nice and smooth to the right flipper.

I've never had an airball from Frank, so there's gotta be some adjustment to make to help yours.