Bah. I remember when Chris did this on the side out of his garage.

Hey, I see Whirlwinds in there! Hope mine is soon.

--Donnie

Just dug back and saw this. Interesting.

A few years before that game, there was another...

Well, almost. I bought a mostly-complete wired prototype TAF playfield from Kerry Stair. Also has mylar'ed inserts. All the weldments were hand made, red lamp boards, etc. But it had been on location and the playfield was pretty well blown out. To me there simply was no way to "save" it *and* have a nice playing example.

So I bought a complete blown out donor TAF. Took it and the proto playfield to Chris. Chris got a new cabinet, all new art, and I provided a bunch of NOS top side parts. Then he painstakingly rebuilt it using all the prototype parts and an NOS playfield.

So much of the game is new. Much of the game was hand-made by Pat and his coworkers. It plays like a brand new example and looks better than they did new. And I kept the original playfield. It's bare now, but I kept all the parts from the donor and have many more NOS parts. Enough to put it back together as a complete working playfield, honestly. My original plan was to do that at least with top-side parts and then maybe just wire it up as wall art of some kind, but that's a project I'll probably never get to, so who knows. For now it's all in climate controlled storage.

I've never run across a complete prototype TAF machine for sale. But I've always had a thing for protos, particularly of Lawlor games. I have a Banzai Run built with a complete-but-barely-used proto wired playfield that John Wart Jr. found and sold me. I have a true proto complete Safe Cracker. True proto Road Show. Sample Earthshaker. The true proto Whirlwind that Chris is working on. Sample (#1 on the run!) TZ. True proto Funhouse.

Anyway, we do the best we can in these situations to create awesome games with the parts on hand. Sometimes history is saved, but sometimes it just doesn't make good sense to. And sometimes we're just going to disagree on that last part.

--Donnie

Baller. I sort of read the thread out of order like a dumbass.

--Donnie

14?!?! I've lost count of how many Chris has done for me, but I don't think I've made it to 14. Should be approaching double digits if not just there, but not quite 14. Wow.

Agreed on your sentiment, though. I can *feel* the difference between my HEP pins and the others. I shopped my sample TZ myself and do kind of constantly fiddle to keep it right (and I know a thing or two about pins myself). My HEP pins just so much more rarely need love than even my new Sterns.

--Donnie

It's fun to see how much some games are hand made and how much others are more production-like. My true-proto list: Funhouse, SS, CFTBL, SC, RS, WCS94, Slugfest. Samples: ES, TZ. Games with complete proto playfields: TAF, Banzai Run. I also own a mostly-complete whitewood NBAFB playfield (would love to sell it to someone who had a use for it).

But no, I'm not asking Chris to document the Whirlwind above for Pinside. I don't mind if he does that on his time, but I don't feel compelled to pay him to do it.

--Donnie

Cool, I'm a big fan of that kind of thing, too.

--Donnie