Back in December I purchased my first pinball machine. A LOTR.

We all know whats its like that first time - the excitement, the the nervousness. But we can also be naive and buy a machine that needs what the seller calls 'TLC'. My LOTR was a little more beat up than advertised by the seller by the time I was there I didn't care. It had obviously been routed for a long time, but I could fix anything right?! And its A PINBALL MACHINE. MY OWN PINBALL MACHINE. So I took it and went home, paying slightly higher than I should have for condition but overall happy.

Over time however the little things started to bother me. I would see beautiful LOTRs at other collector's houses and on pinside and be jealous. No wear?? Look how clean it is! No broken plastics!

Well, this week I decided enough was enough and I was going to strip the playfield, and polish this turd. I got the cliffys, I got pinbit plastic protectors, I got white rubbers, I got novus and caranuba wax. I got metal polish! Lets do this.

Here are some before pictures. Notice the broken Arwin and Pop Bumper plastics. Trent sent me a tree plastic replacement for Arwin for $5. The pop plastic however was sent to me free of charge from c3trey. So huge thanks for that. Its awesome.

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Now here are some other before before pictures. I hope They get across how dirty this machine really was. If you swiped your finger across it , your finger would be black.

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So it took me about 15 hours total from start to finish. I took it apart, cleaned with Novus 1, then cleaned with Novus 2, then cleaned with Novus 1 again. Followed with a Mother's Caranuba wax layer. After that I put it all back together, replacing all my dirty black rubbers with new white rubbers.

note the area by the path of the dead that had worn the side rail down. I added the protector from pinbits and used a sharpie to color the already exposed wood black.

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I think it looks a lot better, and Im a lot more proud of this machine. Not only is it a better machine, but Its got my blood and sweat in it now.

Funny thing: The night I finished I went to a pinball tournament and was tellinga man there about the teardown, and he told me he could get a clearcoated playfield for under $500 for me. I decided not to get it. Not only am I not eager to take the playfield apart again anytime soon, but If I had a new PF in there it would be a $$$ machine. And I like the idea that there are still being moderately priced good examples of machines out there.

Last photo!

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I used NevrDull. Although I will say I was a little weary of rubbing off the gold finish. Im pretty sure if you over-do it that it will happen for sure. Mainly what I noticed is that when all is polished and done, place where there are rust and wear end up shiny and silver, where places that were not too terrible to begin with stay gold and shiny.

Had a bunch of people over last night. Got a couple compliments on the game. That felt good.