Pics posted under the "show me your EM's thread"... I added lights under the top ball rail ("cabaret lighting") and a custom ball count card.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/em-show-us-your-em-pinball-machines/page/61#post-1859826

Had to drill the top plate in a drill press using milling oil and a stepped titanium bit.

I looked at those knock-out punches but since the plate has to be pre-drilled, might as well go all the way with the stepped bit until the desired gauge is achieved. Goes through like butter with the milling oil under a drill press. No damage to the bit thus far and it was a cheap eBay special.

I think the holes are 1" diameter but need to verify.

That's a good idea. Specials are useless on free play and it takes effort to earn them, so why not add to the score? On my 4 Roses, the gobble holes can be advanced from 50 to 100 to 200 to 300 to SPECIAL. Since it is a free play game, advancing to SPECIAL actually hurts you, because you get NO points!!! Makes no sense.

I imagine the original designers would have made SPECIAL worth 500 points, in lieu of a free credit. I'll probably mod my machine to do this with an extra relay. Perhaps click up 500 points whenever the free game knocker hits.

New set of cabaret lights about to get installed on a Gottlieb King Pin...

image_(resized).jpeg

image_(resized).jpeg

Measure twice, drill once!

The only reason Gottlieb stopped installing the lamp sockets was due to operator complaints ("too hard to replace the bulbs!"). So which is more true to the original artistic vision? Leaving them out or putting them back where they belong?

Cabaret lights as reversible mods doesn't interest me because nothing looks as good as installing a lamp socket (1/4" bracket) with a filament bulb and colored sleeve. I've never wanted to undo it on any games. Most, like 2001, greatly benefit because it can get pretty dark up there otherwise.

A few I've done:

Grand Tour (fitted with green/yellow tubing):
image_(resized).jpeg

Flip-A-Card (bare bulb stage):
image_(resized).jpeg

Surf Side w/Pinsider Rat_Tomago (traditional Gottlieb red/yellow tubing):
image_(resized).jpeg

Snow Derby (experimenting with different color light tubes):
image_(resized).jpeg

...and a custom color paint job (old vs. new below):
image_(resized).jpeg

Forgot to include 2001 (traditional red/yellow here):
image_(resized).jpeg

(I also added a fifth lamp socket under the middle kickout when special is lit... so now they all light up)

Thanks for the compliment! I'm really happy with how the custom paint job turned out (uses white lacquer webbing instead of black for "snow"). I think that was the crowning touch which earned it best 70's EM this year. Tons of work but I think it is now the best looking Snow Derby in the world. Much more appealing than the default factory colors.

Surf Side original...
image_(resized).jpeg

After cabaret lights installed...
image_(resized).jpeg

Go back a page and look at post #291. Cabaret lights installed under the top arch.

It requires drilling out the steel plate, drilling lamp socket holes in the playfield (7/16"), and wiring up four 1/4" bracket lamp sockets. Recommended to use 47 filament bulbs and plastic light tubes of complementary color. Typically, these were red/yellow but sometimes blue/green/orange works better depending upon the colors of the playfield art & nearby plastics.

Well... value is subjective. Strict preservationists won't like any changes but these are a small minority of pinballers.

Generally, if a lighting mod is professionally done "in the spirit of the original", it won't affect the value much either way. I've added extra lights to the backbox, added stealth LED's, all of my games get the cabaret light treatment around the top arch, etc... no one ever notices. If they do, they never mention it. *shrug*

Funny fact: Surf Side won best runner-up "original condition" machine at TPF in 2015 and it already had the cabaret lights installed. D'oh!

I'm not a fan of the whole crazy rainbow-changing, super bright, too-cold-white, unbalanced color matching LED thing. I'm pretty sure that kind of thing turns most people off, but hey, at least it's reversible if using drop-in replacements.

Thanks man! Snow Derby is (so far) my best example of the "better than new" restoration philosophy which I'm pretty heavily committed to.

I could have done a straight-up repaint of the original cab colors but they aren't very "snowy", are they? I assume that's what the original artists had to work with... so that's that. "Yo, art department! No blue! We gotta use up that huge vat of Gottlieb white first! Whip up something snowy... I don't care... just get it out the door!"

Haha, but in general Gottlieb did outstanding work so there's rarely a need to improve upon it.

One cabinet I have NO QUALMS about sanding everything off is Paradise. The factory paint job sucks. It looks like it should decorate a bingo card from the Jetsons. Gotta go full custom pattern and colors on that one. While emulating the original Gottlieb style, of course.

Awwww... can't please 'em all, but indeed, the diversity of opinions around here is a good thing. BTW, you are a true "Preservationist"!

BTW, it really helps to use a preexisting factory-drilled arch plate as a template for the new one. Stack 'em, mark 'em, drill 'em... much easier that way and maintains identical placement with the original spec.

Regarding 2001/Dimension, I suggest using the following optimized coil winding recipe. I've done this on two so far... works perfectly!

Unwind 18 feet of wire from each pop bumper coil.
Unwind 18 feet of wire from each top slingshot coil.
Wind 36 feet of wire onto each kickout coil at the top.

This will give you livelier action at the top and reduce the kickout hole strength enough to save your playfield and pops (stops the kickouts from flinging the ball so hard).

I don't recommend unwinding the lower slings. They're peppy enough as-is. Otherwise you won't get to catch the ball enough.