It all depends on the pin. I have my Big Game set up at 7%. It plays great. Not so much for Seawitch. I found the Witch orbit shots much more shot friendly when the pin is between 5.5% and 6%. Catacomb works best around 6.5%.

In general I start at 6 degree pitch with classic Sterns and slowly adjust steeper if it feels like it plays better.

Trying to tie up the last of the loose ends on my Stars project. Using the weebly lamp board and I have Comet non ghosting lights in the inserts...do I need this extra connector that runs from J5 on the lamp board? I assume it gets soldered somewhere to the backbox lamps but the inserts seem to behave fine?

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You could take your coin door to a media blasting company and have blasted rust free. I don't know the cost. But it is very effective. The car guys do this a lot.

or

You can get a grinder wheel at Harbor Freight and get a paint stripping wheel and got most of the bad stuff cleaned off and ready for paint.

I got this abrasive wheel at Walmart. HF has them, too.

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Since you are probably going to be painting the door with hammertone paint, minor surface imperfections will not bother you.

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For the hard to reach areas you will have to use some sand paper and hand power. And you can wash the door down with some paint thinner, as well. Although, my choices are Acetone or Methyl Ethyl Ketone for a wash down. Wear gloves.

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Or you can buy a small plastic tub large enough to sink the coin door in and submerge it in some Evaporust. At which point, it might be more cost effective to locate a media/sand blasting company.

A Google Search shows at least 3 media blasting companies in Littleton.

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=littleton+colorado+sand+blasting&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

I always drop my parts off at a sandblaster. 4 legs, door and frame run $30 in the LA area. Well worth it.

Hello all - Star Gazer is coming along nicely but things are going slower now thanks to my real job. Anyway, I have a slingshot question. I went with the parts that Cotton4 called out in this post (as most do).

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/price-check-1980-sterns-quicksilver-stargazer-seawitch/page/70#post-5760223

I was going to reuse the plunger and links from Meteor but they have some miles on them and they don't match. One is 2 1/8" and the other is 1 15/16". As a result, I am buying new. What link and plunger would everyone recommend for this setup?
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I need to find a plunger for accurate measurement but I think 2 1/8" is the correct length. You want a plunger that is long enough to bottom on the coil stop. Too short of plunger then your sling shot lever will be pulled into the edge of the lever hole and possibly damage your play field.

Also, PBR has the original Stern plunger links made of nylon. It is personal preference I suppose, but I like the original nylons as opposed to the fiber links.

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2 1/8" is what I was leaning towards. Can someone confirm so I can place my Marco order.

Here is a photo of current Star Gazer progress. Still waiting on a new playfield harness. I have been told it will be ready any day now. There isn't much more I can do until it arrives.

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Looks great. Can you buy those metal side rails new?

Yes. Mantis Amusements

https://mantispinball.com/product/star-gazer-playfield-stiffners/

Do you think those would work on a CPR Meteor playfield?

They should but Meteor didn't come with them originally. What I would do for Meteor is make new wood rails out of oak and call it good. With oak installed there is no flex or sag at all.

Yes. They will work. My experience is that Stern was fairly consistent on where the holes were drilled ( don't know about CPR) in the play field so they should just screw right on. However, you may have to drill a couple of new holes to match.

Half of my Sterns had them. Half did not.

I have 3 meteors and all of them have the play field stiffeners. I feel like they were just randomly out on some runs of games

Yep, that's been my experience as well, when I get duplicates of games some of them have it, some of them don't.

This is great stuff!

Thanks cottonm4 and others for the helpful answers to my questions.

I do get sandblasting once in a while so will check it out

The coin slot bezel is also really bad but doubt theres much I can do except paint the stainless that is pitted. Here is what Im working with

Thanks,

Kenny

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J5 goes to the switched illumination bus on the light panel. Some lights wil work with LEDs and some wont so hook it up to have 100% lights working.

Thanks, I had missed the Stern version!

That sounds like something Stern would do. I have owned 4 classic Sterns and only my Seawitch had them installed.

Thanks! Mr. Weebly set me straight lol. I had no idea what "switched illumination bus" meant ha so he got me sorted!

Right! My seawitch doesn’t have them. And neither did my dracula. I believe my stars does. I’ll have to double check

My Seawitch does not have them. My Hot Hand did.

My Seawitch has a real wood cabinet floor, though. Real plywood for from the factory.

You could take the bezel to a chrome shop have it sand blasted and rechromed. I’m sure you could mail it to Hot Rod Arcade.

My seawitch is a brick bottom. Seems there is no consistency with anything!

What ever salesman dropped by with the cheapest material for the day.

What's a brick bottom?

Here's a customer's SW that we worked on years ago - https://www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=2089&picno=53443&zoom=1

Holy shit, that is amazing.

Now I want to use that on any repro pin cabinet I make!!

I love the brick. Haha!

There are also some Quicksilvers out there with brick bottoms, I seem to recall reading about here. Makes sense. The production schedule was Seawitch, followed by Cheetah that was wide body, followed by Quicksilver. But this is first time I recall reading about Seawitches with brick bottoms.

brick bottom? That almost sounds vulgar.

Left link is a Bally part.

Wasn’t that a Spinal Tap song?

She’s a brick house

Question on seawitch: I’m trying to set the coin credits to .50 a credit. I can’t get it. I’ve gone through the manual and matched up what they should be but I can either get one credit per quarter or 2 credits per quarter. I can’t get 2 quarters per credit though

Highlighted bit below is what you're trying to use, correct?

If that's not working, you might check your board to see if moving the DIP switch actually changes anything, as those can go bad. You should also check that your coin door wiring matches the schematic, although if you have all chutes set the same, that won't make a difference here.

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It didn’t work. It might be the dip switches. I dunno. This happened yesterday so seawitch has to be pulled from location anyways

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just a fuse?

Fixing an outhole shooter ball guide.

These can be repaired.

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All you need is a couple of old bulb sockets to scavenge for repair metal.

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I sweat soldered these on. I would prefer to use some JB Weld but I am out of JB. So these were sweated on. It is an ugly sweat job but they are on.

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I'm looking to perform the upgrades on Service Bulletin #11 to my Wild Fyre SB-100, 2nd Generation sound board.
It calls for the addition of a resistor and a 3.3uf 6 volt Tantalum capacitor. Are these Tantalum caps below? If not, what is the difference in this application?

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That is a tantalum capacitor, it will work nicely in your application.

I won't make modifications to the Pinwiki anymore, AL!!! I leave them all for Hibler now!

I'm working on a Stern Nine Ball which has a broken pop bumper mounting bracket. I found a replacement but would also like to replace the plastic yoke and pop bumper ring with more durable parts. Can anyone tell me correct/compatible part numbers for metal/fiber replacements?
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I believe swinks has reproduced the parts.

Garden variety generic Williams parts will work in place of the plastic. However the plastic parts are NOT weak if undamaged they are actually quite robust and give a unique feel to the pops.
If you want to get rid of the plastic parts I'd be happy to send you the equivalent metal links etc as trade for yours but trust me when I say... You really want to hold onto them. They are part of the uniqueness of stern games.

Here is the range of parts that I have made available. My apologies about the price as Shapeways are like Stern in growing pricing of late.

https://www.shapeways.com/marketplace?q=swinkscsbumper&sort=newest

and some other stern parts here:
https://swinks.com.au/ss-parts

and I also make the tombstones drops available

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I can't see what is broken on this pop assembly.

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The white mounting bracket can be repaired with superglue.

Your plastic ring looks to be in good shape. And you also have the plastic ring mounting yoke and its spacer. Those gray plastic rings are the cat's meow. They are as durable as you are going to get. Don't toss it. You can also just buy the mounting bracket from Pinball Life and transfer all of your parts over.

In blue or black.

https://www.pinballlife.com/classic-sterndata-eastsegacapcomalvin-gspookyheighway-thumper-bumper-housingbase.html

https://www.pinballlife.com/desega-pop-bumper-assembly.html

But if you are bound and determined that you don't like the plastic ring and its two other parts, you can send it to me. I'll take it!

True.

I guess I will try to keep using the originals for now but definitely want to order replacements. Nice to see those are available.

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