I was hesitant to start documenting my Quicksilver build as several others have already done this with great results! Alas, after working through my own issues with the donor game, I realized this is worthy of its own thread. So, without further a due, I give you Quicksilver #1,205...

It all starts with me picking up an inexpensive Stingray. The seller was great and shared everything he knew about the game, but after bringing it home, I quickly realized it had...some issues.
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What you see above is the result of wood-boring beetles. These little pinprick holes were all over the cabinet. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's a few pics of the donor game as I unloaded it from the car...IMG_3380 (resized).jpg
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At first, I thought I had really grabbed a pretty sweet deal! While old and crusty, I have dealt with MUCH worse. My original intention was to clean up the electronics and playfield, and have a great beater Stingray. That all changed when I saw all the little holes and thought, "what in the world are these?"

After researching a TON about what they were, I quickly realized I had a problem. I called the seller, who told me that he had it in his garage for over a year with zero issues. He had several other games in there, with none of them showing similar signs. Furthermore, he told me that he had termite protection all over around the house. Then he told me where he grabbed it from (an old garage repair shop that was very damp, where it had been sitting for some 20 years). Regardless, of WHERE they came from, my next question was "are they still alive?"

Long story short, it's really hard to answer this question. While I did a number of tests to see if any frass resulted (frass is what the beetles push out of the holes when they're eating away at it), I just was not comfortable having a game around that had even the remotest possibility of infestation. Nobody I could find made a "flat pack Stern cab" and I'm just not that handy to fully build a new cabinet quite yet, so I bit the bullet, called an exterminator company, and took it to them to be professionally "gassed" in a chamber. Every bit of research I did confirmed that this was really the only way to make absolutely sure that I wouldn't have future issues. That said, even though after it was gassed and the exterminator said, "you're good to go," I let it sit in there for awhile at my place to carefully watch for any signs of life.

...but by this point, my "inexpensive beater Stingray" was really starting to increase in cost.

Now I looked at the artwork and thought, for how much money I've got in this thing now, it looks pretty bad. I wanted to fill in any holes, and that was going to force me to repaint the entire cab. Honestly, when I bought the game, I was REALLY wanting a Quicksilver, but found this instead. You can see where this line of thinking took me.

The next thing I knew, Stingray was totally naked. IMG_3412 (resized).jpg

I had made up my mind, "I guess I'm building a Quicksilver..."

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(saved for post #3)

Frankly, another reason why I hesitated to do a thread about this build is the constant opinion-giving of "MPU-200 games are a better fit" or "why are you converting a good game to make something else?" If you don't want to follow along, truly, no worries. I had a Stingray, and am building a Quicksilver from it; plain and simple.

Thanks man. You know the types who get all bent out of shape if you don't fully restore the original game to its former glory. Honestly, the cab on this one was just too gone to invest that kind of dough into. But, I am happy to report that all the pieces that were in great shape (PF, plastics, backglass, etc...) have gone on to live new lives with new owners.

I have always appreciated your insight into Classic Stern games (I've restored a Nine Ball and Seawitch with help from you previously), so I'm glad you're in the thread. More to come soon.