Bow and Arrow
Bally, 1975
Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
Bally, 1977
Catacomb
Stern Electronics, 1981
Centaur
Bally, 1981
Dolly Parton
Bally, 1979
Dragonfist
Stern Electronics, 1981
Eight Ball Deluxe
Bally, 1981
Embryon
Bally, 1981Finished with my Strikes & Spares Restoration. New CPR Playfield, Full Cabinet re-Paint, New Legs, New Backglass & New Plastics, Rebuilt Everything....Plays Awesome! ( Oh Yeah, I use a Black Pearl for the Ball — Looks just like a Bowling Ball ! )
S&S_10.jpg
S&S_12.jpg
S&S_13.jpg
S&S_16.jpg
S&S_1.jpg
S&S_2.jpg
S&S_4.jpg
S&S_5.jpg
S&S_7.jpg
S&S_8.jpg
S&S_9.jpg
S&S_22.jpg
S&S_23.jpg
S&S_24.jpg
S&S_25.jpg
S&S_28.jpg
S&S_17.jpgCurrently looking for one of those. Like all the old Ballys you got there. Super nice looking Strikes and Spares. Good job. Remember playing this machine when new at Alladins Castle in 78 when I was 12.
Thanks guys.....Loved doing the artwork for this Playfield and Backglass — The CPR Repros both came out Beautiful!.....Can't wait for the new CPR Repro PFs for my Nitro Groundshaker, Evel Knievel, Skateball, Star Trek & Globetrotters as I now have 28 different Classic Bally's in my collection ( They will ALL be restored as the Repro parts become available ). Still looking for a Dolly Parton to round out the collection.......
Here's my Classic Bally Line-Up: Paragon, Viking, Star Trek, Embryon, Skateball, Lost World, Voltan Escapes Cosmic Doom, Evel Knievel, Nitro Groundshaker, Mystic, Elektra, Vector, Mata Hari, Silverball Mania, Eight Ball Deluxe, Fathom, Medusa, Centaur, Harlem Globetrotters, Xenon, KISS, Spectrum, Playboy, Wizard!, Captain Fantastic, Strikes & Spares......
Still Looking to Add: Dolly Parton, Rolling Stones, Six Million Dollar Man, Space Invaders
Willing to Trade CPR Store Credit for any of these 4 Pins that I'm still looking for.....Although I usually buy Trashed-out games that look like they should be in the Dumpster, Until I restore them, so the Classic Bally's I buy are usually CHEAP Garbage..........
Quoted from Stu:Here's my Classic Bally Line-Up: Paragon, Viking, Star Trek, Embryon, Skateball, Lost World, Voltan Escapes Cosmic Doom, Evel Knievel, Nitro Groundshaker, Mystic, Elektra, Vector, Mata Hari, Silverball Mania, Eight Ball Deluxe, Fathom, Medusa, Centaur, Harlem Globetrotters, Xenon, KISS, Spectrum, Playboy, Wizard!, Captain Fantastic, Strikes & Spares......
Still Looking to Add: Dolly Parton, Rolling Stones, Six Million Dollar Man, Space Invaders
Willing to Trade CPR Store Credit for any of these 4 Pins that I'm still looking for.....Although I usually buy Trashed-out games that look like they should be in the Dumpster, Until I restore them, so the Classic Bally's I buy are usually CHEAP Garbage..........
Here's a SIx million $$ man - This is local to me...
salem.craigslist.org link
Stu,
Those are some good looking machines, i am getting ready to do the Playfield on my S&S. Just about got it working 100% then on to my first Playfield swap. Cabinet looks great!!! Any advise for a restoration newbie on the playfield or cabinet? Thanks, Mike
No Pictures & a $900 Price Tag, guess you missed the part where I wrote "I usually buy Trashed-out games that look like they should be in the Dumpster, so the Classic Bally's I buy are usually CHEAP Garbage...."
Meaning $ 3 - 400......
Quoted from dasvis:Here's a SIx million $$ man - This is local to me...
Mike,
Takes Lots of Pictures from every angle, do it like a grid pattern, from all 4 sides of the PF ( Both Top & Bottom ) just in case you get lost in it....Don't let the project intimidate you.....Use a Tumbler for all the Metal parts.....Take your Time....Rebuild the Pop-Bumpers....Rebuild the Flippers with all New Parts ( Pinball Resource has the Best prices on Flipper Kits ),...Use new Plastic Posts....Etc.....For the Cabinet I like to use a Makita Palm Sander to take all the original Paint off down to the bare wood, then Bondo for Repairs, then White Primer, the a Good Base Coat of the First Color.....a New Set of Legs & Levelers will help to make the game look new.......
Quoted from indy5mike:on to my first Playfield swap. Cabinet looks great!!! Any advise for a restoration newbie on the playfield or cabinet?
Wow, that looks sweet. The old Bally's are a big part of my youth - it's so great to see them brought back to life.
Quoted from Stu:No Pictures & a $900 Price Tag, guess you missed the part where I wrote "I usually buy Trashed-out games that look like they should be in the Dumpster, so the Classic Bally's I buy are usually CHEAP Garbage...."
Meaning $ 3 - 400......
Yeah, me too. So far $400 has been my upper end on initial purchase. Wife would shit bricks if I went much over that.
........... now, the $$$ that goes into the restore, that's another story.
What really does it for me is that the Classic Bally's "look" like very simple games, and for the most part they are, However, a lot of them that "look" simple actually have a much deeper rule-set then you would think just by looking at them.....The other thing that really does it for me is that when set-up "correctly" the Classic Bally's are typically a 5-7 Minute Game, so if I only have a few minutes (like when I'm cooking) then I can get several games in instead of say a 30 minute game of AFM or MM.....most people Forget that the Classic Bally era of games were "Designed" around the "Quarter-Drop" so they were designed to be very fast games with Brutal Outlanes and Fast Shots — All precisely Designed for the player to Loose the Ball Quickly, thus dropping Another Quarter....And with today's standard of "ball handeling" it almost dosent work at all — ever tried to do a Post Pass or Drop Catch on a Classic Bally, LOL Not going to happen! Now compound all that with the fact that Bally had all the Best Artists and Designers of that era and you have a set of games that are just fantastic to Restore & Play.....Just my 2 ¢
Thanks for all the Compliments....one of these days I'll post pictures of all my Classic Bally's.....
Great looking game! I fell in love with these early solid state games at Texas so I picked up a skateball locally and I'm loving it. I hope to do what you did once the CPR playfield for it comes out 
Skateball is an awesome game!....I can't wait to restore mine, which is why I did the artwork for the CPR Playfield....
Glad there is a lot of love for the old Ballys. Can't wait for my next one. Stu, awesome lineup of games there man.........
Quoted from Stu:The other thing that really does it for me is that when set-up "correctly" the Classic Bally's are typically a 5-7 Minute Game, so if I only have a few minutes (like when I'm cooking) then I can get several games in instead of say a 30 minute game of AFM or MM.....
You just hit the nail on the head. Nuf said.
I have one I'm going to start and was wondering about your paint colors and brand. Would you mind sharing the exact paint colors and type please? Thank you
Quoted from Subman:Rattle can or did you roll it?
Take another look at his pictures and see if you can tell whether he sprayed it or rolled it.
Very impressive Stu. I see you and I share a soft spot for the classic Bally machines. I have 8 of them myself including a nice Dolly. I have been able to restore most of mine but they were done with NOS playfields that I had before CPR was making them. One project in line is the Mata Hari with my CPR playfield which is beautiful. Actually will be my second MH to restore. Now if I could only find that elusive Night Rider playfield. I need two. One for my SS and one for my EM. would love to see more pics of your collection Stu.
Love this crap...absolutely beautiful Stu. My classic line up is starting to finally come together. Here is where I am at.
Classic Bally: EK, Paragon, HGOT, Mystic, Viking, NGS, Bow and Arrow, Wizard!, Skateball, Rolling Stones, Centaur, Fathom, Embryon, Medusa, EBD, Frontier.
Classic Sterns: Stargazer; Seawitch; Nineball; Quicksilver; Dragonfist; galaxy; gamatronx3; F2K; Catacomb; Stingray.
Have sold quite a few but my keepers are starting to become clear.......Stu keep the playfields and pics coming....
Lets get the clear out of the rollovers though.
Flippers "ARE" Aligned > Perfectly!...A perfect roll off the metal lane guides, you can put a ruler from the lane guides across the flippers and see that it's perfect....If you thinking that they should be lined up with the metal ball stops behined the flippers you would be incorrect....those are there to prevent bang-backs......
Stu,
I love to set all my Bally solid states fast and as hard as possible. Short ball times, but when you put up a good score, you really feel like you did something special. My 6 mil $ man is brutal.
Are there plans for a Viking backglass anytime soon? Just picked up a decent playing machine with a clearcoated NOS playfield included. Backglass has small amount of flaking in 3" area. Just asking. Thanks.
I've always been under the impression that Strikes and Spares, along with many other Bally's of this era (Frontier, EBD, Future Spa, Space Invaders, Flash Gordon, etc.), were designed to have their flipper bats aligned to the biff bars as shown in the production flyers. These games all have vital shots that are low on the flipper and feel weird and stuffed up to me if they're calibrated to modern B/W standards.
Quoted from erichill:I've always been under the impression that Strikes and Spares, along with many other Bally's of this era (Frontier, EBD, Future Spa, Space Invaders, Flash Gordon, etc.), were designed to have their flipper bats aligned to the biff bars as shown in the production flyers. These games all have vital shots that are low on the flipper and feel weird and stuffed up to me if they're calibrated to modern B/W standards.
I don't think so. I used to set up games in the arcade in the 80's and none of them were like that from the factory. Just like Stu said the bar is only for bang backs. They should be aligned to the guide.
Quoted from Stu:Here's my Classic Bally Line-Up: Paragon, Viking, Star Trek, Embryon, Skateball, Lost World, Voltan Escapes Cosmic Doom, Evel Knievel, Nitro Groundshaker, Mystic, Elektra, Vector, Mata Hari, Silverball Mania, Eight Ball Deluxe, Fathom, Medusa, Centaur, Harlem Globetrotters, Xenon, KISS, Spectrum, Playboy, Wizard!, Captain Fantastic, Strikes & Spares......
Still Looking to Add: Dolly Parton, Rolling Stones, Six Million Dollar Man, Space Invaders
Willing to Trade CPR Store Credit for any of these 4 Pins that I'm still looking for.....Although I usually buy Trashed-out games that look like they should be in the Dumpster, Until I restore them, so the Classic Bally's I buy are usually CHEAP Garbage..........
You should get a Hot Doggin' - that game is awesome!
Quoted from Classic_Stern:They should be aligned to the guide.
But if that were the case why would the calibration marks on the playfields be dimpled as they are?
Screen Shot 2014-08-27 at 7.17.30 AM.png
Screen Shot 2014-08-27 at 7.19.44 AM.png
image-15.jpg
Those dimples are NOT "calibration marks"...those were only used during the Shipping process from Bally to the Distributors. A Pin was installed in the hole and when the games were received by the Distributors they were all removed. This is a very common mistake made by most people....believe me, we (CPR) looked into this very carefully early on and did a lot of investigation regarding it......Adjust your flippers "correctly" and see how much Better your game plays
Quoted from erichill:But if that were the case why would the calibration marks on the playfields be dimpled as they are?
So every single flyer pic Bally did the flippers are aligned wrong you are saying?
http://ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=2406&picno=4116&zoom=1
http://ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=959&picno=4210&zoom=1
http://ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=874&picno=4208&zoom=1
Never heard of the shipping pin thing.
I've always aligned the flippers to the biff bars/dots, which correspond to the flier picture. Seems weird to me that Bally would "incorrectly" align all of their flippers just prior to taking their playfield reference shots for every flier they released. If they're supposed to be aligned with the ball guides, why wouldn't they have done that before taking their product pics of the playfield?
Frontier for example plays like crap when you align the flippers to the ball guides. Much less power to the spinner/inlines. Same is true with Flash Gordon. Aligning the flippers with the ball guides will make it easier to trap and put more power to shots at the center of the pf and less to the shots at the outside.
If you want a lot more gas shooting the bear target/pop bumpers, by all means - align them to the ball guides. I'd rather have more power in the outside/spinner shots.
I can't speak on behalf of Bally, but as a professional photographer ( as well as a pro Designer ) I receive products all the time from clients that need to be adjusted to be correct as they are never 100% correct from the manufacturer. Case in point was a photo shoot I did for Pepsi cans, I was shipped 12 Cases of Cans so that I could choose the perfect one ( meaning the printed design label matched up with the Pull-Tab on the top). I know for a fact that Bally did not have a professional Photographer as an employee so they would send stuff out to the photo house & the photographer just never lined the stuff up correctly.........
....Hell, I had to adjust many flippers on NIB games from Stern when I opened the boxes....the people doing assembly back then ( 80's ) never cared if the flippers were lined up correctly, as long as they were 'close' they were good to go out the door....
Look guys, believe or don't believe me, it's up to you. We have done our investigations carefully and this is how it was...adjust your flippers or don't, but if you do you will find a huge difference in performance and speed of the game(s)....
Quoted from sk8ball:So every single flyer pic Bally did the flippers are aligned wrong you are saying?
I told you the purpose of the pins earlier, the reason 'unpopulated' NOS playfield have the dimples is because they were put there during the production process....the pins were installed just prior to the game being packed up for shipping....
Quoted from erichill:What was the purpose of the pins and why do unpopulated NOS playfields still have the dimples?
Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.
Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, become a Pinside+ member!
Jacksonville, FL
Albury
