Prologue: Just A Few Words From Our Host...
This Attack From Mars came to me by way of four Pinsiders: One in Ohio, who sold it to a guy in Utah, who sold it to another guy in Utah, who sold it to a Pinsider in West Texas, who sold it to me. (You can find the ads if you care enough.) This was a perfect restoration candidate as it played nearly 100% and already had a Color DMD installed. It also came with some of the stuff that I'd need to get it going.
Much to the chagrin of some purists, I'm going to be doing some modding to this one to get it just the way I like it. It'll be tasteful (IMO), but not outrageous. All armor will be done in black, and will be modeled on this machine from HEP...
http://christopherhutchins.com/gallery/album563?page=1
...as well as this one that Skypilot did:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/my-black-attack-from-mars-finished-product
I'll also be using Skypilot's excellent restoration thread as a resource, as well as what I consider to be the best restoration documentation ever done on this site--the IJ done by Bryan Kelly. The links can be found here:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/attack-from-mars-restoration-the-beginning
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/ij-restoration-started
Total time to complete the restoration should take 3-4 months (it takes time to do it right...and I've got some vacations planned!).
Unlike my Funhouse restoration last year, I'm structuring this one a little differently for those who want to follow along. Many people ask how long it takes to do a complete restoration properly. My answer after the Funhouse was, "F**king long." I'd like to be a little more specific this time.
Each update will be labelled with a day number, and each "day" will mean that I put appoximately 8 hours of work into the machine. It might not happen all in one calendar day, but as soon as I've gotten to eight hours, I will consider that one day's worth of work. At the end, it'll be easy to multiply the days by eight to come to a close approximation of the time it takes to do a restoration from start to finish. (At least for me...please remember that I sanded, Bondo'ed, and painted the Funhouse backbox 3 times because I wasn't happy with it the first two times. So I have some issues.)
So let's get started! Here are a bunch of before pictures...
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