MB is next and CC and TAF are likely to follow. Lets just say TOM is going to be remade. You are looking at at least 3 years down the road. If you want to wait that long then go ahead. They are going to do 10-11 remakes. Will be many years before they are all completed.

It's so funny how everyone thinks they know what's next, but they all think differently.

MB is #3

I can't imagine a remake is under 6500. Are TOMS going for that much?

Short answer.... Absolutely. Heck even eBay had 2 sales (not just listings or completed listings, but actual sales). One was $7600 and the other $8000 plus shipping.

There are listings here ranging from $6500 - $7400 in the marketplace and those aren't totally modded out even.

If you're asking me, I would expect the remake to cost $7-8K. I *believe* that's the price point on MMr and AFMr.

I s'pose I would be almost as enthusiastic about a MBr as I would a ToMr. I love MB!

A ToM was sold in the next town over about three weeks ago. I watched Craigslist for months, hoping to score something great.

When the ToM appeared for $6K, I thought: Man, I want this precious pin, but $6K? Can't do it!

And I *didn't* do it. Naturally, it was sold in a day. My mistake! Who knows how many more years it will be before another ToM appears locally.

Ugh!

J

Bowen has done a tutorial.

I saw this fresh tutorial a few days ago.

He plays the pants off this pin!

Of course, he *is* a former World Champion.

He shows the viewer how to earn a HUGE score by focusing on certain things - in particular playfield multipliers.

He makes it look easy, but the points pile up like nobody's business. It's a hoot!

He exposes the game as "unfit" for competition play, as high scores are child's play for the seasoned player, etc.

I really like Bowen Kerins. I have learned a LOT from this cat.

J

Is it just me or is that trunk way out of alignment in the Bowen tutorial?

I suppose thats a PAPA style TOM, makes rebounds from the trunk more dangerous. Bowen also mentions the cellar kickout beeing more dangerous on this specific machine.

Great tutorial, i keep trying to make lefts orbit shots that end up in the pops since i saw the video

It is all about the bonus Multipliers getting to 8X . He is feeding the " Jet " Bumpers / Top Rollover lanes and skipping ' Illusions to build up his Multipliers to 8X . He is shooting the left orbit shot and a lot of the time it is feeding into the Top rollover lanes when it should be going past the Right control gate and circling around back to the right flipper. He said to try to hit the left orbit poor shot it would not spell Theatre and make the full circle loop past the Right control gate. When I tried to do what Bowen was doing . I shoot the left orbit and it flies by the Top Lanes through the Right control gate and spells a letter for Theatre as intented . I even got on my hands and knees and raised the (Pitch to 7 degrees ) to try brick out the spell Theatre shot to feed the Top Rollovers more . It may have helped a little . But I am playing worse than when I had the 6.5 . I do not know how he got the pinball to feed into the Top Lanes when not in Multi-Ball or Straight jacket Illusion??? As those modes feed straight to The Top Lanes . All others do not. I did learn from his Tutorial about feeding the Top Lanes during Mutli-Ball via the left orbit shot . But over all I can not replicate getting my bonus Multipliers to 8X out of Multi-Ball or Illusion "Straight Jacket" How do others feel about how there TOM plays . I will watch it again . I am going to have to spend another 30 minutes leveling my TOM back to 6.5 pitch and side to side. Bowen gave me a complex he crushed the score by raping the left orbit into the Top Rollover lanes out of Multi-ball . I just can not do what he did on my TOM .

I too find it very hard to make the left orbit shot deliberately sloppy to feed the top lanes. Works best when flipping a bit early to graze the captive ball but most of the time the ball flies past the top lanes.

But Bowen always makes the hard things look simple, so i guess it's just not as easy as it may seem

I did it once when my control gate was stuck closed.

"Oooh Nooooooo!!!!!!"

Bowen makes everything look easy.

The point I was making is the remakes aren't any cheaper than the original, maybe even more money. For a game going for stupid money maybe it makes sense.

AFMr really bothers me as that was a cheaper game initially, the only reason its expensive is it turned out to be quite a fun game. Still the actual costs to make it are not that high and charging essentially the same price for AFM and MM is ridiculous.

It's dependent on the machine; also, try shooting inaccurately a bit and see if that improves things.

If I may make a request, I'd greatly prefer to see more people use "exploiting" or some other word to describe the action of playing a repeatable pinball feature. The word you used is associated with a heinous crime.

Best wishes to you and everyone. More tutorials are coming soon.

That is correct, both the Trunk and Cellar kickout were altered by the PAPA/ReplayFX crew to make the game more difficult. For the tutorial we did make the game easier than it might be in tournament play, by restoring the rubber to the inlane/outlane posts.

has anyone taken the magnet out of the spirit ring? is it glued in or something?

I kinda wanted to take it apart to clean it and redo the tape job from before. guessing I'd probably rip the plastic lining off the magnet trying to get this out.

I thought my trunk was set up incorrectly when I watched that, wondered why the ball kept getting caught near the trunk.

finally got around to watching the shadow video, kind of takes the fun out of playing for points when there is one basic strategy that dominates anything else. Getting proficient at it is another story.

Yes it's glued in! I had switched my ring out to the ring that (forget who made them) made out of solid metal and plated them! You can do one of two ways (that I know of)......
1. use a heat gun and heat the top of the ring. This will soften the glue and allow the magnet to come out!
2. You can take a screwdriver and put it in between the ring and the magnet and pry it out! put the screwdriver in and pry gently in several different spots! The glue at this point is probably dried out and will give with a little bit of help!

When I did mine I went with option #2 but I had placed the ring in the freezer in order to freeze the glue! Not sure if this was what did it but I just figured if the glue wasn't dried out freezing it would make it easier to break apart!

Rob, thanks for your DM, I'm unable to reply for some reason. I think the change in language helps the community to be more inclusive. To your other question, I'm a big fan of AC/DC, Metallica, Simpsons Pinball Party, and many 90s machines, and I find myself playing Dialed In more than anything else right now.

I removed the magnet using a heat gun from the top and a curved pick from underneath to pull down on the magnet.

s-l300 (resized).jpg

Thank you for saying that. I 100% agree.

Played this at replayfx and the ball got jammed up so many times. Really dumb idea since it's hard to get the ball loose without taking the glass off.

Yeah, I mean, the game is relatively easy to begin with, and does turning the trunk really make it that more difficult? Bowen can hit that shot regardless if it was turned or not. I'm not even sure he missed one time in that stream. If they are going to do that, they should at least put a post there to keep the ball from getting jammed.

Regardless, it's more fun to play casually, as opposed to competitively. I tried to emulate Bowen's strategy, and it completely sucked the fun out of what makes the game so fun; that is combo shots, flow, and going for the Grande Finale.

seems like a lot of 90's games are the same way.
maybe someday I'll get into competitive playing, for now I'm just going to have fun playing them.

does the PAPA machine have the outlane save magnets turned off? I always thought those were cool, but IMO not needed. The game is already pretty "easy", having those just makes a long game take super long.

To prevent the ball getting tee’d up on the nut on the right side of the trunk you can use a googly eye. Cheap, easy, replaceable, non-destructive.

Why didnt I think of the old googly eye.

Hi all
About to join the club! After looking through posts here I'm trying to decide which mods are best to add. The 3D translite looks great and Tiger Saw mod looks like a good add. Any others that are a "must"?

I build these interactive lighting kits for the ramps on ToM: https://pinside.com/pinball/market/shops/1025-professor-pinball/00258-tom-pinduino-interactive-lighting-kit

One of my favorite designs for the Pinduino. PM me if you have any questions about it.

I LOVE my Pinduino on my TOM.

I have a number of mods, but my 4 favorite in no particular order are:
LEDs
ColorDMD
Pinduino
Motorized Saw (because EVERYONE seems to have one)

Best "value" in my opinion is a tie between the LEDs and Pinduino.

Most noticeable with the game idle, ColorDMD, during a game, Pinduino.

Hopefully that helps. Almost everything else is easy/cheap like chains for the trunk, flipper bats, other "toys".

Brass plating is a really nice touch that I did earlier this year when I tore my TOM down to repair the cabinet and re-decal it. The re-decal isn't a mod, and it took a LONG time to get things just right, but so nice. The brass pieces on the playfield look great, and the ones on the cabinet really dress it up, but that was the single most expensive mod/upgrade that I did and I would say that it is the least impactful to overall enjoyment of the game.

There are a number of improvement pieces out there for the game too. Auto-eddy boards are NICE. Battery eliminators, power fix daughter boards for when you have too many mods (LOL), upgraded opto board (Leon's Fix) is great too.

You have one the best looking ToMs out there (and put in the hard work to make it so nice!)

Thanks.

Oddly enough, one of the hardest things for me to get the nerve to do when fixing mine up was cracking in to the NOS playfield plastics that I bought and have held on to for almost two decades. Was crazy how yellowed the originals were, but many were cracked and damaged. Didn't hurt gameplay, but the machine looks so much nicer with those installed and the 20 year old spare trunk that I had too. LOL Flame polishing the ramps was a nice improvement. Putting the Pinduino in was justification for doing that since the ramps had to be removed for installation.

Ordered a set of blade decals off Hassanchop and installed them in my game a few nights ago.

24027970978_6a5e9a67ed_k (resized).jpg

Who makes the trunk chain Mod? Think I made my own a few years ago. Will def do that first when ToM arrives.

pinballpro.com used to have them

I have the same ones. I like how they look more than mirror blades.

I still like my DIY one better than anything else that you can buy. I replicated one of the other ones that you can buy including a special order small lock, but never really liked it.

I made the one pictured here and it matches the size of the gold painted locks and such on the trunk itself. Ignore the broken trunk. I was using my old trunk as the model for making the chains and they just transferred it to the new replacement trunk. It is a perfectly snug fit, so no need to bolt it in to place or use clear plastic holders, and it doesn't flop around loosely, except for the two locks. Total cost was less than $25 for enough chain and "locks" to make several of these, so less than about $8 of materials used in the picture.

Tom-Trunk-Chain (resized).jpg

Looks nice. I kind of like the larger single lock

Yup. I bought a 3-pack of those small "Master" brand locks from Home Depot when I first did this, just like what other people sell with their kits, but their smallest lock still is pretty large compared to the size of the trunk itself, and giant compared to the printed locks on the trunk as well. That said, I do wish that the locks that I used were a little larger.

But, to each their own. Some people also put massively thick chain on their trunks and love it. It is their machine, and if they like it, awesome.

I like the chain job you have done above. Still playing around with mine to get it right and have tried a few setups.

20171006_111840_resized (resized).jpg

ANother mod I did which I love is to make my own custom mirror. I used gold mirror acrylic. Made it slightly larger and higher and routed out the mask holes. Added two leds and a litlle mounting bracket so each mask lights with the corresponding lane below. Bit hard to see in this pic but will post a better picture soon. Leds tend to blow out in pictures - my Tom is not this bright in thel flesh.

20171006_182552_resized (resized).jpg

talking about prices, i just picked up a very nice, unrestored (at least, as far as the previous owner knew) TOM with a bunch of minor mods for $7500. i had been looking at driving to the wilds of British Columbia to get a player's condition that came in one of our container buys from Italy last year for $5600 (only mod would have been a color DMD, with some insert wear and other usual issues from years of being routed,) but a two-day trek with snow this early in the season and all the work i'd have to put into it convinced me to go with the other option.

glad i did because this one is darn pretty and plays like butter. it also came with a hat and wand for a topper as a cool bonus.

I don't think that's close to the value, so you're good. Nothing gets played more than my ToM. Every amateur universally says it's their favorite (my friends who are competitive players get bored, but I'm not that good so it's perfect for me).

I've been contemplating doing a full restore on it but we play it too much to tear it down. I'll wait until something breaks.

I like NGG myself, my daughter likes the TOM and I like it as well, but it is true what people say that its a bit easy and I'm not a very good player.

i was figuring $7500 was about in line for a really clean TOM with some mods, maybe a bit under PNW Inflation prices even.

i did have to drive to Porland to get it. of course, that meant i could also stop in at Ground Kontrol and play some games, then pick up some doughnuts for my family at Voodoo. can't complain about the consolation prizes when getting games from Oregon!

I make replacement playfield rails for pinball machines. I have a set of TOM rails that I made in anticipation of an order that never materialized. They are finished and ready to ship if anyone is interested. 60 East of the MS river, 65 west of it. I have a FB page if you want to check out what I do.

Pic is not of TOM rails but gives you idea of what I am offering.

Screen Shot 2017-11-08 at 11.09.36 AM (resized).png

Theatre is a game that helped me fall in love with pinball. When I was just getting into it, there was a ToM in a Hyatt game room where I was staying in Colorado during winter break. When I wasn't skiing, I was playing pinball. The game itself was in fairly bad condition-- the trunk wasn't moving at all, no hocus pocus, the center ramp only detected shots half of the time-- and so on, but I had a blast playing it anyway. I got a ton of replays since mostly only kids were playing it, so the replay score was set generously low. I even managed to get to Midnight Madness a few times and Grand Finale once. Once I got my grand champion score, it stayed on the machine until it left the game room some time between 2014 and 2015.

Since I played so much with a non-rotating trunk, I got used to playing with it off, and as such I've actually had trouble when playing a fully functional ToM. If I see one in the wild I'll always give it a play or two. And if I ever start a collection, I definitely want one to be a part of it.