"Can you even read?" you might ask me as you notice the club thread. "There's already a Michigan club. This double thread deeply offends me."

But, geographically speaking, Michigan's upper peninsula is practically another state, and our regular Michigan club focuses mostly on the lower peninsula. Disturbingly, it's also a partial-state without much pinball, and perhaps the few yooper Pinsiders among us can help change that. I'm working on my part - if you happen to pass through Escanaba and feel like playing my recently-purchased Rollergames, stop into 41 Lumber. It'll get a proper rework in the future, but given the number of compliments I've gotten on its condition, people here don't seem to mind that it's not a HEP.

This won't be an elite club. If you live elsewhere but happen to pass through the U.P. now and then, feel free to come join us. We don't bite. Much.

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Location update! Wasn't keeping up on this thread since it had no activity, but hey - here's some activity!

I had to pull RG due to a connected chain of problems stemming from a locked-on magnet driver. This problem is half fixed now - I believe there's a primary driver transistor that still needs replacing - but I decided it would be best to put a known reliable game from the collection at the store. And what better game to bring in for the Halloween season than Addams Family?

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It's had a couple of very minor issues, but nothing game breaking. The weekend before loading up the game, I did a quick teardown in which I replaced all the rubber with Titan Pinball's offerings, gave the playfield surface a once-over with Novus 2, and converted it to LEDs.

Yeah, so about that LED conversion. I picked up "complete" LED kit for TAF at a show earlier this year, and finally got around to tearing open the bag for this job.

All the GI bulbs were purple, and the bulbs designated for Cousin It's light were green.

I am NOT letting my games get featured in the No Rainbow Puke Club thread.

There was at least a handful of cool whites in the bag, so I installed them into a few GI sockets to see how it looked. Normally I'm into warm white, but I didn't really mind the cool tone on this particular game, so I put in an order for more cool whites to cover the rest of the GI.

The day after I finished the job, I brought the game in. There wasn't a lot of time for testing, so the old worn-out lamp sockets made the slingshots and inlanes flickery and/or dark. Fortunately, fixing that issue was just a matter of constructing a new set of GI mini-harnesses and bringing them into work the next day.

Old vs new shown. I think the new sockets will be a tad bit more reliable.

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Awesome, we're not alone after all!

I have a friend with growing pinball repair skills who I believe will be joining us in this thread soon. We've already had some discussion on how to get more pinball up in da yooper country. I have already imported three, one via pickup and two via shipping.

Gosh, it would be nice if that heater did blow on players. Maybe it would attract more people to play in the cold season! It actually blows to the left in the photo.

My proposal is we hoard as much pinball as we can up here, but share with the general public when possible/willing by putting stuff on route. I've imported three games into yooper country and TAF is still running strong, so I'm trying to follow that rule.

Condition update: Both the microswitches on the TAF ramp assembly went dead, one after the other. Both were fixed overnight with spares. Otherwise not a single problem in two months.

@Pinhead86, back in about 2002 my family visited Mackinac Island and stayed at a Budget Host motel. Literally the highlight of the trip for me was playing Big Guns in the motel game room. Was that yours? I recall it had a set of classic Bally/Stern flipper bats installed on it.

Meet the new addition to the family!

Doing my part to keep pinball in the UP. I'm considering putting this one on route after it's gotten a thorough restoration.

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nudgerfoder Welcome aboard! Glad to see you in the club.

Those of you within reasonable distance of Escanaba now have a new title to play!

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It'll need a bit of tweaking and fixing but it's definitely a popular one already.

Yes, come see us sometime!

Myself and nudgerfoder are slowly building up a collective pinball/hobby space in Escanaba, open by appointment. Got six games to play there now, gradually rotating things in and out as location games change. Looking into doing pop-up pinball shows and such as well, so lots of potential for pin fun over here.

https://deskgram.net/uppinball

So we have a new pinball destination! UPutt Family Fun Center just opened its doors last week - only a couple blocks from 41 Lumber, conveniently enough - and they bring with them a brand-new Deadpool! Took a ride down there last night and let the employees know about the local pinball techs and the existence of Pinside. Hopefully they put it on the pinball map, and if not I'll have to take matters into my own hands. Photos coming soon.

nudgerfoder 's Pinball Collective is about to get some growth with four new games and a swap of two of mine - TAF and Police Force coming soon. Elvira will be moved to 41 this Saturday and Undertale will finally come home. According to the statistics, Undertale has gotten about 600 plays in the past 12 years.

Pinhead86 As long as I'm thinking about it, hit me up if you ever decide to sell that Big Guns. Not a grail pin but definitely one I have memories of.

So, the Yooper Peninsula Pinball collective is actually a thing now, sort of.

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The building needs work and so do a few of the games, but it's a nice staging area and secret arcade.

Independence Day festivities in Delta County will be featuring pinball this year!

The UP Pinball Collective will be providing a tent of games to play in the park for the Fourth celebration. Due to the three-day nature of this year's event, we may also be migrating the tent to Gladstone at some point in the event. We'll keep you posted here, and for those who use Instagram, @uppinball.

Thanks to the City of Escanaba for sponsoring the Free Play!

The word so far is our tent will stay in Escanaba for the duration. Looking at Police Force, Big Deal, and a third game to be decided for the first day, perhaps switching out later on. Early to mid afternoon setup.

Very nice looking Police Force for sale courtesy of Enterprise!
https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/ad/85741

Heck yeah!

(I wonder how many years until page 3?)

Oh wow, nice find - I didn't even know they had that game. UP Games and Music was basically the vending division of UP Sport and Award, and routed poorly-maintained pins and other arcade games in the 00's. I personally knew the owner, Eric "Swampy" Marsh, and was actually the reason some of his machines even ran at all.

When he passed away, his Shady Business Partner took over. Despite an established connection with me, SBP brought many of the machines to Wisconsin to be "repaired," then returned with only wads of cash. Had I expected this ahead of time, I would have contacted the local family operation that technically owned the games via loan collateral, and bought them all when UP Sport and Award folded.

For what it's worth, ekthoren of Titletown Pinball bought some of the clearance machines, and seeing my contact info on a Haunted House, called me up to say I'd done a great job cleaning up battery damage.

The Pinside Map has been updated with a bunch of yooper locations where pinball can be played. Should be pretty much up to date as I just went through and added them, after the Yooper Collective spent the entirety of today on a central UP pinball sightseeing road trip!

The Getaway at River Rock Lanes has apparently been broken for weeks. Outgassing DMD and rejecting coin slots. That will change if the Collective has anything to say about it!