When buying a pin, bring an extension cord and test the game out thoroughly before you commit to buy it. In case you do buy it, bring pieces of cardboard (when you fold the head down, put the cardboard on the top glass and side rails to protect them), and a ratchet strap (for cinching the head to the body, so it doesn't bang around when you move the machine). You should also have a 5/8" ratchet to remove the bolts on the pinball legs. Get a dolly-cart.
When repairing a pin, the handiest tools I've seen are a magnetic steel bowl (which holds all of the metal screws you're removing, and sticks to the lockdown bar or the side rails), a telescoping magnet, and a telescoping mirror, (for when you drop a screw in a hard to reach/hard to see place). These are all available from Canadian Tire for about $10 each.
Make sure you buy a multimeter, which has diode/continuity on it, and make sure you have a friend show you how to use it properly.
Get all of the solid state "This Old Pinball" videos - http://www.marvin3m.com/top/. Your machine will break, and you will have to learn to fix it yourself.
"My power comes from my boundless rage"
** Getting Out **All that's left: (Vids) Bubbles**MAKE AN OFFER!**
Do expect to have a bunch of "projects" which were good buys, that you expect to fix up, play for a while and sell at a profit, that you end up selling at par or a loss either a) just to make money and room for that Star Treck The Next Generation that you always wanted, or b) because the significant other is looking at the statement for your line of credit and wondering why the heck the kids can't get into the playhouse.
Do expect games you bought or fixed to work continuously for 6 months while you play them and then crap out with a puff of smoke the moment you have guest over, decide to throw a pinball party, or the neighbour's kids who've never seen a pinball machine before have a go at them.
Do expect to reset the high scores after attempting, for a couple of months, to beat the score left by the previous MAACA owner of your machine.
Do expect to like a game that no one else seems to like, and hate a game that everyone else seems to drool over.
Do expect to have a soft place in your heart for EM games, but eventually, somehow forget your old loves as you move progressively up the ladder to System 6 games, then System 80b games, then System 11 games, and then DMD games, etc.
Do not expect to get much sympathy for trying to sell machines for 3 times what they're worth to other collectors (do that quietly to non-collectors on craigslist).
Do not expect to get rich finding treasures hidden within old machine bodies; but do expect to find the occasional rusted American quarter, spilled beer stains, household dust, mouse turds, carbon dust, cigarette smell, old chicken bones (yes some operator or bar patron stuffed their lunch into the holes in a back of a machine and it was likely there for 15 years).
Expect at first to want cash boxes for your machines thinking somehow you can turn a profit charging neighbours to play your games (or to use the machines as piggy banks), or that they increase the collectible value of the game, and then realize that this just doesn't happen and end up trying to dump a gross of them on eBay.
Do expect to be very pissed off at UPS some time after you make your first purchase of pinball parts from Marco Specialties. G*D d&mn brokerage fees from h#ll!
Do expect to spend the time you're not playing pinball machines either 1) fixing them, 2) surfing eBay and craigslist looking for more, 3) playing new prospect games on Visual Pinball Mame, or 4) spending time responding to bizzare posts on MAACA just to see how far up the Top Member ladder you can move in one or two nights.
Actually it was the first i read this post and it make me laugh . After nearly 2 years being in the hobbies, i can recognize me in some of your lines.
currently owning:
Lethal weapon , Taxi , Big Guns , Tee'd off , Tag Team ( project ) , Hang Glider ( project ) .
Gone: Road Show Freddy Back to the future Rocky and Bullwinkle
Keep groovin' to 80's pinball machines! Complete MAACA-Wacko!
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Let's add to that list:
Do expect to romantisize the notion of quitting your day job to repair pinball machines and sell pinball parts only to realize that you require a separate full time day job to support your habit and have no time left for pinball.
Unless you are over 55-60, do expect to start feeling comfortable expanding your collection now that the kids are getting older only to discover that you must liquidate your collection when a new child comes along unexpectedly.
Do not expect your kids to think that you are the kewlest Dad / Mom on the block because you have a pinball collection... There's another Dad down the block who builds Go Karts out of old lawn mower motors ... he's much cooler ... and besides that kicks your butt at Black Knight.
Do expect to go out to repair a 30 year old pinball only to trigger 3 new problems that weren't occuring before.
Do expect to spend a good deal of time "jiggling" wires and connectors.
Do expect to diminish your enjoyment of pinballs because 5 mins into playing just about anyone's game you have the glass off and are diagnosing some obscure switch error that no one else has noticed in the previous 15 years.
Do come to appreciate the hack repairs in others' machines because they took 5 minutes to complete, as opposed to following your Clay Guide training and taking 2 hours to do a repair "right".
Do come to realize that you are spending more and more time reading MAACA posts avoiding re-assembling that Black Knight cabinet that you disassembled 10 months ago in order to "make it like new".
Do expect to meet a wierd and wonderful collection of other hobbiests who are more fanatical than you are, but who think you are from outer space too.
Do expect to try to "quit" the habit, err I mean "hobby", more than one time in your life for various reasons including: need money, need time to finish your basement, too wrapped in it, fed up with buying machines that arrive far worse than they were described, be berated by other jealous hobbiests trying to deal with their own addictions, tired of reading silly MAACA posts, deal with the "pain" of having to "cull" your collection now and again, and did I mention "need money?"
Enjoy it and KEEP IT FUN!!! I am a new guy on the BLOCK and only started with an Eight Ball and Strikes and Spares.....
It is like cars and bikes (Motorcycles...), tey break, but the best satisfaction is to FIX'EM and then PLAY TO FEEL THE DIFFERENCE !!!
LOVE THAT WORLD !!! PATIENCE IS A VERTU....MAACA IS THERE FOR YOU AND THE FIXES ARE THERE JUST NEED TO CLICK A LITTLE !!!
I am lucky to have found great people that really make this a different story....they seem all really nice, and it is what makes the
HOBBY what it is !!!
ROCK ON !!!! and PIN ON !!!!!
TOMCAR DUDE
I'm glad that you've joined the community and that you're excited, but please ease off the CAPS please. It makes it sound like you're yelling in my head, and I have a headache.
Have
Want
-The Getaway: High Speed II!! -Spider-Man -F-14 Tomcat -Guns N' Roses -Lord of the Rings -Twilight Zone
-Medieval Madness! -Indiana Jones (Williams) -Star Trek: The Next Generation -Champion Pub -Terminator 3 -Congo -Johnny Mnemonic -Tales of the Arabian Nights
Do come to realize that you are spending more and more time reading MAACA posts avoiding re-assembling that Black Knight cabinet that you disassembled 10 months ago in order to "make it like new".
How true! You have given me that motivation to remove the Mylar on my PF this weekend, and maybe even steam clean my wire harnesses outside. Very good list of items for us Newbies! Thanks
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