Author: metatron

This is not really a proper pinball machine. It’s called a pitch-and-bat.

I stumbled across one in pretty good condition for a pretty good price. It needs a little work still, and someone painted the cabinet, but this should be nice once all fixed up.

This is a HUGE machine. The cabinet is about as deep as a pinball but it is wider than any I have.

I have been wanting a Disco Fever for some time now. The theme cracks me up but it also is the first of two machines released by Williams to feature Banana Flippers (IE; flippers shaped like bananas). In my quest to get machines with unique gimmicks, how could I pass up Disco Fever?

This machine is a project and I don’t even know if it works yet. The glass is pretty good and the playfield should clean up well.

Funny story about this particular machine. Someone I know in Canada found this machine and a handful of others. He called me and asked if I was interested in taking 2 or 3 of them in “as is” condition. I went and looked. The backglass in this machine was pretty rough and it was missing a few boards. Based on the price he was asking, I passed.

Months later I met a woman near Seattle through a pinball Facebook group (we were talking about the Roller Disco machine if I recall – another one on my want list). After talking a bit I found out she bought this machine from the person I know in Canada.

Another month or two goes by and she lists a Black Knight. I go down to the States and buy it. She was also interested in selling Disco Fever so I gave it a look. It now has a better backglass and all the boards. She was selling it for less than what I was originally asked to pay.

I came home with both Disco Fever and Black Night.

This machine was wanting me to buy it. It was following me. Hopefully it isn’t because it has a crazy Stephen King type curse on it.

I’d been hunting for a Black Knight or another Williams machine from this era with Magna-Save (a user triggered magnet under the playfield to catch the ball from draining through one of the outlanes). This machine had been an amazingly hard thing to find – or find at a reasonable price.

I found this project Black Knight north of Seattle. The woman bought it with the intention of fixing it up but it just hadn’t happened. She didn’t know if it worked or not, and the cabinet needed some attention since the bottom was falling out.

The playfield is a little warn and it would take a lot of work to get it back to original condition. I could completely repaint the playfield by hand, but really this is a perfect candidate for a retheme. Even though I had a hard time tracking one of these down, Williams made over 13,000 of them – so they are far from rare. Retheme it is.

This is being rethemed to be Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The repainting is about 90% complete.

I’ve been wanting a Solar Fire pinball machine for some time. It’s another Magna-Save System 7 era machine from Williams. The problem with Solar fire – they only made 780 of them.

A friend contacted me about this machine. It was found in a barn years ago. The plan was to restore it, but when they got a better look at the playfield, they decided it needed more detail work then they could do – so they contacted me.

This machine will need a lot of attention to bring it back. I think I can do it though.

The good news, I have a brand new CPR backglass for it.

A single player, movie themed, add-a-ball machine from 1974.

This has a gimmick I’d been looking for – the spinning posts. Nail it with the ball and spin it for points.

A music themed, single player, add-a-ball pinball machine from Williams. The art on this machines is pretty cool.

It’s a fun old machine and recently had a tune up.

I picked up this charming 1950 woodrail near Seattle. It’s called Yuma Arizona and it’s made by United Manufacturing Company.

The machine is in pretty good condition overall. The backglass is near perfect.

Scoring on this machine is indicated by lights on the backglass. There are no score reels.

One of the cool things about this machine which makes it unique is the flippers – apparently called “Control Kickers” in Yuma, Arizona. They consist of two metal posts with a rubber between them. When they are activated, they pivot from the center post and form a ‘V” shape. This is opposite of what standard flippers do.

The coin return is the best part. It’s a groove in the wood with a metal bit to catch the coin. It’s pretty cool.

This machine will be on display in the arcade.

Meteor is a machine made by Stern in 1979. It was based on the movie of the same name starring Sean Connery and Natalie Wood. I had never seen the movie and about halfway through restoring this pinball machine I decided to watch it.

This machine came to us in pretty good shape – short of the playfield being rather worn. It had a couple of score displays out, needed some electronic work, and playfield paint – and of course a good cleaning. Backglass was almost perfect and the cabinet was in very good shape.

The playfield got repainted, a thick clear coat, and it is ready to go. Plays a ton faster than a regular Meteor.

This machine was given to me by a very nice old fellow on Vancouver Island. He said he has been trying to get it running for 20 years but these days barely has the energy to get out of bed, let alone fix this old pinball machine.

This machine is pretty rough and will probably not be worth restoring. The backglass is shot, all the plastics are missing, boards are corroded, the wiring looks pretty miserable. But who knows? The playfield isn’t too terrible and the cabinet is solid.

I’m putting this machine on the back burner. Another Hot Hand might come along and I can Frankenstein the two together.