If you like pinball restorations, wood working, and home renovation projects this just might be the place for you.

Moving forward, this thread will document all of my pinball projects, distraction, and other adventures in general. Welcome to the world of PinballMikeD. Hopefully I can provide some entertaining content for a few of you. If not, well you can't blame me for trying

Sorry to disappoint, but that would be a different Mike.

I’ve recently started remodeling my workshop. This time around everything will be laid out based on my new dust collection system.

It’s time to upgrade the 1.75 HP Mini Gorilla for something with a little more capacity

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My new collector is a 5HP Gorilla Pro with SMART Boost technology. This unit is equipped with a VFD that ramps up and down to improve performance when smaller dust ports are utilized. Sounds fancy, hope it works.

Being a glutton for punishment, I decided to install the dust collector in the most difficult place in the garage to get power routed to

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Now it’s time to make a nice mounting plate to attach the collector’s mounting bracket to. The plywood serves as an additional reinforcement that will sit on top of the drywall.

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I installed a new 30A breaker in my sub panel and ran #10 wire to a dedicated outlet. Now it’s time for my favorite past time.

Yay, drywall work

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That’s enough fun for one day.

I’m glad you are still enjoying the WW. You should hold on to it until you know for sure.

The dreaded drywall work is complete and a fresh coat of paint applied. Now it’s time to assemble this beast

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The new dust collection bin is bigger than my old system.

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Here’s a look at the cyclone installed.

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Now I have to figure out how to install the 200+ lb motor assembly on top of the cyclone. The herniated discs in my lower back are tingling already

Assembly complete and fan rotation verified. This thing is huge, just look at my Great Dane standing next to it

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Man, sometimes I feel stupid. All that work and I forgot to run 120V service for the dust bin full photo eye.

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Seriously, the suction capacity is much better than my previous system.

My daughter asked me, “Dad, what would happen if I stuck my face in there?” I told here that it would suck the face right off her skull……

Before:
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After:
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I’ll get back to Medusa once the dust collection system is complete.

Kids do and say the most random thing at times.

My neighbor just had his guest bathroom toilet replaced. After multiple repair calls, ultimately the second plumber decided to replace the toilet. He found a #2 pencil wedged in the sewer pipe, gotta love the irony there. My neighbor asked his oldest son, “Why did you flush a pencil down the toilet?” The boy had no explanation. I just want to understand why he had a pencil in the bathroom in the first place

I started installing my galvanized metal ductwork today. I went with Nordfab Qick-Fit duct. The installation is quick and the duct can be easily modified down the road when my layout changes.

The main trunk line is 7” diameter pipe.

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Prototyping hangers that will screw into the ceiling studs.

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I should have everything up in a few days, then I can test the performance at each tool

All of my ductwork is now installed for the table saw, planer, and Miter station

That’s enough to get me back up and running for the time being.

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Now it’s time to test the system performance. The ft/min reading below was taken at my 3” collection port for the table saw’s future over arm hood.

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A little math and we can calculate the CFMs.

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This is 3x the suction capacity of my old system. Me happy!!!!

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Restarting Medusa tomorrow.

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It’s a never ending work in progress

Nope, but my wife has a designated bay of the garage for her vehicle. I keep telling her that a garage is not a place for cars, but she just doesn’t listen

Pulled all the Medusa parts out of my closet. This should be fun to sort through. Hopefully I took good notes seven years ago

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Thank you. This is the 3rd iteration of my shop in my current home, so it’s getting better each time I rework it

I have quite a few improvements/upgrades still to make; it’s a hobby all by itself. Honestly, I think wood working is more expensive than collecting NIB Stern pinball machines. Crazy.

Today was all about drop target switches.

Started with these rusted guys
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The switches were washed in my ultrasonic cleaner and then tumbled before I boxed all the parts up years ago.

When tumbling switches, I like to break them apart and zip tie the pieces together. This way everything stays grouped together. Plus, it’s much easier to fish parts out of the tumbler this way. No treasure hunt for Bakelite spacers.

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Everything looked pretty good, except for the trigger blades. These were pretty rusty to begin with, so no surprise here.

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Because these parts are small and very delicate, I decided to buff them with my Dremel. This removed most of the pitting. Then I sanded each blade with a course Scotch Brite pad followed by a fine grit 3M sanding block.

Step #1
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Step #2
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Step #3
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Not perfect, but much better

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Now it time to clean the contacts with some metal polish.

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Before
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After
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Finally, it’s time to assemble the switches.

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Nice and shiny

Time to install the drop target switches.

All of the hardware is cleaned, tumbled, and painted gloss black.

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Next, I desolder all of the switch blades and install new diodes.

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I like to have my coil assemblies powder coated. This is purely aesthetic, I just think it’s a nice extra touch.

After retapping the mounting holes and installing the switches, I adjust the blades and test everything for proper functionality.

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Finally, I add my jumpers and install heat shrink for a clean finished look.

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I live in Florida. We have two seasons down here, hot and hotter than hell. Climate control is a “must have” for any garage shop in the southeast.

I had a dedicated 2 ton unit installed for the garage when we moved in. It sure beats the mini split I had at my old house

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I pulled the my CPR playfield out today and found several planked spots around the pop bumpers (see shiny spots in pictures below).

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I sanded this playfield years ago, maybe too much wet sanding? Luckily there was still plenty of clear left on the playfield, so I was able to sand everything out

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Now it’s time for touch up.

The damage isn’t related to sanding work. I need to address some cracking at a few inserts and repaint the keylines.

FYI - I used 400 grit paper to remove the planking.

I decided to go with a red translucent wood stain for the bottom of the playfield. Time to sand all the paint off and get back to bare wood.

Before
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After
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I still have some work to do, but making progress

Amazon delivered a new toy today

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Now I can address my inserts and play around with some custom touches ups.

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For those interested, I purchased the following:

1) Iwata Eclipse HP-CS airbrush
2) Iwata water trap
3) Airbrush cleaning pot w/ brushes
4) Roll of Frisket
5) Roll of masking paper
6) 1800W digital heat gun
7) 22 color Createx paint set + 4011 reducer

In the past I’ve always outsourced my playfield work, so this should be fun - learning a new skill

Back to work.

It’s time to clean out all the holes in the playfield.

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I used a Dremel with a 120 grit sanding drum for this. I recommend starting at a slower speed at first.

Before
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After
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I learned an important lesson today

Alway, always, sand out the holes from the top side of the playfield.

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Sucks, but at least I only did one hole incorrectly before I learned my lesson. I need to ponder how I’m going to address this issue, don’t want the clear coat delaminating and lift up later down the road.

Nice. Looks like Curious Jesus.

At least playfields aren’t tattoos

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I have to work on some home projects today, so thought I would get an early start. I don’t want to dream about dirty inserts tonight

Before
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After
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I got through about a third of them.
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I will probably go back and dremel out, a few light passes, any left over paint that has stained the wood. However, I don’t want to get into the insert glue, so I have to decide if the juice is worth the squeeze.

I didn’t realize PinRestore closed. Where do you guys purchase your hardware (tee nuts, screws, etc.)?

I’m getting a water softener installed next week. Unfortunately, I don’t have a loop installed at the water heater in the garage. My incoming water supply line is located on the side of the house; this means I’ll need to have the system installed outside.

The installer needs a 120V outlet to power the softener’s electronics. Plus, I want the system located 20ft away from where the water supply line enters the house. This will ensure the brine blow down is nowhere near my AC units.

I added a GFI outlet for the water softener, powering it off the closest receptacle inside the house. Man I really hate drywall work.

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This is the 2nd time I’ve opened up this wall. First for the garage AC refrigerant piping and now for the water softener wiring. Hooray, twice the drywall work

Now it’s time to move landscaping rocks and dig a trench to reroute the water supply line to the softener.

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Back on Medusa tomorrow

Thanks for the input. I am working on a BOM list for all the parts, which I will share with Pinside once it’s complete.

After sanding the sides of the playfield, the clear coat started chipping and lifting along the edges.

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My buddy and I decided to score the clear coat with an X-Acto knife, tracing the perimeter of the playfield artwork.

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Then we peeled the clear coat off the bare wood areas, just like peeling an onion

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Luckily the clear coat adhered to the artwork, so this will be a relatively easy repair. It would have been a disaster otherwise.

Frosted Flakes

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I will need to sand out the shooter lane to remove the remaining clear. This looks pretty good as is, but I want to make sure the new clear is applied directly to the wood.

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Here’s a look at the playfield under the apron area after all the clear coating was removed. You can still see the original top coat that CPR sprayed.

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Now I can tape off the artwork and sand the factory coating off. I want to make damn sure the surface is ready to receive new clear coat.

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Let the sanding, I mean more sanding, begin……

I decided to add a slight bevel to the playfield drain hole. This should help prevent any future damage once the game is reassembled and back in action. I used a 1/4” round rasp for the corners and a flat file for the sides. I then sanded the bevel smooth with 320 grit paper.

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For the shooter lane, we started with 100 grit sand paper and finished up with 150 grit paper.

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I then used a drill bit, spinning it by hand, to clean out all the screw and post holes on the top side of the playfield. This will keep the clear from lifting when the playfield is repopulated. I will do this again after the clear coat is resprayed, this just makes the final clean out easier.

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For the pop bumper holes we used a fine grit Scotch Brite paddle wheel to ensure a tight fit. Be careful and take your time with this. Once you sand too much you are screwed.

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This is a CPR gold playfield. I sent it off for touch ups years ago. I decided to sand and buff the playfield when it returned, to get a perfect mirror finish. Then life happened

7 years later, I pulled the playfield out and found cracking around some inserts and planking in the clear. That pretty much gets us to this thread.

Oh, and it’s good to be back

You still doing the backbox light shrouds?

This might be my favorite tool, for less than $20.

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The “Card Scrapper!”

This thing is every wood worker’s best friend. I’m using the card scrapper to knock down the edge of the clear coat where the art transitions to the wood.

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I went back and looked at my pictures of the original playfield, when it was NIB, and it had a high gloss finish, so it was definitely sanded prior to shooting clear. I don’t know why the clear coat lifted on the bare wood but adhered to the art, just glad I found this prior to assembling everything.