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| PACIFIC PINBALL EXPO 2009 |
| Date: October 2nd - 4th, 2009 Thanks to Jonathan Joosten and Greg Winkler for help preparing the audio. In this final part of our Pacific Pinball Expo report we'll look at the seminars held over the three days of the show. The seminars have expanded significantly since the first PPE in 2007 and the now run for most of each day in a side room alongside the show exhibition hall.
Each day began with an introduction by Larry Zartarian & Michael Schiess who are respectively the Board Chairman and Executive Director of the Pacific Pinball Museum.
Amusement
Museum grew, which then became the Pacific Pinball Museum three years ago as a way of broadening the appeal beyond the local area.
Larry explained how the Museum's collection currently stands at around 650 machines but it lacks a permanent home where the games can be set up, exhibited, played, experienced and enjoyed. The Pacific Pinball Expo, he continued, gives visitors a glimpse at how the museum will look, with the interactive and artistic exhibits but in a building twice the size of the Marin Centre to allow visitors to learn about the art, history and science of pinball. The PPE is also the main fund-raiser to help achieve all the aspirations to become a world class museum. Michael then talked about how it was important to make sure the collection and equally importantly all the documentation and historical information relating to pinball's development doesn't fall into private hands and become lost to the public as has happened so often in the past. They both stressed how the museum had to be sustainable and reach out beyond the regular pinball fans to the wider public, as well as introduce the next generation of players to the game. The Lucky Ju Ju has now expanded into the store next door to become the current home for the Pacific Pinball Museum. The Ju Ju nights will continue through the existing rear entrance, but the new store will give an entrance from the main street and provide a public face the Museum is has hitherto lacked. You can listen to the entire seminar by either selecting play on the player below, clicking on the AUDIO link to listen to the mp3 or right-click to save the mp3 to your computer. Get the Flash Player to hear this audio clip.
For this year's poster, a different model was used and several poses were recorded.
Once again, a large number of different renditions of the various elements - Dan said there 119 of them - were produced before the final version was decided upon.
Ed then spoke about the making of the huge backglass murals he and Dan create for the PPM. He began with the game 2001 which he said reflected the pop art of the day when it was created. Fireball, like the other murals was painted in the PPM warehouse in Alameda which Ed described as cavernous but said it got very cold in the winter.
The Scuba mural was the most elaborate and took two months to complete, compare to the one month for Fireball due to it's simplified colour palette and larger objects. The murals are pained with acrylic paints and a projection system is used to create the outlines which are then filled with colour.
When asked about their future plans, Ed said he was hoping to start working next on the 1955 Williams Wonderland, which is based on Alice in Wonderland and drawn by George Molentin. Dan said the theme of the show rotates between science, art and history, so 2010 will be science and art will return in 2011. Although he hasn't chosen anything specific, he was looking at the 1939 Chicago Coin Buckaroo for its cowboy theme. You can listen to the entire seminar by either selecting play on the player below, clicking on the AUDIO link to listen to the mp3 or right-click to save the mp3 to your computer. Get the Flash Player to hear this audio clip.
He began by taking questions from the audience, the first of which was about cleaning switch contacts and the advisability or otherwise of using WD40 as a cleaning product. Chris advised against it, but suggested it's anti-rust properties are good for ensuring balls put in storage don't corrode. Chris advocated the use of Novus products as a cleaner and Ronsonol lighter fluid to remove glue from stickers, although he said WD40 could be for this used at a push. For contact cleaning on EM games, Chris recommended a small file or emery board and for solid state games he said a business card or similar, although for older solid state machines he said the gold layer on the switch contact would have worn through years ago, so a small file would be OK in those situations. He recommended the use of contact adjusting tools - either bought or home-made - and described the way to adjust contact blades to make sure they don't produce multiple closures when activated or become so stiff they affect the ball. On the topic of whether to wax or clearcoat a playfield, an average game in the home will never receive enough play to justify taking extreme steps to protect the playfield, Chris suggested. He continued by saying the most dangerous parts of a machine are the batteries. The damage that can result from the alkaline solution leaking onto the circuit board beneath and the amount of work needed to fix that damage makes them the number one maintenance issue to check and where possible relocate the battery pack before it causes damage. If batteries are the number one problem, Chris said the number two issue for solid state games is the ageing of connectors - both inter-board and semiconductor sockets - and the large number of problems that result. For WPC games which suffer from resets when the flippers are operated, Chris related an instance where a low line voltage caused by an adjacent air conditioner switching on resulted in the game resetting under stress conditions. Another cause he cited was the aging of the connectors bringing the power from the transformer to the power driver board. Wiggling the connector will often provide a temporary fix but ultimately the connector will need to be replaced. A new issue he's starting to see is incompatibilities between various aftermarket boards. Although they generally work fine with an otherwise original system, if a machine has a mix of replacement boards from different manufacturers there may be some issues. The best tool to fix any game Chris said, is the manual. For EM machines he said it's just about all you need, while solid state machines may require some additional knowledge, but it's a vital tool in order to make the repair. You can listen to the entire seminar by either selecting play on the player below, clicking on the AUDIO link to listen to the mp3 or right-click to save the mp3 to your computer. Get the Flash Player to hear this audio clip.
as it become much easier if you can share to workload.
Wade then spoke about the William Wiley 'Punball' machine he had worked on with Jim Dietrick which had been shown for the first time at the Smithsonian the previous night. Wade made the cabinet, playfield, backglass and the plastics from scratch.
With the Hellacopters and the Metallica machines, Wade often works with fellow artist Dirty Donnie who creates a metal flaked paint effect on their collaborative projects. Wade spoke about how he came into contact with Dirty Donnie when looking for an artist to create some carnival knock-down dolls. His work was so individual and stylised he got the job and the two began working together on other projects including pinball. Finding an artist, Wade said, was the key. For the Metallica machine which was to be an Earthshaker conversion, Donny wanted to do the cabinet sides with the Metallica logo on shattered glass and produced this image which Wade thought was ideal.
Knowing he would only get one shot at getting the cabinet right, Wade described how he transferred the idea onto a test piece of wood by hand-cutting a mask of the Metallica letters. The wood was sprayed orange and then the mask applied before it was re-sprayed in blue. When the mask was removed, the orange lettering was revealed.
The blue and orange combination looked good and so Wade created the screens for the final cabinet printing.
Donny then painted the playfield for the game according to the layout Wade supplied to make sure time wasn't wasted creating artwork for obscured areas and so the graphics lined up with the shots and features.
Wade described how the playfield plastics were created before moving on to the production methods used on the backglass. The glass used a rear screen to allow lighting effects to illuminate and animate various sections.
To complete the playfield and cabinet customisation, the Earthshaker's earthquake institute was changed to a 3x3 speaker stack which had to be blown to qualify for multiball.
Once the game was build and playable, it was up to Tanio Kleiss to work his magic on the software to remove the Earthshaker elements and convert them to Metallica references. Tanio is a video game programmer who recently became interested in pinball through the Lucky Ju Ju and the Pacific Pinball Expos and wanted to put his programming and electronics skills to use in the pinball world. Michael Schiess got in touch with him to tell him about the Metallica project and Tanio joined the team. His role was to change the display text so it better fitted in with the Metallica theme and to add new sounds and music which were similarly in keeping with the band.
Changing the text on the display wasn't quite as simple as finding the original text strings in the ROM and modifying them. When the machine is first powered up it checks the game ROM to make sure the data is not corrupted or different to the original code. Tanio found out how to bypass that check so although the data had been modified to include new display text, the game didn't care. The Earthshaker-specific text on the display was changed to Metallica-related messages as shown below.
You can listen to the entire seminar by either selecting play on the player below, clicking on the AUDIO link to listen to the mp3 or right-click to save the mp3 to your computer. Get the Flash Player to hear this audio clip.
He began by explaining how the equipment used for the shoot made it difficult for Keith to get into a good position to demonstrate the techniques. Randy explained that while it took several years to make the DVD, neither he nor Keith were working on it continuously. They would put some time into the project, then go off and do other things and return to it at a later date. He said although he can reproduce the methods shown in Pinball 101, he can't do them at will or necessarily when he needs them - something he said differentiates his level of player from the real experts. Trying to play continuously using these techniques affects his gameplay and he said it was different from from the more casual style he would normally use. Randy described how knowing when to use the various skills is in great part down to knowing the game's rules and scoring opportunities to develop a strategy. Then you can fit the techniques around that strategy to make the shots needed. You can listen to the question and answer session by either selecting play on the player below, clicking on the AUDIO link to listen to the mp3 or right-click to save the mp3 to your computer. Get the Flash Player to hear this audio clip.
At that time, the choice of electronic components wasn't anywhere near as large as it is today and it largely ran off 5V or 12V supplies. In particular, Brett talked about the way power supplies have changed from using a bridge rectifier, a big smoothing capacitor and a heavy duty regulator - which was inefficient, didn't produce the rated current output at 5V and produced a lot of heat - to the switching power supplies of today. So, in designing a new power supply board for Williams systems 3 through 11c, Bret wanted to make sure it could output enough current - especially at 5V - to drive the new MPU boards on the market which sometimes draw more current. Plus, the increased use of LEDs both for lighting and displays also raised the 5V line's current requirements. He also wanted to cut back the amount of heat produced and add some additional trouble-shooting features. After talking about a product he rejected, Brett showed the regulator solution he had adopted for his power supply design.
With the number of replacement LED displays, the power supply board Brett will be producing will have an optional high voltage section which plugs into the main power supply board and only needs to be purchased if the original style displays are being used. Another feature Brett has introduced is to change the general illumination lighting from AC to DC, which will eliminate strobing effects on both lamps and - more significantly - when LEDs are used for playfield illumination. Although some of the earlier games didn't power the general illumination through the power board, an adaptor is available to fix this and give that generation the benefits of DC lighting. Brett concluded by listing some of the other projects he is currently working on, including Gottlieb system 1 and 80 power boards, an LED dot-matrix display, a WPC version of his power board and a complete transformer replacement for early Bally/Stern machines. You can listen to the whole seminar by either selecting play on the player below, clicking on the AUDIO link to listen to the mp3 or right-click to save the mp3 to your computer. Get the Flash Player to hear this audio clip.
Because video movies don't make a whole lot of sense if you can't see them, we didn't record them for this report. Don't worry though, Clay had two further seminars at the Pacific Pinball Expo and they are certainly worth listening to.
Advertising Posters was one of the two design and printing companies in Chicago at the time and it was there that George stayed until he retired as Art Director five decades later. Gordon spoke about why pinball artwork during this golden age perfectly reflected the culture and aspirations of the era and can be considered a legitimate form of truly American art. He contrasted the styles of Molentin and the other major pinball artist of the time Charles Leroy Parker to see how they both handled carnival and party themes. He said he thought Molentin's best work was probably on the Williams circus high-wire themed game Suspense in 1946.
Molentin didn't just work for Williams though. He also worked on bingo and other amusement machines for Bally and United, as well as working for Exhibit Supply Co. One of Molentin's trademark techniques was to use a close-up of a woman's face in the foreground to add perspective and depth to the composition while inviting the player into the environment depicted on the backglass. His 1949 Oklahoma for United is one such example of this device, although there are many more.
Gordon then gave numerous illustrated examples of how George Molentin's art captured idyllic scenes which promised the player the opportunity to share in the excitement and escape the humdrum of everyday life. At the end of his presentation, Gordon took questions from the audience about
Gordon spoke about George's work during the war years and about his love of sailing. He also explained how, despite being the Art Director at Advertising Posers, George never took a permanent job with them and remained freelance until his retirement. You can listen to the whole seminar by either selecting play on the player below, clicking on the AUDIO link to listen to the mp3 or right-click to save the mp3 to your computer. Get the Flash Player to hear this audio clip.
His collection has now grown to over 500 machines, though he proudly stated - like a recovering addict - that it's been 18 months since he last bought one. Richard then moved on to some tips for repairing pinballs including ways to lift up glass which had dropped out of its guide rails using duck tape. He then turned to pinball's history as a means of gambling in the mid '30s following the banning of slot machines in many areas of the US, and the various methods created by the manufacturers to disguise the gambling element of the game.
In talking about what he was going to do with his collection of more than 500 machines, he announced he was going to - over a period of time - donate them to the Pacific Pinball Museum so they can be preserved, displayed and enjoyed as they were meant to be. After discussing pinball's origins from Roman times through its development from bagatelle, he spoke about the various machines he owned and had those he had brought to the Pacific Pinball Expo this year. For someone who was brought up on electro-mechanical games, it was surprising to find the once Richard had learned to repair and restore solid state machine, the collection in his home is now largely comprised of solid state games. Indeed, his favourite machine is Medieval Madness, although he did say if he could only keep one machine it would be his first - the Formation he acquired when he was just 13. You can listen to the whole seminar by either selecting play on the player below, clicking on the AUDIO link to listen to the mp3 or right-click to save the mp3 to your computer. Get the Flash Player to hear this audio clip.
Unfortunately, as with Clay's seminar above, video clips are pretty much meaningless when you can't see the video, so we have restricted the audio available from Jim's seminar to his introduction and an explanation of the various clips which followed. Get the Flash Player to hear this audio clip.
In that position, John offered his ideas and suggestions to game designer Ed Cebula, who like his ideas enough to offer him a game design job. When GamePlan moved out of pinball and into video and slots, John applied for a game designer job at D. Gottlieb & Co. Although they had already filled the position, he was offered a second design position at the company. Rocky was his first game there although not his first design, since his first project never came to fruition. John then described his subsequent game designs at Gottlieb such as Spirit, Q*Bert’s Quest and Krull, and how some of the themes were chosen by management for a variety of commercial reasons. As Gottlieb became Mylstar the push was to create successful video game -something they were largely unable to achieve. So the pinball division was keeping the company afloat. Under Mylstar, John was able to design two new machines – The Games and Alien Star. Mylstar was shut down quite abruptly, but Gil Pollock and the distributor Mondial formed the new company Premier within two weeks of Mylstar’s demise and John continued his career with Premier. John described the early games he created at Premier including Touchdown, Ice Fever and Chicago Cubs Triple Play. He recalled how Steve Ritchie called to chastise him for not including any pop bumpers on Rock. John later designed his homage to Steve’s Firepower with his Raven machine.
John’s last games for Premier were Silver Slugger – one of the single level Streetline models – and Deadly Weapon which he left with Premier to finish up while John moved to Williams. His first job there was to design Bugs Bunny Birthday Ball and to work with Python Anghelo to finish Bride of Pinbot. After that came Black Rose followed by Creature from the Black Lagoon, which John described as one of the favourites from his career. He said they had so many ideas for the various modes and features on that game they ran out of memory and had to cut it back. Then came Judge Dredd and The Flintstones – originally intended to be a widebody - for which John got a trip to the Hollywood set, as he did for his subsequent game, Congo. His final design – called Aces – never made it into production before John left Williams in one of their staff culls. You can listen to the whole seminar by either selecting play on the player below, clicking on the AUDIO link to listen to the mp3 or right-click to save the mp3 to your computer. Get the Flash Player to hear this audio clip.
Those who gave a correct answer could grab a prize from the front, were he displayed some bits and pieces he found around his house.
The presentation includes lots of commentary on the photos and stories on Captain Fantastic artwork, trying to date a picture of Harry Williams and Sam Stern, Gary’s biggest pinball deal (and how it went wrong), his experiences at the very first Pinball Expo, an early John Popadiuk design and lots of the people Gary met over the years. You can listen to the whole seminar by either selecting play on the player below, clicking on the AUDIO link to listen to the mp3 or right-click to save the mp3 to your computer. Get the Flash Player to hear this audio clip.
That began a series of pictures taken behind-the-scenes at Stern Pinball, showing the offices and the people working there, along with other whitewood pictures from 24 - the final machine Steve designed for Stern. He spoke of discovering a pizza restaurant in Italy which was themed around the backglass and artwork from his Flash game, before moving on to talking about his visit to the UK Pinball Show that summer and his experience going to see a cricket match. More dirt bike pictures and stories led to an original design for High Speed which looked very different to the produced version. Further pictures of people from Steve's career followed, interspersed with Steve performing his Black Knight voice through an effects box. Steve explained that although some references attribute the voice on Black Knight to someone else, it was him that voiced all the quotes in the game. Steve's slide presentation ended with a picture of him working on his first game for Williams - Flash - as he described how the move from Atari to Williams felt for him. After the picture presentation, Steve related the extraordinary events surrounding the launch of Black Knight 2000 in Paris at an event hosted by the French distributor for Williams' products. That was followed by Steve's telling of the story behind the theme for High Speed, about how he was trying out his new Porsche car to find out how fast it could go and how that ended up with his arrest, a court hearing and fines for speeding and reckless driving. You can listen to the whole seminar by either selecting play on the player below, clicking on the AUDIO link to listen to the mp3 or right-click to save the mp3 to your computer. Get the Flash Player to hear this audio clip.
The first EM games were those found on the boardwalks and midways of the early decades of the 1900s and included fortune tellers, peep shows and nickelodeons. Clay spoke about the origins of fortune tellers and how the Cleveland Grandma was one notable early designs which is still in use today before discussing the earlier Donkey Wonder version. Later versions were produced by Mutoscope, Decca, Amusement Supply and Genco which all developed the original theme until electronic light and sound effects replaced much of the physical movement of the earlier models. From fortune tellers, Clay moved on to mutoscopes - animated movies created by displaying a rapidly-changing sequence of still images held on cards like a flick-book. Their origins go back to the late 1800s and although the design of the cases changed over the following decades, the basic technology used did not. Another image viewer was the peep show which used stills instead of moving images but took the risque tantilisation of the mutoscope to partial or full nudity for the peep shows. Clay moved on to talk about gun games, starting with the compressed air variety employed on the midway, through the first coin-operated versions which were mostly mechanical to the electronic games such as the Seeburg Ray-O-Lite rifle range which removed the physical shot pellet and replaced it with a beam of light. The most popular of these was the Seeburg Shoot The Bear which featured a moving bear which turned around and growled when shot.
The Dale style gun game moved the shooting range into a vertical position and used a mirror to give an increased perception of depth without making the equipment any deeper, using electrical contacts sense when an object is in a certain place when the trigger is pulled. In the '60s, electronics allowed improved sound effects and a return to the use of a light beam to trigger hits on objects. Clay then turned his attention to bowlers, beginning in 1939 with the Evans Ten Strike. This popular machine continued production after the war right up to 1953, despite its lack of regulation scoring and the game ending after just 5 frames. The end of the war also saw the introduction of new shuffle bowlers such as United's Shuffle-Alley range. This started by indicating the pins hit with lamps but soon progressed to disappearing pins which fly into a horizontal position and out of sight when the corresponding switch is rolled over by the puck. In 1956, United introduced real balls into their bowlers which other manufacturers promptly copied. After that, contact bowlers - where the ball actually hits the pins which then fly away as before - were briefly the latest design before attaching the pins to cables and lifting them up above the lane became the fashion. Numerous other variations were also produced until ball bowler production ended in the early '70s although shuffle alleys continued to be manufactured into the '90s. The early bowlers such as Ten Strike used a manequin to take the role of the player and bowl the ball. Other arcade games also used this "manikin" to project a ball under the player's control such as basketball, golf, skeeball and boxing. Next Clay examined mechanical driving games including those using slot cars and games using a rotating drum with road patterns to follow. The final category was baseball games which began back in 1929 with All-American Baseball by Amusement Machine Corp which led to a raft of different baseball-themed mechanical games including the highly collectable 1937 Rockola World Series. After the war, companies like Williams, United and Genco all got in on the action with their baseball games which grew in popularity just as much as they grew in size. You can listen to the whole seminar by either selecting play on the player below, clicking on the AUDIO link to listen to the mp3 or right-click to save the mp3 to your computer. Get the Flash Player to hear this audio clip.
Referring to the "Purchase" part of the title of his talk, Bear advised to make sure you like the look of your first pinball purchase, because you're going to spend a lot of your time looking at it. Similarly, play it many times to make sure you enjoy it, it's not too easy to complete and it really is fully working as described. Take your time, he said, as there are plenty around to choose from. Bear admitted his real love is the electro-mechanical era where, he said, just about anything which breaks can be easily repaired or replaced, unlike the more modern solid-state machines with lots of custom parts. He described disassembling a game for transportation and how to re-assemble and level it afterwards followed by some of the tips he uses to ensure good contact is made at the connectors.
Then he spoke about the weight of machines and how that varies according to the type, which led to a talk about EM single and multi-player games and the differences between them. After taking about the regular maintenance steps any machine owner should take to keep their game playing well, Bear looked at the problems of mylar on the playfield and the question of whether to keep it or remove it. Safety is an issue frequently overlooked, but Bear looked at the potential problems with the power cable, when it should be replaced and some basic tips to keep your machine safe and well protected by the correct fuses and the proper glass. Weak flippers both on EM and solid-state machines are often a problem and Bear addressed this by suggesting ways to improve the strength and reliability of flippers. You can listen to the whole seminar by either selecting play on the player below, clicking on the AUDIO link to listen to the mp3 or right-click to save the mp3 to your computer. Get the Flash Player to hear this audio clip.
The company's first success came with Baffle Ball which sold over 50,000 units and ran through most of the '30s up until the war. The introduction of the flipper in 1947 changed pinball, Herb said, making pinball a skill game. Herb listed a number of features Gottlieb introduced which are still in use to this day, including the slingshot kicker, the first 4-player game, metal side rails, end-of-game matches, add-a-ball, return lanes, the automatic ball lifter, bonus countdown and in-line drop targets amongst others. Gottlieb lost ground in the '70s when Bally became the dominant force in pinball and Gottlieb took much longer to convert to solid-state technology than their competitors. When the company changed hands and names several times in the mid-'70s through the '80s, few memorable games other than Black Hole and Haunted House came out of the factory, Herb said. Gottlieb closed their doors in the summer of 1996 when Barb Wire was the last machine off the line, while Brooks & Dunn was about to enter production when the plug was pulled. Herb then described how Retro Pinball came about from a series of meetings and a decision to make a new King of Diamonds machine - which Herb said was the best selling restoration at his Fabulous Fantasies company - but using modern technology. He and Reinhard got a working machine produced and showed it at the Fabulous Fantasies show in 2006 where it was well received. They took it to M&P Amusements where Mike and Gene got on board and the Retro Pinball LLC company was formed.
Their design for King of Diamonds used Stern's boards and operating system with a view to Stern Pinball producing it. Gary Stern decided the machine would end up being competition for their existing products and opted not to make it. So the team decided to try to get the existing Gottlieb owners behind it and produce it using a new board set and control system under the Gottlieb name. The result was on display in the room and demonstrated to the audience by Reinhard who explained how the single set of score reels are driven by stepper motors so they can show multiple players' scores in what was originally a one player game.
Reinhard then opened up the backbox of the Retro Pinball machine to show the single control board inside.
He described how the board works, how it developed from multiple boards spread around the machine to this single design which can be swapped to fix any electronic issues, and how the real chime unit provides the authentic sounds while the sounds of solenoid banks resetting are stored electronically and replayed to give the expected feel of an electro-mechanical machine. Reinhard spoke about the LCD display on the board which provides set up, feature adjustments, diagnostics and audit information which would be impossible to convey using just the four score reels and the lamps. The Retro Pinball machine also includes a comprehensive range of ticket awards, so the game can be fitted with a ticket dispenser and used as a redemption piece in an arcade or family entertainment centre. Asked about future game designs, Herb said they hoped to produce one reproduction and one original design a year, although that original design would probably be built using Gottlieb parts to benefit from the years of developments and improvements. You can listen to the whole seminar by either selecting play on the player below, clicking on the AUDIO link to listen to the mp3 or right-click to save the mp3 to your computer. Get the Flash Player to hear this audio clip.
He said once you've found out how to reproduce a colour on one machine, the same colour will often be found on various other games by the same manufacturer. The first stage to restoring a playfield has to be removing all hardware on the top side. All posts, switches, lamps, actuator arms and ball guides have to come off until the surface is perfectly smooth and flat. Taking lots of digital pictures before and during the process helps identify where the parts go when it's time to reassemble the playfield. Then the playfield is cleaned. Clay recommended using a magic eraser and isopropyl alcohol - preferably a higher percentage IPA, something like 70% or 90%. Clay advised against sanding older playfields, but said newer Diamond Plate and similar coated playfields should be sanded with 600 grade paper before retouching it to improve the grip of the new paint. To help with colour-matching, Clay said to buy a Pantone colour guide and find the nearest match in there, before taking that to a craft paint store to buy the any acrylic paints which are a similar colour. With the price of paint being so low, Clay said, it makes sense to buy anything close to the right colour to avoid repeated trips to the store. He advises working from the centre of the playfield out to the edges, so the touch-ups in the middle can be drying while the work continues around the outside without danger of smearing it. Clay illustrated his methods by showing a Gottlieb Hot Shot which has wear around the pool ball inserts.
Although the result after re-painting is not perfect, it is much improved.
After the Hot Shot, Clay showed a Williams Gulfstream which used much more vibrant greens and purples. He used this to demonstrate how taking a digital picture of the touched-up playfield can reveal deficiencies in the colour matching which may not be visible to the naked eye. For complicated areas such as repainting text, Clay advocated the use of a window scanner which can be placed on the playfield to scan in the damaged area and other areas which may help reconstruct it by using a paint program to cut and paste various parts together and print a water-slide decal. This should be have a thin layer of clear sprayed on it to stop the water making the ink run in the water when it is applied. Clay then spoke about the clear coating process, the products he uses and the safety precautions taken. He said he generally uses 3-5 coats with no sanding between coats. Once the clear has dried, he sands it using a dual-action electric sander, being careful not to over-sand and destroy the art beneath After that, the playfield is polished using a kit available from Treasure Cove amongst others, which over three stages of polishing produces a good shine on the surface. After that it's time to reassemble and Clay walked through each stage, explaining which parts he replaces and why he chooses to refurbish other parts instead. You can listen to the whole seminar by either selecting play on the player below, clicking on the AUDIO link to listen to the mp3 or right-click to save the mp3 to your computer. Get the Flash Player to hear this audio clip.
The subject of his talk at the PPE was a custom conversion of a Bally Kiss machine he undertook as a present from one of his customers to Steve Luczo, President & CEO of Seagate Technology. The machine was a tribute to Steve's mother Rose and included a large number of references to her family and events during her life. The Kiss machine was chosen as the four K-I-S-S letters matched the four R-O-S-E letters, making the conversion that much easier. The timescale for the project was extremely tight, with just over two weeks from start to finish. Jim sourced a Kiss and started work on restoring the cabinet. The pictures on the cabinet were created by Adam Feibelman, a local San Francisco artist who used 14 layers of stenciling work to get a photo-realistic result of Rose, her husband and their three sons. The cabinet was then clearcoated at a vehicle body shop.
The playfield was an IPB reproduction one which was purchased new and shipped to artist Dirty Donny - who worked on earlier custom games The Hellacopters and Metallica - to repaint it, clearcoat it and get it sent to Jim within a week. All the circuit boards, lamp boards, coils, displays and any other parts which were available were replaced with new versions. New drop targets were made using the R-O-S-E typography, while the bumper caps were also custom painted by Wade Krause. The spinners were redesigned so they showed a black and white rose on the side facing the player, but when they spin they show a coloured rose on the reverse, which appears to turn the monochromatic rose into a coloured one. The coin entry plates were also remade and custom tokens created with matching token acceptors fitted inside the coin door, which was inscribed with Rose's name.
The final addition was a circuit Jim created which played samples of one of Rose's favourite singers - Frank Sinatra whenever the ball drained, or when a new game was started. A series of amazingly long days by everyone working on the game resulted in the game being about ready to be delivered to a restaurant just one hour before it would make its premiere at a party being held there. You can listen to the whole seminar by either selecting play on the player below, clicking on the AUDIO link to listen to the mp3 or right-click to save the mp3 to your computer. Get the Flash Player to hear this audio clip.
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