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Thursday, October 17, 2013

A History Lesson and an Update

Just a quick update on where I am with the restoration and a little bit of history of pinball itself.

The restoration update:

I have spent the past week waxing the playfield (I finished the 6th and final coat last night) and continuing on cleaning and rust removal of the parts.  I wound up in the end removing all of the pins from the playfield for two reasons.  One reason, it was to better clean them and remove 100% of the rust and the other reason was I really did not see an easy way to fully clean and wax the playfield as there are so many pins and many are close together.  I need to see how others handle this as I cannot keep pulling them out but in this case I am glad I did because I was able to really get them looking nice and shiny.  I will detail the cleaning process with some photos later in the week as it was really amazing how it worked and there are other things that this process can be used on.

I hope to start assembling the playfield tonight.  I still need to take care of a few things but I am at least ready to start reassembling some of it.  I still need to paint the sides of the cabinet, take care of the legs, make a new coin door and purchase the glass to name the large items still in need of addressing.

The history:

When researching for the project, I have come across some interesting information.  If anybody is interested in reading more about the history of pinball this is a good link to check out:  Pacific Pinball Museum

One interesting fact from that link that I did not know before I started this was that pinball was made illegal in many cities across the United States because it was considered a form of gambling as well as something that could corrupt the youth of America.  It was banned in NYC for example from January 1942 until May of 1976.  I found that to be absolutely crazy (in my mind anyway) that it could have been banned up until that time.  Having grown up in the 1970s I just find it hard to fathom.  When the ban first went into affect the mayor of NYC would have the machines captured in raids dumped into the surrounding rivers.  Crazy.... 

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