What? He's actually working on it!? =)

Yes, ive got the bug back and want to play WH20 which means putting it back together. Today i sanded the head and put some filler on it. Stay tuned for more progress...

Cracked 6 Billion on WCS today!

Just finished a very long game than ended with me getting the newest HSTD, Just a touch over 6Billion which beat my previous high score of 4.5billion and you need 2.5bill+ to get your name in. I had several good games in a row but each game ended around 1 billion, on the score breaking game i lost my first ball at 1 billion but still had 2 extra balls, 1 from the second TV mode and collected one from the striker award. I started multi-ball about 6 times on the way and milked the victory laps pretty hard and then snatched another extra ball after lighting it when i got to Washington. I eventually got to the World Cup Final and beat Germany 7-5. I used a new tactic all together and only focused on the right flipper, id plunge a ball, take a shot @ goal, plunge a ball, take a shot @ goal etc etc. It gets very stressful if you miss too many in a row and Germany get even or in front! I never noticed how much the light show throws you off during the world cup final either, the lights go from fully on to completely off and then half the playfield will be lit and half not etc, these cycles all happen pretty quickly and it kind of stuns you. After i beat Germany i tried not to get in the zone that "ah Ive done it, Ive beaten the game" and lose focus, instead i kept trying to re-light multi-ball and milk more victory laps and the 250mill for beating Germany.

I have also been practising and trying to stop making what i call "nothing shots", shots with no purpose and shots being made just for the sake of hitting the ball. I have been trying to control the ball a lot more and having a target for each shot. I have always kind of done this but still made "nothing shots" which usually led to me getting a bad bounce and a drain.

Just quickly i had a good game on shadow today and got 3 shots away from winning the final battle, damn its intense..

Anyway i didn't mean on writing this much but just got carried away =) I love both of these games!

Cya/s [I'm assuming at least 1 person reads these posts lol]

Neil

World Cup Soccer 94 FIXED today!

Well today i shopped world cup and fixed some issues that have pissed me off for some time and some issues that just had to be fixed for the game to work properly. I spent a good 9 hours today stripping the playfield, fixing everything and then re-populating it.

I did the following;

* Drilled through the playfield to fix both the pieces of metal behind the saucer kickouts [pictured below]. They had taken such a beating over time that the screws just didn't "grab" the wood anymore and after a few games they would almost come loose and almost onto the playfield, it was really affecting game play. I got 2 longer screws and matching nuts and some washers for each kickout and drilled though will a small drill bit on my cordless dremel, pretty easy work and the result was excellent, they arnt going anywhere now =)

* Installed new standup targets in front of the left ramp. The game still had the original targets there and they were beat to hell, obviously the new targets look and register a lot better. I am actually getting pretty good at soldering now.

* I had a nagging problem with one of the lamps in a pop bumper, everytime it got hit or touched the lamp would dimm and sometimes turn off then come back on, then dimm again etc etc. I took the cap off and to my horror one of the legs on the lamp socket had broken. I have plenty of spares of the original flat lead sockets so i went ahead and installed one. I don't want to say too much about it apart from the fact that i got it done and its working fine now.. and the pop's have green LED's in them. It was a frustrating and fiddly job!

* I installed LED's in both the inserts and GI. I never used to be a fan of LED's in GI but am all for them now, there is so much more light and really makes a huge difference. The colours really pop out at you now, especially on the W-O-R-L-D-C-U-P inserts which got purple LED's. I will put a video of the game on YouTube tomorrow so other world cup owners or pinheads can see how it looks. I will probably do the same video for Shadow which also looks great with LED's

* The goalie needed a new target, goalie plastic? [the actual piece of plastic the goalie decal sticks on] and a new decal. It went really well although i had to substitute some parts as some got damaged/threaded and were just plain worn out from the original assembly. Pictured below is the finished goalie, only thing i hadn't done was snip the cable ties, i only had red, the original were clear.. meh. It seems to register hits better now and the new target feels more flexible and id say it'll last a long time. I also got it running quite a bit smoother/quieter. Check out the pics below.

* I installed black flipper bats with black flipper rubber, i really like the control that black flipper rubber gives and the black bats just look really cool IMO. I also rebuilt the right flipper because i wasn't happy with it. All good now.

Apart from all that i gave the playfield the once over with Novus 2 then Novus 1 and did a general clean, it wasn't really dirty to begin with though. Its pretty much finished now with no nagging issues and plays and looks 110%. I put a couple of test games through it but will probably have a real game tomorrow, might have to check the level first though.

I re-listened to a few topcasts today while working on it, Gomez and Kaminkow being a couple and really enjoyed them.

Thanks for reading and keep flippin' =)

Neil.

Playing shadow

I just finished playing a few games on shadow, on my last game i got the new high score on my machine with 2.6 billion. I reached the final battle and missed out with 1 more shot to complete!! This is the second time its happened to me and the third time I've reached the final battle. I had final battle lit on my last ball but the ball drained, this would have been the second final battle on the same credit. I love the lead-in to the final battle, it gets you pumped loll and i love this game!

Shadow tweaking

Today i adjusted the shadow flippers to be very accurate and also adjusted the ramp diverters. I was having a problem with tightening the one on the left ramp. I also put the flashers back on the backboard and levelled the machine to factory spec. It was much steeper than it should have been.. ill see how it goes.

I was just putting a few plays on it and was having a really good game which came to a sudden end after not hitting the lit extra ball on ball 3! =(

One problem I've come across is that the right ramp when shot hard. Sometimes the ball fly's out of the wire form into the upper flipper. I will put a couple of washers where the ramp mounts to raise the right hand side of it up a bit.

Hello and welcome!

This blog will mainly cover my restoration of pinball machines and all other pinball related things in my life. I will begin blogging any work i do to my games here as of today!

My homegameroom user gallery can be found here so please check it out.