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Archive for September, 2009

Welcome to Silverball Restorations

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

Note: This is a sticky post. New posts will appear below this one. Your best bet is to subscribe to the RSS feed to make sure you don’t miss out on any good stuff.

Here at Silverball Restorations we buy, sell, repair, and restore classic arcade machines and pinball machines. We also help people to find games that they are looking for. When we receive a game, it’s given the full restoration treatment before it’s shipped out to one of our buyers. You can also ship or drop off your games for repairs or restoration, just contact us first for a free quote.

Sell us your old games! – We love to buy games that have either worn out their welcome with current owners or they’re in states of disrepair and could use a solid restoration before being put back out on the market. We give fair value for older machines, so please let us know what you have. If you’re in Utah or in a nearby state, we even provide pickup service for old games.

Want to trade? – We’re open to trading machines straight across, or even for up/down situations with cash. Have a Medieval Madness (or similarly high priced game) and you want to swap it for 2-3 lower priced games? We can work out a deal. Alternatively we can also take 2-3 of your games in exchange for an A list and restored game of ours.

Keep checking in for regular posts regarding tips on how to fix and maintain your current machines. Hopefully anybody out there that is into this hobby can learn how to diagnose and fix issues with their machines. If you want instructions on how to do any sort of repair, please contact us and we’ll work on producing a video for it.

How to remove a pinball PCB (circuit board)

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

First of all, people always ask what PCB stands for as they see it often when they read about arcade and pinball machine repair. PCB stands for “printed circuit board”. The PCBs are the boards in your machines that house the brains of the machines. If you have a problem with any of your PCBs, your machine will not function properly and maybe not at all. In this video I show how to remove a PCB from the backbox of a pinball machine and give a couple of tips on how to make sure you don’t make mistakes putting it back in.

How to clean, polish, and wax your pinball playfield

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

There are tons of cleaning products out there for pinball machines. I go over the products I use and recommend. Sorry if I’m a little wordy in the video, but I found that there are lots of questions about this process. Enjoy!

If you listen closely you can hear my baby boy in the background making noise. He loves to interrupt daddy’s videos.

Images added of Taxi

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

I’m selling a Taxi and I just added pictures to the for sale page. Check ‘em out here: http://www.silverballrestorations.com/pinballs-for-sale/

Taxi - Williams

Taxi - Williams

I haven’t done any work on the cabinet yet, but I’m planning on touching up around the edges. The artwork is in good shape, but there’s some paint flaking near the bottom edge of the front and a touch around the sides as well. It should be an easy touch up job, and I plan on doing it before it sells. If you want to buy the machine, please use the contact form on that page to get in touch with me.

Quick fix for scratches in your arcade or pinball machine art

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

Here’s a cheap fix if you have scratches in your pinball or arcade machine art. You’ll obviously only want to do this if you can find a good color match, but if you can, it works quite well! Enjoy the clip.

Cleaning a Pinball Machine Backglass or Translite

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

Here’s how you clean the translite or backglass on a pinball machine. If you need to clean between the glass and the front of the translite, you can remove the translite by pulling on the translite holder/clips on all four sides of the glass. Be careful not to scratch the translite if you do so, and only clean between the glass and translite if it is indeed dirty. Typically only the back of the translite needs cleaning, so try that first.

How to Open a Pinball Machine Backbox

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Sometimes you’ll need to remove the translite or backglass from a pinball machine to change the batteries on the machine (do this about once a year!), to clean your translite, or to service the boardset. This video shows you how to get inside.

How to Remove the Glass From a Pinball Machine

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Here’s a video showing how to remove the glass from your pinball machine.

Adjustment Failure fix on a Williams pinball machine

Monday, September 14th, 2009

I’m starting up a series of pinball and arcade instructional videos that will range from the very basic up to the more advanced. My goal is to provide a resource for current pinball and arcade machine owners, but also to help people make a good purchase when looking for games. People can request specific videos by using our contact form, found on the About Us page. This first video is really disorganized, rambly, and rushed, but it’s more of a test run than an indication of the final product I’ll be pushing. More videos have already been recorded and they’ll be going up soon. Feel free to subscribe to the YouTube channel so keep up with new releases, or just keep watching this site for new posts.

Summary:

  • Replace batteries in the backbox
  • Open coin door and enter the adjustment menu using the buttons on the coin door
  • Reset factory settings (will usually work if you just cycle the menu and back out as well)
  • Exit Adjustment Menu
  • Your machine should be back to working 100%

Some “before” restoration pictures

Monday, September 7th, 2009

Lately a few new machines have come in and are prime candidates for restoration and I’ve managed to grab a handful of quick work in progress shots. On all of these, I haven’t done any cleaning of any sort, but I may have started stripping down the playfields. The image slideshow below will be periodically updated with new pictures as I take them, so feel free to check back often to see new pics.

Although I’m not done restoring these machines yet, they are already available for sale. In the instances when a machine sells before restoration is complete, I will finish restoring the game before delivering or shipping the machine. If you’re interested in buying a machine, please contact us and let us know what machine you’re interested in.

Questions and comments are welcome.