I’ve hit a busy period of the year for me, so progress has slowed some what on Dracula. There is also that new Jurassic Park machine that keeps telling me to play it instead of doing other things 😉 First on my to do list for this update is cleaning the playfield plastics. These pieces are from the middle and top sections of the playfield and have been sitting patiently for the last few weeks waiting to be looked at. Each was cleaned with Nifti first and then finished with Novus 1.
Pinball
Documenting my adventures into pinball repair and restoration
New pin day is one of the most exciting days in the year for us pin heads. It’s even better when it arrives in a big box, ready to unwrap. A few weeks ago, my second new Stern arrived that will keep my Black Knight Sword of Rage company. I gladly welcome a Jurassic Park Pro to my line up.
It’s time to cast my attention to the top area of the Dracula playfield. This section contains quite a few assemblies that will need to be looked at. There are assemblies for a drop target, three pop bumpers, a VUK, ramp diverter and also a ramp lift. When you add all that to the assemblies covered in the previous two updates, it’s amazing how much they crammed in to the game. Can you imagine Stern putting this much in to a single game these days? It would give their number crunching team nightmares. There’s a lot of work to get through, so time to get started.
I went into the first update with quite a bit of momentum, but that was slowed down somewhat for this second update. As is often the case, life enjoys serving up a combination of things like family events, illness and work all at once to get in the way. What I’ve taken to doing though is breaking all the bigger tasks down into many smaller tasks (and breaking them down even further into more smaller tasks) that can be done independently. That way even if I only have 20 minutes in a day to make some progress, I can select a handful of small tasks to do which helps keep progress happening. In this update I’ll be focusing on the middle section of the playfield. There’s a number of assemblies on both sides to look at which should fill this update up pretty quickly. Both sides have large plastic moulds that help decorate the playfield and bring it to life. There are also a few ramps and rails that will need to be removed at this point as they will be in the way. Time to get in to it.
With work coming to a close on Corvette, it was time to start giving some attention to the next machine in the queue. Next up is a Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The game was originally released back in 1993, with over 6800 machines made. This one has some great shots on it and plenty to do. I’ll be giving the game a full rebuild, with all assemblies to be removed, cleaned and worn parts replaced. All playfield parts will be removed, cleaned and many new parts added also. There are some additional presentation things to do on the game too, so this one is going to keep me busy. Time to get started!
