It’s now been 12 months since I came into possession of my first pinball machine. The Nugent has received a lot of play time over the year. I rebuilt the machine back in January / February this year and at the time was learning a lot about how pinball machines worked in general and the ways to clean & service them. Since then I’ve gone onto restore a Fireball Classic and also well underway with a Pinbot machine. I’ve learnt a lot since working on this machine and I decided that I’d revisit my Nugent for a 12 month service. I don’t plan to rebuild the machine like I did last time. It’s running really well, but needs a bit of a surface level clean. There are a few small issues I’d like to sort out (very minor) and I’d also like to apply some of the skills I’ve learnt since working on it to improve it further. The first thing to look at will be the plastics. A number of the pieces are warped.
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With the headbox decals complete, it was time to move onto the cabinet body decals. This was supposed to be a 2 part update (first for the headbox and the second for the cabinet). Sadly, I’ve run into a problem which is going to set me back about 4 weeks. Even with all my planning, I can’t predict everything. But that’s OK, I’ll go as far as I can and just do a short update for now.
The side art on the cabinet is faded, just like the headbox. The rails are also damaged – the worst being the right side rail (as you can see about 1/3 of the way up the rail).
It’s been a long time since I did any work on my Fireball Classic. I worked with a friend and had the artwork recreated over 6 months ago. It was only recently delivered in physical form. Finally. But it looks good. Really good. With my Xmas holidays about to start shortly, I figured it was time to once again give some attention to my Fireball Classic restore project and complete it. The main thing left is the side art, although there are a few other ends I want to tidy up also before I’m happy to say “I’m done”. In this update, i’ll be adding new side art to the head box. As you would have seen in previous updates, I had the side art reproduced (since it’s not actually available anywhere). A lot of attention was given to the detail of the curves and the stars, so it’s pretty accurate. The side art on my machine is very much faded and is also torn in several places. The t-moulding is also cracked and will need to be replaced.
It feels like forever since I was last working on Pinbot (in truth it’s been about 4 weeks). A project I started last year and then set aside for 10 months while Pinball took over my life needed to be completed in November. That was successfully done and now it’s time to turn my attention back to my beloved Pinbot machine and continue its rise to awesomeness. The last part of the playfield to do is the flippers. To be more specific, rebuilding both and sorting out the right flipper (which does not work).
So the starting point. Normally Pinbot has white flipper bats. This machine came with some ribbed blue bats. They don’t really do anything for me, so i’ll be looking to replace them. The rubber is dead (and I’ve since removed it) so that will be replaced also. As mentioned, the right flipper does not work, but the left is fine. There is some playfield damage in this area, but it’s not an issue since the whole playfield be will replaced shortly.
An area of the playfield I’ve been looking forward to working on is the mini playfield and the pop bumpers that live beneath it. I’ll also take the opportunity here to look at the bank of 5 stationary targets that sit just to the left of the pop bumpers. It’s going to be a long update I think and lots of photos to look through. So hopefully you hang in until the end 🙂 The starting point is good. All plastics and posts are there. The mini playfield itself is in one piece, although I can see some small cracks at a few point that will need to be looked at.
