The Modern Firepower Pinball Project - The Cabinet Part II

I'm striving to finish up the cabinet woodwork and assembly, but just hit another roadblock that is representative of the endemic pinball parts sourcing problem.

Stern Backbox Hinges - look like most hinges to me.

The Stern Backbox Hinge Bolt - looks like a bolt to me.

When buying parts for the cabinet, I stuck with Williams branded parts when possible, but of course that was not always possible.  I had chosen highly polished chrome trim pieces for the finish color, but Pinball Life didn't have any Williams backbox hinges in chrome. They did have a very similar looking Stern hinge in highly polished chrome, and since I was building a cabinet from scratch I knew I could incorporate any vendor's product.  Pinball Life also had a matching Stern hinge bolt which I snapped up, but that was the extent of the Stern hinge parts that I found on their site.

A short time later I was making another purchase from Pinball Life, and while browsing around for parts I might have missed I stumbled onto the Williams Cabinet Hinge Pivot Bushing.  I was already on the lookout for either the nut that secures the hinge bolt inside the cabinet, or a spacer/bushing that would keep the hinge from rubbing on the cabinet artwork and siderail.  Forgetting that I had purchased Stern hinges and bolts, I ordered a couple Williams bushings and thought the problem was solved.

A Williams Hinge Bolt Bushing - can you tell if it will fit?

After the bushings arrived I proceeded to test fit the components before installation, and was confused when the hinge bolt didn't fit the new bushing.  I was sure that Pinball Life had somehow screwed up my order, and looking on their website and cross referencing with Marco's website, I finally decided that the wrong hinge bolt had been shipped.  After all, the Williams hinge bolt was supposed to be much thicker and longer than what I had been sent.

But something still bothered me, as a larger hinge bolt that would fit the new bushing would not fit the hinges - the current bolts were a perfect fit for the hinges.  Had I also been shipped defective hinges?  That didn't sound plausible.

Read on for the solution...

The Modern Firepower Pinball Project - The Playfield

Early on in this project, long before it had a fancy name, Troy had located a local businessman that ran a call center in his front office and a pinball warehouse in his back office.  The businessman had dozens upon dozens of pinball machines, most in a state of disarray, heaped upon each other in precarious stacks stretching for the ceiling.  A handful of the machines had been shopped and were playable.  We paid him a visit in our noble quest for pinball knowledge, and he was generous enough to let us play his machines and examine their condition.  Through his thick Russian accent came repeated answers that no, he had nothing he wanted to sell us.  He said that he was sitting on a future goldmine, but the time wasn’t right to strike.  If only he had known that the IRS would soon seize everything, he might have been more willing to make a deal before he fled the country.

But buying a pinball machine was not why we had paid him a visit.  Our primary goal this day was to choose a pinball machine to emulate.  

This was my first opportunity to peek under the hood of a pinball machine.  I was amazed by the miles of wiring under the playfield, the mechanical complexity of the slingshots and eject holes, the everything.  

A typical 80's era playfield underside.

The Modern Firepower Pinball Project - The Cabinet is Nearing Completion

The pinball cabinet has landed!

I’ve been constructing the cabinet by hand over the past month, and just yesterday I installed the cabinet legs for the first time, and the cabinet is finally on the ground.  Now in a very recognizable form, this deceptively simple looking box was one of the most challenging aspects of this project.

To me, the most recognizable feature of a pinball machine is the cabinet.  The classic coffin shape is unmistakable even from a distance, and four years ago it seemed to me they all looked exactly the same. When I started the project, I gave little thought to constructing the pinball cabinet, thinking it is little more than a box with a window on top.

It wasn’t until much later that the cabinet became a design nightmare.

My goals were simple, I wanted to create the modern interpretation of a standard shaped pinball cabinet that could house any normal-sized playfield, and modify it to hold a TV for the backglass.  I was planning on writing a Windows program to be the heart of the pinball machine, and envisioned using a TV for showing artwork and scores while playing, and also for the control panel to configure the game.

The Modern Firepower Pinball Project - Introduction

Welcome to the web home of Pinball Chameleon.  My name is Paul, and I'm building a pinball machine.  From scratch.

Work in progress...

It was a lot harder than I first expected, and I turned to the web a lot during the design of my pinball machine.  I decided I should return the favor and pay it forward.  I plan to share information, tips and tricks that I've discovered along the way. 

I've titled this crazy journey "The Modern Firepower Pinball Project".  The name will explain itself in due time.

I've played pinball machines, but not a lot.  Not even a little.  If I had to put a number to it, I'd wager that I've spent less than 4 hours playing real pinball machines.  In my life. 

How then does it come to pass that I'm building a pinball machine from scratch?  Well, I guess the easy answer to that question is that it is mostly Troy's fault.  Mostly.

Just over four years ago while working together on a project, my close friend and business partner Troy and I were hashing out ideas of "what's next" for us.  We wanted to start a company that made a physical product that we could sell, but we also wanted something fun and interesting to sell.  Like any good brainstorming session, crazy ideas were thrown around.  And one of those ideas, pinball machines, stuck.  Troy's a real pinhead, the only one I know, and his love of the game is infectious.

Me?  I just love a good challenge, and the idea of building a pinball machine was too challenging to pass up.

Almost immediately the research began.  I didn't know much about pinball machines, so I had a lot of ground to cover.  Progress has come in fits and starts, and at times I’ve gone more than a year without expending any effort on the project.  Several times I hit roadblocks that made the project seem impossible; well, at least impossible for my limited skill set.  Eventually solutions have presented themselves.

And now, four fast years later, I'm mere days away from bringing my first creation to life.  My goal is to play a pinball game on the machine before the year is up, though I'm sure final assembly and painting won't happen until later.

I’ve decided to share the build with the world right here.  Over the coming weeks, I’ll continually post the progress and share the details of the design. 

Hope you enjoy following along.