Close Encounters
Check out this Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This 1978 Gottlieb machine is one of 9,950 manufactured. Notable for the roto target at the top of the playfield. Interestingly, …
Firebird Blog
Fish Tales LEDs
Putting some LEDs into a Fish Tales for a customer. He had the brilliant idea to make the fish eye red and use a color-changing bulb in the lure. Doesn’t …
Desoldering
Leslie used our desoldering iron for the first time. She was proud to collect this mound of solder. Kind of an interesting picture close-up. She replaced the 40-pin interconnects on …
Johnny Mnemonic Gearbox
A Johnny Mnemonic machine we’d bought was having movement issues with the magnetic hand in the left rear of the playfield. It didn’t want to move left to right. The gearboxes …
The Ghost of Austin Powers
We were shopping a Stern Austin Powers a few weeks ago and noticed the translite seemed a little opaque at the black ink. We took it apart and found some of …
Gorgar Plastics
Sometimes you come across a machine where the plastics are, um, a bit wavy. Like this Gorgar. We were getting it shopped for a customer when we realized just how …
Changing Rubber Rings
How can you tell if it’s time to change your rubber rings? If they look like this: We took these off a Bally Truck Stop we’re shopping. It’s a cool …
Circuit Breaker Fuses
Get tired of blowing through half a dozen fuses in a single spot while trying to diagnose a problem? So did we, so we built these AGC fuse-sized circuit breakers. First, …
Stern Stars
Leslie tackled this project, a shop job on a 1978 Stern Stars. This is one of about 5,125 produced. The game is noted for being one of two Stern games …