Pinball repair and restoration

Learn to clean and repair your pinball machine. Pinball machines need maintenance. If you have bought a dirty, used pinball machine, you can learn to clean it yourself.
Polish and clean parts, repaint worn areas, and you can make your pinball machine look and play (almost) as brand new again.

Flame polishing
How to make ramps and plastics as new.. at your own risk !

Repair melted ramps
When flamepolishing goes wrong.. you fix it.

Clean metal parts with a tumbler
Polish and clean metals parts without doing everything by hand.

Restore or 'shop' article
How to 'shop': clean and restore a pinball machine - introduction.

Shopping part 1
Part 1, remove parts from the playfield.

Shopping part 2
Part 2, clean parts.

Shopping part 3
Part 3, clean and restore a playfield.

Shopping part 4
Part 4, assemble and adjust.

Shopping part 5
Part 5, the cabinet.

Congo
How to repair a broken volcano on your Congo pinball machine.

Wax wars
Information about waxing your pinball playfield.

Ball trough problems
Detecting problems with optos in the ball trough, especially on WMS games that use 6 pinballs.

Addams Family mansion decal
Mansion decal installation on an Addams Family playfield.

Switch matrix tester tool
An easy way to solve switch matrix problems on WPC pinball games.

Use the service plug
How to make an adaptor for the service plug on WPC games.

Stern TOPS installation
How to connect a Stern TOPS system in Europe.

TZ clock disassembly
How to disassemble the clock of your Twilight Zone pinball machine.

General Illumination
What is it and how to repair the lights on your pinball machine ?

Apron repaint
Restore a worn apron like new

Fridge repaint
Give your old fridge or other kitchen appliance a new color.

New WPC95 DMD plastic cover installation
Install a new DMD protective plastic on WPC-95.

Install a speech pcb on Orbitor One
Install the optional VSU-100 speech pcb in Stern Orbitor One pinball game.

Magic Tokens on Safe Cracker
How Magic Tokens are recognised on Ballys Safe Cracker.

Fix a playfield sag
How to build a brace to make a sagged playfield even again..

Touchup playfield damage
How to touchup and clearcoat playfield damage with an airbrush..

Gottlieb Majorettes restoration
Repair log of how I restore this pinball machine...

Make a playfield rotisserie
A playfield tipper is a good tool when you often work on pinball playfields..

Clean parts with ultrasonic cleaner
Perfectly clean plastic and metal parts with an ultrasonic cleaner. You need to have this machine when you want to clean a pinball machine in detail.

Reproduce your own 3D plastics
Make your own 3D pinball parts such as Cactus Canyon mountain and guns.

Upgrade the sound of your pinball machine
New speakers and a change of a resistor will give your pinball machine a lot of bass and improve the sound quality.

Service plug switch on
Power mods from the service switch and power them on/off together with the game.

DMD Extender
Replace a broken DMD with an LCD screen and set it in color.

Raspberry Pi safe shutdown button NEW
How to add a physical shutdown button so you can safely shutdown the Raspberry Pi you use for your P-Roc or RetroPi project.

Playmatic repair information
Repair information about these old Spanish solid state machines. Full manual scanned.

Recel information
Information about Recel solid state pinball machines.

Zaccaria Pinball
Repair information about Zaccaria solid state pinball machines.