It’s been a busy week.  I’ve snuck in some pinball repair work, but the work on the new shop has taken priority.

Converting my garage into a pinball repair shop has been my top priority for the last two weeks.  The roll-up door has been removed and replaced with a framed wall with a window and a steel door.  Last week’s work quickly got the basics up and functioning, this weeks work was aimed at finish work and insulating.  Doing the work was made harder by a sudden cold snap and an 11°F wind chill.  By the end of this evening, the trim was in place along with the bulk of the fiberglass insulation.  I’ll need to install more insulation and some of that expanding foam insulation tomorrow.  It just became too hard to keep warm after the sun went down…

When the work is done, I should be able to start working in the shop almost immediately after we install some heat.  I hope to have that situation under control by next week.  At least, with the insulation on the new wall and all of the drafts eliminated, we can leave the door to the rest of the basement open, and the ambient heat from the rest of the basement should at least keep the shop above freezing!

With all of the shop work taking place, I did get to do some actual pinball stuff.  I’ve been playing Big Hit pretty regularly to keep it used and to continue to look for issues on it.  I have had to replace the left-hand “special” light twice now.  At first I thought it just blew a bulb, but since this is the second in a short amount of time, I’ll be scheduling some time to investigate what’s happening.  I’ll also be looking into the ball launcher assembly.  It seems to be losing power when you launch the ball.  Big Hit is available for sale through Atlantic Pinball ( www.AtlanticPinball.com ), so these issues are a high priority.

I didn’t have much time to do anything with Target Pool except play it.  I’ve decided that the new flipper coils are too strong.  I’m going to remove the coils and replace them with slightly weaker coils.  I want the game to be responsive, but rediculously easy is not a lot of fun.  I may be moving Target Pool back in the release order.  Originally, because of it’s condition, I was going to go through Target Pool very quickly and sell it at a bargain price.  Looking online, however, I found that a company will be producing a reproduction of Target Pool’s backglass in early 2011.  The backglass in Target Pool is tough, but with a new backglass, it might be worthwhile to hold on to it for a little longer, do more work on it, and then sell it at a higher price.

With that all in mind, I went back to the scoring unit from Top Score.  Top Score will need a complete service, and it is already in the shop.  So far, I’ve had enough time to service all of the first player reels.  The second player reels are up next.  I have a long weekend scheduled at work this weekend, so I’ll probably bring the scoring unit with me for when I have some down time…

Lastly, I got contacted by one of my wife’s cousins.  They have a Pat Hand game they got from my father-in-law several years ago.  They’re having a baby and need to move on from the pinball machine.  This will be our second Pat Hand game, and unlike the one we currently have, the one we’ll be getting already works!