The amazing Hex Post mystery.....

[Wiredworm]

Is anyone on here able to measure the various hex posts on their Rocky and Bullwinkle for me please? I know some are hard to access so for those a rough measurement would be just fine. I've come to do my rebuild and i'm struggling to work out which hex posts go where.

The ones I know about are:

2 x below the Spin and Win Platform to seperate the grass and bicycle plastics.
2 x near the Hat Trick VUK to seperate the Mr Know It All Plastic from the TNT Plastic
2 x on the WABAC Ramp. One at the rear near the Mini Mars and a smaller one towards the front near Aesops Hole.
2 x on the entry to the Squirrel Ramp
1 x on the Nell Assembly

I think that's it. If anyone knows of any that i've missed then please shout out.

Also, just to confirm. The left hand gate (Hat Trick Loop) is only fixed to a post on the right and the left side connects directly to the plastic. The WABAC ramp gate is actually fitted to the ramp itself and the Squirrel Gate is fixed to the green bomb post and it's left side is hooked up to the post directly next to it (i've changed this for a star post on mine).

Thanks in advance for any replies.

 

[BigIan]

If no one else can sort you, let me know. My rocky is in storage at a mates house so I could go over and get some measurements for you

 

[Wiredworm]

Thanks Ian.

I've posted this on Pinside too but haven't had any reply as yet. I'm wondering if i'm missing a hex post; might be time to dig the tumbler media out and double-check to make sure I haven't managed to miss one whilst digging the tumbled parts out.

 

[Wiredworm]

I've still not progressed on this. @BigIan If you're able to get the measurements in the next few days then i'd be really grateful. I go on holiday after tomorrow and won't be back until Thursday 17th August, so no huge rush.

In the meantime i've been trying to get the backboard primed and repainted; the bloody weather has other ideas though. Torrential rain all day yesterday and today. Looks like i'll be waiting until I get back from holiday too.

 

[BigIan]

Ok, my mate (who's house the pin is stored in) is in hospital at the moment but he will hopefully be out by the weekend.

I will hopefully get down and get some measurements when he s out.

Cheers
Ian

 

[Wiredworm]

Thanks Ian. I really appreciate that - as I say i'm away for a while anyway so no huge rush.

I wish your mate a speedy recovery too.

Cheers

Pete

 

[BigIan]

ok eventually got to my bullwinkle and got some measurements (none of them that easy to get at so these are best guesses really

2 x below the Spin and Win Platform to seperate the grass and bicycle plastics. roughly 9mm
2 x near the Hat Trick VUK to seperate the Mr Know It All Plastic from the TNT Plastic roughly 25mm
2 x on the WABAC Ramp. One at the rear near the Mini Mars and a smaller one towards the front near Aesops Hole. 57 and 63 mm
2 x on the entry to the Squirrel Ramp 20mm protruding above the 30mm rubber
1 x on the Nell Assembly 55mm

this one is 38mm

57mm on wabac

63mm on wabac

25mm MR know it all
9mm grass and bike

hope that helps ?
Im assuming that will give you enough of a differnece between the hex posts to identify which is which ? if you need more measured or remeasured let me know

Ian

 

[Wiredworm]

Thanks Ian. Really appreciate you taking the time to do that; rough measurements should be just fine too.

I'll report back in the next day or two.

 

[BigIan]

No probs Pete.

I should point out I didn't measure at the same time as taking the pictures, they are just to confirm they are the right areas as your descriptions.. Also I didn't take a shot of the squirrel ran past entrance but hopefully my description make sense.

 

[Wiredworm]

This gets to be more and more fun.

Firstly I can confirm that I had fitted the right size hex spares below the Spin & Win Clock. I had to take them off tonight in order to route the cable for the Spin & Win Clock so I measured them up whilst I had everything stripped down and sure enough, they're approximately 9mm, or to be more accurate they're actually 3/8".

So with these two fitted this is what I have left over.




Of course what is immediately a little odd here is that I have an odd number of 15.5mm posts and a single 13mm post. I'm now wondering if the machine previously had a mix of 1 x 13mm and 1 x 15.5mm post in one of the locations. It's not made any simpler by the fact that the manual mentions virtually none of the hex posts with the exception of one mounted on the rear of the WAB ramp underside.

I think that the one below Mr Know-It-All is slightly shorter than you might think it is (there's a slight irony there in me claming to know that). I took your photo and did a bit of messing with it using the amazing Paint 3D and this was the result.



The gap between the two red lines is around 11mm, but i'd say i'd probably round up to the next imperial size because of the slight angle on the photo. Note that the hex spacer is actually female to female and is screwed into a regular star post mount, hence the reason it's shorter than you might think.

I knocked up a quick chart to figure out what sizes I might be missing.



That 11mm probably translates to 12.7mm so I need 2 x 1/2" hex spacers for the Mr Know It All plastic. I don't think the spacing of those plastics is especially important though so I could probably get away with using a couple of the 15mm spacers that i've already got (those must be 5/8").

To summarise though.

2 x below the Spin and Win Platform to seperate the grass and bicycle plastics. roughly 9mm
All sorted - these were the easy ones

2 x near the Hat Trick VUK to seperate the Mr Know It All Plastic from the TNT Plastic roughly 25mm
I don't think spacing on thee is critical so if I buy new for the entrance to the squirrel ramp then I can use the 15mm ones i've got here.

2 x on the WABAC Ramp. One at the rear near the Mini Mars and a smaller one towards the front near Aesops Hole. 57 and 63 mm
I've got the 63mm one but I suspect on mine the 38mm post is actually fitted on the front instead of being on the top like you showed in your photos.

2 x on the entry to the Squirrel Ramp 20mm protruding above the 30mm rubber
These are screwed onto the top of the post so based on your measurement and with the above conversion chart in mind they must be 3/4" (translates to approx 19mm). I might well order two of these anyway as i've ended up with a mismatch of smaller posts.

1 x on the Nell Assembly 55mm
I don't have one this size - I think mine had a 63mm post fitted there.

So basically I need to order 2 x 3/4" hex posts and that should be all I need. At least once i've got those I can start working on putting the gates back into place.

 

[Wiredworm]

I could have sworn that the 38mm post on the top of the WABAC ramp was missing on mine. Erm, but found this image which suggests not.



I also found a photo of the one that's at the front of the WABAC ramp and conveniently i've got a mounting post in the same shot. Hopefully by measuring up the screen I can calculate the size of the hex post there too.

 

[Wiredworm]

Another photo found. Posting here mainly as a reminder to myself.

Top one is the 38mm one and the other is the larger 63mm. Did a bit of resizing on the screen and held up the parts to confirm relative sizes.

 

[Wiredworm]

@BigIan Another question for you - but I appreciate it might not be possible to tell this.

The post on the Nell Assembly. Looking at my reference photos I think the bottom of it doesn't screw directly into a post; instead I think it uses a screw to secure it to a hole in the Nell Log Plastic which sits below it?

 

[BigIan]

Will get a look over the next day or two and report back

I remember that the nell post was hard to see, might need a bit of disassembly to check properly.

Will also check both sides of mr know it all to see if any difference. I'm not sure I would use those pictures for measurement as although the tape looks like it's right beside the post I don't think it really was

I will hoke my digital callipers out and get better measurements

 

[Wiredworm]

Thanks Ian.

Worst case i'll just order another 5/8" hex post; then i'll have four matching that I can use for the Mr Know It All and Squirrel Ramp entry.

However, as i've now realised that I did have the one mounted up near the mini-mars it means i'm actually one short. So i'll most likely also order a 2-1/4" post and use that at the section where the WABAC ramp ends and switches to the habitrail. Sorted.

Not a clue how i've ended up one short; i've been absolutely meticulous in bagging and tagging all the various parts. Aahh well, thankfully they are parts I can replace.

 

[BigIan]

Any idea what the one up between the Mars lights is for ?

 

[Wiredworm]

I'm sure i've heard it discussed before and the explanation I heard was it was something to do with stopping airballs getting lodged up there.

I'm not entirely sure that's even possible and the one on the top isn't shown in any of the schematics; but since when has a pinball manual ever been known to be accurate anyway? ;-)

I referred to Russ Myers photos over on Pinside and at first I thought he'd done his the way the manual suggests; but if you look closely you can see he's actually got two hex posts at the rear but he's just mounted them both on the underside. I can't recall there being anything there for it to screw into so it must either be affixed to a plastic or it's just resting on top.

RB010 by arcaderuss, on Flickr

 

[Wiredworm]

I think I might have solved the mystery of the mismatched hex posts.

It turns out that the left lane guide is fixed in place over posts which are slightly larger than the plastic post which is fitted to the top left of the Mr Know It All plastic. This means that when tightened up you need to use a slightly longer hex post at the top left to offset for the difference.

One peculiarity though is that all my hex spacers appear to be 6-32 and the tall hex post at the rear of the lane guide is 8-32. No idea how that ever fitted.

Worse still I managed to sheer off the top of the post because I was trying to fix a hex spacer that was the wrong size. Ooops.

Anyway, i've ordered a standard size 6-32 hex post to replace it because I can't see any logical reason why the larger post was even necessary there. I've also ordered some additional hex spacers so hopefully I should be able to get moving again in the next few days.