What's new
Pinball info

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Considering repro playfield installation - what do I need to know?

wildatheart

wildatheart

Registered
Joined
Aug 30, 2019
Messages
10
Location
Edinburgh
I’m currently looking for a Scared Stiff and if I can’t find a fully restored machine, I would be interested in changing the playfield myself. I’m reasonably handy but will be a first time owner.

How hard is this to do - and are there any downsides, ie. loss of originality? The only repro field I have seen is at Pinball Heaven for around £780 - is this the place to get it?

Anything else I should be aware of..?

Many thanks!
 
Based on my own personal experience; i wouldn't bother.

It's not terribly hard, but can be time & space consuming if you're not very experienced or overly pragmatic.

It probably won't add (enough) value for the outlay of time and money invested.

I personally find the newer playfields to be of lesser quality than originals.

You won't be able to play it while it's being worked on. As it'll be your only machine, that's a nightmare scenario!

Once it's done you probably won't want to play it as it's so new looking!

where do you stop spending! new decals? Plastics? metal parts, LEDs...

Buy a new Stern Elvira - it'll come with a new playfield for free(!) and a new up-to-date modern rule set. I found the B/W Scared Stiff dull and repetitive. Only nine grand!

Personal opinion as you asked for advice. Each to their own.
 
And I think somewhere between 40 and 100 hours for a of swap (is that everyone else's understanding / experience?), depending on what else you do.
 
Make good of what you get and play the hell out of it and it will not bother you one bit that the ball is bouncing around.
The new playfields just aren’t as hard wearing as the originals.
As above a lot of hours involved especially for a novice.
 
I changed a MB playfield (with the help of @Sven Normansson ) it didn't take anywhere near 100 hrs, probably 8-10 hrs all in.

It was my first playfield swap.

Biggest lesson to learn is you can't take enough photos of both the under and over of playfield. Everytime you take something off take a photo from multiple angles, sounds like overkill - but trust me it isn't!

Labelling every connector on both the original loom and the new underside of playfield makes it relatively simple.

It's worth you feel it's financially worth it. It'll certainly add value. It's also a perfect time to clean all of the plastics, fit new rubbers, coils, lamps etc.
 
How handy are you with a soldering iron? Do you have a soldering station? There will be a lot of soldering involved.

As said above you would need to take a LOT of photographs, maybe even videos, to get a sense of where everything is now, where it needs to go back to.

I get anxiety just unscrewing stuff from the bottom of the playfield, fearing that screws, nuts, etc will disappear into the loom or worse.. removing everything and ending up with a pile of screws and nuts terrifies me.

Admire your zeal at wanting to take it on, but your first and only pin - and I'm presuming you've never done pinball maintenance work before... it's a big ask in my opinion.

And worst of all - as @Monkeyboypaul said - you could end up doing it and find that you either don't want to play the game afterwards because of how immaculate it is, or how you've just fallen completely out of love with it because you either a) haven't played it for so long and/or b) have been so disillusioned working on it that you can't stand the sight of it.
 
I have done several playfield swaps and my fastest is Attack from Mars and that took one day.

Pinball Magic took 2 1/2 days.

Its not that hard but you need some decent tools and knowledge.

It is also worth swapping assemblies where possibly as well as lamp holders, targets etc - you dont want old crappy targets on a new playtfireld. Oh - new ramps, plastics.....

The Pinball Heaven PFs are the ones to go for.

The only thing is - putting that much money into a SS - you will never get that cash back when you sell it.

Also - are you redecalling the cabinet too? New coin door, new legs, rails, lockdown bar - good bye to another £1K.

Actually - as previously mentioned - BUY A NEW STERN.
 
Wide range of good advice already given above. Pinball Heaven is well known here (in a good way) and I would not question the recommendation from Pick Holder. But if for completeness you want a simple price comparison reference (I make no comment on like for like quality) and because if you get into restoration of SS and others you'll likely have to hunt around for bits so will want to get to know different potential sources, Ministry of Pinball is quoting €1095 for a repro SS (unpopulated) PF. You mention being a first time owner but I guess not necessarily brand new to pinball as you have clearly somehow decided on SS. If you've therefore got access to someone with pins then worth seeing if you can get some further technical insight from there or maybe better still find someone locally that repairs/restores pins and can actually walk through a live case of what's roughly involved in a PF swap and possibly a view on pins for sale. Good luck with whatever you decide to do as everyone is motivated differently!
 
Do it! PF swap is great fun just take long as you need!

As your taking it apart put each mech into zip bags to keep all the screws and mechs together with photos you can't go wrong when putting it all back together :)
 
Playfield swaps are imho a young mans folly. I did my first this year and i was 71 at the time. It took me over 3 weeks and i lost the will to live several times. I actually dried pots for the first time in years and enjoyed it.
My wife confided to one of our daughters that yr dad is either sickening for something or he's got a guilty conscience.
Being retired i had all the time in the world but if yr out at work and spend a few hours each evening on the swap, then i wish anyone contemplating doing one all the best.
I eased the pain by drinking, but even that has drawbacks as i fell asleep one afternoon with a coil in my hand and it wasn't even off the machine i was working on.
 
paddythegreek said:
It took me over 3 weeks and i lost the will to live several times. I actually dried pots for the first time in years and enjoyed it. My wife confided to one of our daughters that yr dad is either sickening for something or he's got a guilty conscience.
Click to expand...
😄

Paddy thinks.... "I could continue with that damn nightmare I wished I'd never started, or I dry some pots. Pots it is...."

God it must have been bad but I know that feeling with non pinball stuff. Still, you finished it, right?
 
Easy peasy no seriously I have done lots of playfield swaps and my advice if it’s your first pin and you have no experience then buy a reasonable machine learn about it with minor fixes cleaning and maintenance then if you do really have the itch to do it then have a go ph don’t have that ss playfield in stock for £750 google just find an old add so I would think you would be paying 1k for one 551FFAC7-22CE-417A-B146-2D089C7C6111.jpeg3726AA6C-CBEB-4BF4-9EAB-76B9ED9F204F.jpeg551FFAC7-22CE-417A-B146-2D089C7C6111.jpeg3726AA6C-CBEB-4BF4-9EAB-76B9ED9F204F.jpeg
 
when I swapped playfields on my space invaders,the main thing was to have a decent staple gun for the earth braid,and a pair of engineer screw removal pliers,plus I took lots of photo's of everything before I started the swap
 
Thank you very much everyone for the feedback - really good to know it's not for the faint hearted - I'm not afraid to get my soldering iron out but as some of you have advised, I think I should leave well alone until I am more familiar with the spaghetti inside and will then see if I still feel like tucking in :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom