In Progress One pin to rule them all

[Dracoola]

Lord of the Rings is one of my all time favorite set of movies and books. Iv'e been on the lookout a long time for one that is in my range and we finally got one last weekend!

Due to @s000m doing Addams family he has gifted me this one to do all on my own. So here it is, my very first pinball shop log and first pinball that I will be doing anything remotely technical on!


Before:








First things first - Full clean as the playfield and glass were sticky and covered in a fine film making the artwork on the playfield appear dull.








I removed the existing flipper rubbers and gave the bats a clean.









I am looking to do a full rubber swap and toying with colour themes. In the meantime I partly populated the path of the dead with glow titans and the flippers with green from our JP2.
When it arrives I am going to install the path of the dead mod so the glows will really shine.



Stay tuned for more!

 

[Jib]

Looking forward to following along. Looks better already with a good clean!

 

[cmrl9]

I find red and yellow rubbers work really well

 

[Dracoola]

Not done too much last week as I am seriously considering something "a bit different" as I feel gold has been done to death, plus the really low rez images all over it really drag it down!

Today I installed Mount Doom and trying to figure out the power supply that's been installed underneath that I am not even sure if the board is needed? : https://www.pinballinfo.com/communi...ructions-for-madnat-board-lighted-mods.52946/







I also installed the topper. Its the little things! Once there is more room in the pinball room to work things will move along a lot faster.
Just got delivery of models: Armt of the dead, march to mordor, Ringwraith on horse, shadow ringwraith (the white look he has on weathertop) and the mouth of Sauron

 

[cmrl9]

The power board is probably one from @MadNat I personally would recommend using it, a fully modded LOTR can put a load on the power driver board as @Colywobbles can vouch for as I believe his old one kept blowing things with every mod.

I've held off fitting my power driven mods until I fit the board and external power supply properly just waiting on some help from another pinhead

 

[VeeMonroe]

The MadNat board needs moving into the backbox as, otherwise, you’ll need to disconnect the mods to lift the playfield. You need the board and power supply to fit a large number of mods - otherwise, I‘m told it will blow.

The sticky substance on the glass is a week’s worth of olive oil mist and peanut butter residue. The other sticky substance is black rubber. The rubbers were new a year ago, I was told, and thus left in place, but removing the residue from black rubbers requires a frequency of playfield cleaning that isn’t going to happen in a house with young kids. So, that’s about two months’ worth of grime.

The shop log should be in the cab - it’s a black book with dates and descriptions. You may wish to continue it for future owners.

 

[Colywobbles]

My old LOTR was way overloaded and the fuse had been uprated to 7a from 5a when I went to change it so half the mods were removed and I added my own 12a Mod PSU totally independent of the pin.
Not a blip afterwards and a little peace of mind.

 

[AlanJ]

My old LOTR was way overloaded and the fuse had been uprated to 7a from 5a when I went to change it so half the mods were removed and I added my own 12a Mod PSU totally independent of the pin.
Not a blip afterwards and a little peace of mind.

ha ha good old spadge and his 1001 mods - he did same on the ij i bought from him too.

 

[s000m]

God damn I had to go digging to unearth this!

Finally got around to finishing this game.

Despite being a more modern pin the cab was pretty beat up. Also despite my best efforts this game stank of cooking oil. The only solution was to purge it.




... Wait wrong franchise.


Anyway looking at the artwork it's in the era of Stern 'DVD Photoshop'.

We didn't fancy just replacing the originals. So got a custom job done.





Taking the old decals off was more of a chore than anticipated.

The original decals were so thin that using the heat gun method on the decals caught fire!

Had to resort to sanding them off...




Cabinet came up good see below


















New decals were a royal pain to apply. Heavy crumpling meant several attempts at straightening out with the squeegee.























Next up I'll apply the decals to the backbox.

 

[Bobbdobalina]

LOTR really is let down by the quality ( or lack of) the cabinet artwork.
This bespoke stuff looks great

 

[cmrl9]

Looking good

 

[s000m]

That's the back box done.

In London a lot at the moment so didn't have time for assembly.

Sorted out some new backbox T-Mold though haven't done that since building Mame Cabinets.

 

[Mozie]

Excuse the stupid question as I've not redecaled a pin yet but have done a load of arcade cabs, is there a reason to leave a 5mm gap away from the edges all around or is it a personal preference thing? Won't that cause issues with it lifting? Most of the pins I've seen redone had the decals going all the way tight to the edge?

 

[s000m]

Excuse the stupid question as I've not redecaled a pin yet but have done a load of arcade cabs, is there a reason to leave a 5mm gap away from the edges all around or is it a personal preference thing? Won't that cause issues with it lifting? Most of the pins I've seen redone had the decals going all the way tight to the edge?

That's just preferable. Leaving a edge allows for the cab to get knocked or clipped without fraying the edge of the decal. If you meet the wood you just risk fraying.

Another reason is that older cabs typically have chewed edges. I often restore them but they are never perfect.

 

[Mozie]

Ah OK I get you now

 

[s000m]

This was on my Alien SE. They built to the edge for the lock bar area.

 

[s000m]

Ok nearly done. Have a random power wire I can't find a home for. But the game appears to be working fine however.

The random wire:





Wires routed cleanly:



Coin door back in:



Playfield back in:



New lockbar and lockbar receiver installed:



Legs on:



New side rails on:






New custom backglass on:

 

[VeeMonroe]

Beautiful. What a nice job you’ve done here

 

[Bobbdobalina]

That looks amazing, 1st LOTR I’ve seen shopped in this way and I really like it
I’m into the translite too. Have you got photos of it lit up? Hard to see in the photos above.

 

[s000m]

That looks amazing, 1st LOTR I’ve seen shopped in this way and I really like it
I’m into the translite too. Have you got photos of it lit up? Hard to see in the photos above.

It got real late last night and I was knackered .

Here's some more shots:

Cliffy's were a bit of pain to install but came out good.






Path of the dead was a custom job, came out good in the end:




@Dracoola did the ball guide here for the path of the dead run off:



Tower Mod:




This sword was a bit of a beast to install and setup to avoid ball hangs but its all good now:




Back Box with the light on:






Playfield with the light on:

 

[s000m]

Mirror blades will go back on when we sort out the powder coat on the hinges.

 

[Bobbdobalina]

Looks awesome,and nice touch on the path of the dead by @Dracoola

I know the original translite gets some stick and with Gandalfs willy and all, but I really like it.
However I really would be tempted to swap it over for this one, fits the theme perfectly, great choice

 

[s000m]

Found the missing cable. I left a harness loose in the cab at the bottom, which fed the ring inserts at the start of the playfield. Job done.

 

[M4carp]

Kept a souvenir from mine

 

[s000m]

Kept a souvenir from mine

Haha nice!

 

[Colywobbles]

Kept a souvenir from mine

Me too if anyone after one for half the price and instant delivery.