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Save £x00s on pinball playfield workbench

Max Kay

Banned
Joined
Jan 17, 2018
Messages
50
Location
central UK
After seeing a groovy playfield workbench being used on a couple of youtube videos, i decided I could do with one of those and was expecting it to be about £50, until I found out it was actually going to cost me £210 and that didn't include the legs, which are an extra £130 , then theres postage on top of all that.
Screen Shot 01-27-18 at 02.06 AM.PNG
So i was going to weld one up, I could have built one in a day at a push I reckon and it would have been a lot stronger than the one for sale, however then by chance I spotted this at ALDI, and it was only £30, I could see it had potential, but wasn't 100% certain it would do, so i bought some beer instead and had a good think about it, next day I thought about it again and decided to buy one, by which time they had reduced them to £20.
and its brilliant, there isn't any playfield that we've tried that doesn't fit perfectly into rollers at each end, that lock into place if you adjust them so they are just tight, and its actually held there firmly, so you can do whatever work you want on either the top or underside of the playfield.
You don't have the luxury of pivots at each end for rolling it over, however taking the playfield out and flipping it over manually takes about 10 seconds and isn't any major effort.
There are 3 different ways you can grip the playfield at each end, so you have to decide which is the most appropriate for the playfield you are working on, so long as its locked in tight on at least 1 end its not going anywhere.
To top it all, the legs fold up by pressing 4 buttons, its lightweight, very strong, easy to carry and put in the boot of the car, and it even doubles up as a workbench for your cross cut mitre saw when you neeed that, 10 seconds to attach your saw with two fold down lock levers. ( the 2 blue bars under the table are for the cross cut saw, remove easily and can be left attached to the saw for easy fitting, removing them gives you a few extra inches for playfields with taller mechanisms )
Everyone should get one, its a no brainer unless you have more money than you know what to do with.
my apologies if you are actually responsible for manufacturing the £340 plus postage workbench, however i'm sure theres' plenty of people here that can't justify that sort of expense, so i present the cheap solution.

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Bonus Quiz - Name the 6 pinball machines that can be seen and identified in the above 3 photos ???
not easy but not impossible either, you can see enough of them to recognize them.
 
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Bonus Quiz - Name the 6 pinball machines that can be seen and identified in the photos ???
#1 I'll start the magnificent VECTOR

Timely you've posted this, I want a rotisserie and there's lots of good posts on here and pinside with ways to make them, I wasn't sure how important it is that it rotates easily.
 
#2 an easy PARAGON you've got taste:thumbs:
 
#1 I'll start the magnificent VECTOR

Timely you've posted this, I want a rotisserie and there's lots of good posts on here and pinside with ways to make them, I wasn't sure how important it is that it rotates easily.

VECTOR is magnificent, a lot of people will try to tell you it's not, they are very wrong.
It was without doubt the pinacle of Ballys market dominance and engineering excellence and they put everything they had into that machine.

The Rotisserie - It's nowhere near as important as you might think, i rarely find myself needing to flip over the plafields, and even if you need to it's just a few seconds to do so, you could easily adapt this bench by fitting a couple of locking pivots and clamps. I don't think its necessary and won't be as sturdy either.

x
 

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Rotisserie - It's nowhere as important as you think, i rarely find myself needing to flip over the plafield, and even if you need to it's just a few seconds to do so, you could easily adapt this bench by fitting a couple of locking pivots and clamps. I don't think its necessary and won't be as sturdy.

Are these currently for sale in Aldi? if so I may have to go to a different store, I always look at the tools in my local store but haven't seen that workbench. I could do with one, have a playfield swap to do soon.
 
re these currently for sale in Aldi? if so I may have to go to a different store, I always look at the tools in my local store but haven't seen that workbench. I could do with one, have a playfield swap to do soon.

Bought it over a year ago from ALDI, however they are generically re-branded and i've since seen them sold all over the place under different brand names (£30-£50).
It's made in Germany and is high quality, there are similar Chinese made one aswell.
and if you shop at ALDI regularly, you'll know they sell the same "special" items periodically every year, so it might be coming around again.
 
After seeing a groovy playfield workbench being used on a couple of youtube videos, i decided I could do with one of those and was expecting it to be about £50, until I found out it was actually going to cost me £210 and that didn't include the legs, which are an extra £130 , then theres postage on top of all that.
View attachment 58133


Bonus Quiz - Name the 6 pinball machines that can be seen and identified in the above 3 photos ???
not easy but not impossible either, you can see enough of them to recognize them.

I actually worked out what the one in the first picture might be before reading to the end, I'd guess High Speed

The one with both sides shown is Time Warp, and there's a Harlem Globetrotters backbox peeping out from alongside the tool chest
 
I actually worked out what the one in the first picture might be before reading to the end, I'd guess High Speed

The one with both sides shown is Time Warp, and there's a Harlem Globetrotters backbox peeping out from alongside the tool chest

Very good, that just leaves the most tricky one :hmm: the elephant in the room.
 
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