A friend of mine Dale 'Chippy' passed away this morning after a long battle with brain tumors, he was only 48yo.
He was a member here cobbindale, who had a passion for his prized Cobra replica which he mostly built himself.
A few of you guys met Chippy at the last meet that I had at my house.
I worked with Chippy and we got talking about pinballs a few years back. Next thing you know he had bought a pinball. I had to ask why did you just jump in without asking me to help source one, he told me he was searching ebay and got all excited and had bid on a non working pin with an old upright arcade machine. I laughed and was interested to findout more, he had purchased a cosmic princess, paid too much but was a happy pinball owner
Chippy is a very particular man, as I am myself, and had to have everything looking perfect, he just started pulling everything apart and ordering new parts to restore the old girl. Cool, I thought, until he told me he had started to sand back the cabinet and was going to have a go repainting the artwork.
Luckly he had taken a few photos and transfered the design onto some clear plastic, he started by painting the cabinet blue, no problems next he bought some adhesive stenciling paper but found that after all the work cutting it was too adhesive and lifted some of the blue background paint. He had considered using vinyl decals so I suggested he get in contact with Greg (oldpins) after some lengthy discussions with Greg, which he told me he really appreciated, he decided to buy a vinyl cutter to eventually scan into the computer and cut vinyl decals, He had a lot of trouble getting the program he was using to scale correctly, and decided to move onto the playfield. Stripped it down, he did a few touchups and then had it clear coated, it has come up very nicely, the original owner had a couple of the wrong inserts installed but it is so shiny you can hardly notice, rebuild drop targets pops etc. and re assembled. Looks very nice.
Thats where I come into the picture, a couple of months back Chippy was trying to cleanout a lot of his garage, I guess to make it easier for his family when he passed. His pinball is in many bits due to the restoration, he immediately thought of me and generously gave it to me. I offered to buy it off him but he just wanted it gone so his wife could fit her car into the garage. Shame he never really got a chance to enjoy it.
I look back on that day with fond memories of Chippy as he was still relatively healthy but knew the end was near, we chatted for a couple of hours, when he told me he probally only had 3 months left, I found it hard to believe.
RIP mate
