Today Greg (RTBB Greg) and I spent the day doing an inventory on the original WMS/Bally tooling at IPB. There are over 250 original injection tools on site and over 300 at varous injection companies. Most of the tools that are at the injection companies are playfield insert tools IPB is using for their new playfield production the ones remaining on site are for all the other pinball parts like the Judge Dredd topper, drop targets, Diner cup, Black Rose Cannon base/flap and many many more.
There are over 150 original thermoforming tools (most are used to make ramps), of course we've already been using these to make ramps over the past 3 years.
There are over 200 metal die tools that are used to stamp metal brackets, legs, lockdowns, ect.
We've located a lot of other tooling still at the original forming companies. More to follow about them when we are at liberty to report.
Surprisingly the injection and die tooling is in great shape, while the outer shells may look a bit aged they look as shiney as a new polished Corvette on the inside. We'll try and get some photo's up sometime in the next few days. We can't wait to get starting working with IPB using these tools to make hundreds of new parts. It's been a fun week, Greg is absolutely knackered. I don't think this is what he had in mind for his holiday's but he is indeed enjoying himself getting to uncover so many fun things.
On one other note, Greg laughed his arse off
when he found over 30,000 parts on one single pallet. Not sure what he mean't by his constant laughing but he really enjoyed it.
Cheers,
James