Yesterday evening, I started on my Scared Stiff restoration project.
I'll start with some background info as I like to on games.
My love affair with Scared Stiff had a strange beginning. Years ago, I was in a friends garage and noticed a very neglected Scared Stiff in the corner. I asked about it, and he explained that he was going to part it out on eBay for its owner, who didn't have time to do it himself and offered a cut in exchange for the work.
The game was a very sad machine. It had a number of issues with it. Huge amounts of insert ghosting, weak flippers, the wrong sling plastics were installed, and it had what I like to refer to as a 'British' mylar job. In all fairness, I have seen this sort of hackjob done on French games as well, and French and British reimport games I've had are similar on many fronts. They almost all smell like ashtrays. The game also had a heavily damaged apron (apron decals were not available at the time), ramps that needed replacing, almost every single plastic broken, etc. A real POS game.
I suggested that the game could still be enjoyed, and it wasn't a partout candidate. The owner called my bluff, and said that I could have it for 2k - but he needed the crate assy for his other SS, which had a broken bracket. I bought the game, and then found out the bracket for the crate itself was $110 and was not easy to find! Also, there were a lot of other expensive parts in the crate.
I talked to a cousin of mine, and it turns out he LOVES Scared Stiff, having played it extensively in college. He doesn't own any pins, but he does come over sometimes and play mine.
I fixed the game up, played it for awhile, and worked a PFR restored SS playfield into a trade deal with a game someone was buying from me. Figured when cab art became available, I'd restore the game completely.
The PFR playfield:
http://gallery.myhomegameroom.com/gallery/sstiff_pfBefore the cab art became available, the same friend who was going to part mine out had a nice SS in his collection he was going to restore, and lost interest after he had disassembled his playfield to send it off for repair. We worked a trade deal, my beat game for his game stripped, with new ramps and NOS plastics, I would keep my original shooter assy, coin door and crate, as the ones on my game were freshly rebuilt with new parts. He bought a nicer SS that didn't need any restoration, sold my beater, and I got his in pieces
Seemed like an excellent deal, but looking back, now I'm not so sure. I'll ponder it again once I'm done with the restoration. I can tear a game down and come back to it years later, pick back up and finish it, but trying to put a game together that someone else tore apart is a bit more difficult for me. Also, the friend told me if I found anything to be missing, to let him know and he'd find it. He passed away in January of 2009, so I can't really ask anyone for parts anymore.
My goal is to turn this game around in 3-4 months. I think it's doable.
