 |
|
What can be said about Flash, EVERYBODY knows this machine and I believe that it is the 2nd highest selling machine in Williams history. Back in 1979 when it was released you could find a Flash pinball machine just about anywhere, every Arcade had one, every movie cinema complex had one and a lot of milk bars and corner stores had them too. I loved this machine as a teenager, when I think back about pinball's Flash is ALWAYS the first one that comes to mind and it was always going to be number 1 on my have to have list for many years. Flash was the first pinball machine to have continually rising background sounds that helped to add to the general atmosphere of the game during game play, I am sure that these new sounds also attracted players to the machine as well. Flash also has the typical lightning fast Bumper section that were installed on most Williams machines from this era, as well as having an awesomely fast spinner shot available to fire the ball back up to the top 1-2-3-4 rollover lanes where you can increase your X Bonus. The champion players on Flash were able to score 50,000 points by knocking down the centre 3 targets 3 times to receive "Super Flash", the 5 drop targets on the right could be hit using the lower right flipper or the extra right flipper mounted midway up the playfield.
I decided to completely rebuild the cabinet on the Flash, the photo's will show you why, as the original cabinet was just rubbish, so, just like my Gorgar I went off and bought the ply and started all over again. I created my own paint stencils for this machine by using a clear contact paper , sticking it over the artwork on the old cabinet, cutting to shape and then transferring the cut stencils from the old box to the new cabinet for spraying. I also did a full playfield tear-down , polish and restore including some new PF plastics, flattening some plastics, removing and flattening of some inserts and a bumper cap mod, I covered th eapron with a new apron decal, which looked fantastic and this machine also received new chromed legs and came up great in the end. Heres some shots of the day it came home
Below I will show you the start of the cabinet build process, ANYONE can do this if you have the correct tools and take your time
I sprayed my base in a Black Satin finish.
Below you can see the white spray starting, note I have taped any joints between stencil sections and also note the extremely light coats I used, I did 4 light coats in total.
The next shot gives you an idea of how I had transferred my home made stencils ( in preperation to spray the red sections in this case ) after cutting them from the old box and applying them to the new black box.
And here is a close shot of the end result
A few years back you could get great apron decals like the one below from Pinball Rescue in QLD Australia, like many good businesses re-creating older art for pinball restorers....good old Mr Pinball himself shut them down.....nowadays you cant get this type of decal anywhere as NO-ONE is doing them....its shame to think about that , especially when you compare the 2 photo's......thanks again Mr Pinball, your'e so good for this hobby !
Here is my finished playfield. The first shot has the original caps.
And this is the mod I did to the caps
And a closer look
|
