Home Builds

[Jay]

Have any of you taken a crack at building your own machines? I built three of them back in the '90s. My first was racing-themed and called Speed Bump.

I used acrylic polymer on the surface. Big mistake. It had LEDs that illuminated, but no sound.

My second attempt was more elaborate. Fun House was about 3 x 2 feet.

The clown's nose triggered an old novelty laugh box. It also had a digital score counter. Here's what the guts looked like.

I still have the last one I built. It's really small (22 inches long), but IMO has the best playfield. This one has a sound chip that I took from a toy. The sounds are similar to Black Hole.

 

[Jeff Strong]

Nice work! I always wanted to do something like this, but I wouldn't know where to start. Unfortunately, I'm not handy with tools.....at all.

 

[Richard B]

That's pretty awesome! Much better than I could ever hope to do.

 

[Jay]

Thanks! I love tinkering and I love puzzles. To me, building a pinball machine from scratch is just a giant puzzle. It's just a matter of coming up with a theme and making all the pieces fit. I'm in awe of the guy who built the Bill Paxton machine. That quality of work is way beyond me.