CAUTION: This post has lots of pretty pictures. If you don’t like pictures OR if you don’t have eyeballs turn back now.

It was unusually warm today for December in RI, so I figured I better take advantage of it. I spent all day in my normally freezing garage working on my Baby Pac-Man playfield.

I plan on installing the playfield overlay from Phoenix Arcade. In order to do that, I have to remove everything from the top of the playfield and prep it. I’ve been reading tips on how to do this, and someone mentioned it is a good idea to build a box to hold the playfield while working on it. This is pretty much a must unless you want to crush all the fun stuff on the underside of the playfield (lights, wires, coils, etc…).

The guide I’ve been reading recommends building a box out of 2″x6″s. This seemed like overkill. I don’t think I need something that heavy duty. It’s not like I’m going to be walking around on the playfield or anything. I opted to use 1″x8″s. I couldn’t use 1″x6″s because it wouldn’t be tall enough for everything hanging off the bottom of the playfield. Here is the amazingly cool box that I built:

I had to cut those notches in it to account for things that were very close to the edge of the playfield. Here it is holding the playfield:

OK…now for the fun part - removing everything from the top. This took forever. Here is what it looks like naked.

I took all the pieces that I removed, put them in a box and shook it up really well. Actually, I made a pseudo playfield with them using a piece of polystyrene foam insulation:

That stuff is pretty useful. I was able to actually screw the posts right into it. Now I should be able to remember where everything goes when I go to put this jigsaw puzzle back together.

Along 3 edges of the playfield, there were black wooden pieces that were stapled from the underside of the playfield. I carefully pulled these off, leaving the staples sticking up in the air. I snipped them off:

…then I went at them with a nail set…

…no more staples.

After doing this, for staples that were banged partially out, I pulled them all the way out from the back using a small screwdriver. Some of them I just left in. The wood trim will cover the holes, so they won’t be seen.

Some no talent assclown repaired 2 coils and must have lost some of the screws to put the mounting brackets back on. He uses drywall screws as replacements that were way too long. What a dork. One of them actually didn’t do much damage. The other one, however…

Here it is after I changed it out for the right size screw:

You can see the very tip of the screw I used, but it is still actually below the top of the playfield. I put some wood glue in that area and clamped it down. Hopefully that will take care of it.

Here’s a shot of the playfield overlay compared to the old playfield:

That’s it for now. I’ll be back at it tomorrow. To close, here’s a pic taken from the perspective of a pinball that I thought was kinda cool.