Black Rose Pinball Machine
Introduction
At the 2011 York Pinball show, I played this machine for
the first time. It was owned by Eric, who organized the show.
I was very impressed by the game play, the theme, the music, etc.
As a result, I decided to start looking for one. About a
year later, a local pinball friend found this machine on Craig's List.
We went to go see it, and purchased it from the owner. The
price was very reasonable, and I almost missed out on it as another
buyer was ready to step in if I did not buy it.
Since
restoration, I have come to really like the game play and the level of
difficulty. One of the mods was to switch some white and blue
lamps to LEDs, which really causes the machine to shine.
Repairs and Mods
Typical condition of playfield before restoration. I used Novus 2 to clean
and polish the surface. This is a Diamond Plate playfield.
The playfield was in really great shape, and except for a tiny chip under a ramp flap, had no paint loss. This is because the machine was HUO for the past 15 years. However, it not been cleaned in a while, and the whole playfield was very dirty. I was able to restore its condition to like-new with Novus 2 as can be seen at the top of this page.
Original condition of the left side of the cab. The red has faded. The
other side has no fade.
Head repainted with translucent paints.
Cab repainted. Note also the cab protectors for the flipper buttons.
The cab was faded on the left side, so I used translucent paints from Sharpies to repaint the cab. The before and after pictures are shown above. Be sure to use fresh pens to reduce streaks.
Bottom edge of the canon body lid was missing, and right side of the
hinge was broken off.
One of the prominent features of this machine is the canon, which you load with the pinball, and that is fired at targets. You can control the targeting, and is a fun part of the machine. The bottom edge of this canon lid was missing, but I was able to recast it with epoxy. The right hinge point was also broken off, so I repainted the missing line as can be seen above.
New cab speaker. Size is 6 1/2".
The surround foam on the cab speaker was completely ripped up into shreds, and it greatly affected the sound quality. I installed a new 6 1/2" woofer in the cabinet, and it sounds good. I might add a powered sub one day, but it is quite acceptable for now.
Broadside scoop lined with felt to dampen the ball.
On
occasions, the ball will not enter the scoop at the center of the ship
when fired from the canon. The ball seems to rattle around and
bounce out. I decided to try and dampen this by lining the scoop
with adhesive felt. After that, the shots into the broadside
scoop are more muffled, but time will tell how effective this is.
One
final annoyance is the occasional airball from the flippers that hits
the low hanging cross-playfield ramp. I am working on a fix for
this. At this point, I am convinced it is not due to bounces off
the canon lid.
Links
Parts for this machine from Mad Amusements,Marcos, Bay Area, and Mr Pinball.
Log
9/15/12 - Machine purchased from Diane and Ron Cudd.
3/30/16 - Machine sold to Steven and Tabbie. They are real happy about owning it.
