Hailrazer's Star Explorer Pinball Restore : All Games Matter!

hailrazer

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Donor 3 years: 2014-2015, 2017
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Hailrazer's Star Explorer Pinball Restore : All Games Matter!

My wife called me up last Wednesday ecstatic! She had bought me a "real pinball" from Goodwill for $50

Well bless her kind heart , she had bought me a pinball, kinda :D

She had brought home a 1977 Star Explorer Pinball by Rapid Pinball. A home use only pinball that was sold in Sears and Radio Shack for $399.

And it was badly in need of a restore:

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As you can see she needed a bit of work. So what's the plan.

1: New laminate on the entire thing
2: New plexi glass
3: Replace the backglass with a better one
4: Paint the legs
5: Make edge protecting rails for the bottom of the cab
6: Buff chrome rails.
7: Replace all rubber
 
Cool!

Now... can you show us a picture of all the magical elves you have helping you complete all these sweet restores so quickly. :)
 
Cool!

Now... can you show us a picture of all the magical elves you have helping you complete all these sweet restores so quickly. :)

It's amazing how fast you can do these things once you have a system. Look at how fast Markrl pumps out new cabs. Sheesh :D
 
What, no "under-the-hood" pictures?

By chance have you checked out the repair info at pinwiki on this model?

http://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Sentinel_/_Wonder_Wizard

You want some pics?

You wrote the book on these pinballs, so I assume you know what they look like :D

And yes before I even got home to see the game I had read your posts on the pinball forums and I read the Wiki several times.

I'm seriously thinking of doing the seperate flipper mod soon. Thanks for all the effort you put into it. :)
 
The seperate flippers mod does improve the play from what I hear.

A neat thing to do is convert the flipper buttons to Bally ones. Since people are now reproducing the flipper buttons in so many colors (including clear and transparent colors), you could do lighted flipper buttons.
 
I can hear the gears turning in his head, all the way across the Alabama/Georgia state line, thinking about putting in lit buttons on it.
 
I've got to admit your machine looks great! A billion times better than when you got it. :)

There's one on the Portland, Oregon craigslist for $75.
 
Did you paint the legs or did you have them powder coated?

Was that black Formica laminate you put on? That self stick vinyl the manufacturer used didn't last long, did it?
 
Did you paint the legs or did you have them powder coated?

Was that black Formica laminate you put on? That self stick vinyl the manufacturer used didn't last long, did it?

I painted the legs. The powdercoat on them was still in real good condition. So I just lightly sanded them and painted.

Yes I put on black laminate. I guess the original vinyl didn't do that bad lasting 30-40 years :D
 
My wife called me up last Wednesday ecstatic! She had bought me a "real pinball" from Goodwill for $50

Well bless her kind heart , she had bought me a pinball, kinda :D

She had brought home a 1977 Star Explorer Pinball by Rapid Pinball. A home use only pinball that was sold in Sears and Radio Shack for $399.

And it was badly in need of a restore:

se1.jpg



se2.jpg



se3.jpg



se4.jpg



se5.jpg


As you can see she needed a bit of work. So what's the plan.

1: New laminate on the entire thing
2: New plexi glass
3: Replace the backglass with a better one
4: Paint the legs
5: Make edge protecting rails for the bottom of the cab
6: Buff chrome rails.
7: Replace all rubber
the only one that was my favourite is my teams of the year
 
Awesome!

I got a Star Explorer as a Christmas morning gift in 1978. I was 10 years old.
$399 was equal to $1450 in todays dollars. Man, that must have been a lot of money for my mom and dad!
 
Awesome!

I got a Star Explorer as a Christmas morning gift in 1978. I was 10 years old.
$399 was equal to $1450 in todays dollars. Man, that must have been a lot of money for my mom and dad!

Man that must have been one heck of a Christmas!

And I thought my Big Wheel when I was 5 was the best gift ever :D
 
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