I may as well introduce myself
I've been here for 6 months so I thought I'd introduce myself.
This all started for me about 7 months ago, June 2011 when I discovered Pachislo machines on Craigs List for uner $100 and I bought a Bellco Automatic.
My background:
I worked for a place called Lieberman Music Company for about 8 years in the 70-80's in a large pinball refurbishing shop. The company served all 4 neighboring states around Minnesota for their vending needs. There were about 6 of us refurbishing and rebuilding pinball machines for resale, machines that had been traded in by other companies for new models.
70% of my work was on electro-mechanical pinball machines. I would remove everything off the playfield, do a paint touch-up if necessary and rub-wax it clean. I'd wash the plastic pieces and reassemble with new rubber. I'd either touch-up the cabinet paint or repaint the whole thing in the spray booth. I'd clean and burnish all the electronic contacts.
The best part of the job was testing the game. If the pinball was a 4 player, I might spend almost an hour running it through them all. I also enjoyed troubleshooting electrical problems and I never came across a machine they didn't have schematics for. It was the most enjoyable job I ever had.
My best friend at the time had a non-working Pachinko machine of the period. I guess I was just pumped with ego then because I had negative zero interest in Pachinko. Maybe somehow in error I thought it was competition. I compared the complexity of the electro-mechanical pinball to the simple mechanical workings of pachinko and poo-poo'ed it.
But I've remembered my friend's pachinko across the decades, and found an interest in them 7 months ago when I sought information about my Bellco Pachislo.
There are other pachinko and pachislo forums on the net, but I find the community here at PachiTalk to be far and away the most helpful and friendly place... so here I am and I hope to return some of what I've obtained from this community.
I am a die-hard do-it-yourselfer. I consider myself to be very capable to tackle the projects I accept and finish them. I will want to try to make it before I buy it. Just to do it.
I've been a good husband and father of 3 for 18 years. I believe my wife would agree to that statement. My wife home schools, and between the cost of family, retirement etc there isn't a lot left in the budget for things like pachinko or pachislo. Maybe I can get a few pachinko machines rebuilt and try to sell them locally. Luckily there's not a large sum of money involved with them, just a lot of labor time. Maybe we can try to sell a couple pachislos too because they are so flashy and full of bling.
If nothing sells locally then future grand kids can have some old fashioned fun... Grandpa too.
Nobody else in my house shows a glance of interest in pachislo or pachinko, which I think is too bad. But I also understand these could never compete with X-Box live. I think it's great to read other people's accounts here and how some of their familes are interested in their machines. (sigh)
I'm also into computer graphics both 2D and 3D, I also have businesses in two online virtual worlds, Second Life and just starting in Spoton3D. My username in both worlds is Zerock Parx.
So that's about me, sorry for the rambling on...
Thanks for reading.
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Originally Posted by SteveFury
#UKPachinko
"I've stopped fighting my inner demons, we are on the same side now." 
Welcome to PachiTalk Steve!!
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