Caffeinated Pinball: The Firepower Pinball Coffee Table

[dstone]

I love arcade games. So naturally, I was excited to hear that a local arcade was setting some non-working games out by the curb last week. I rushed over and found a pinball machine. As I looked it over, realizing that I couldn't bring it back to life, I suddenly thought of how nice the play field would look as a centerpiece for a coffee table. I hauled it home, made some measurements, then set to making some models in 3D.

(Clicking on an image will load a larger version)

I've built it about four times in 3D on the computer, drawing out each board, cutting it, then fitting it together as I would in real life to make sure everything will work out correctly.



First of all, I would like to thank Cactus Jack's for setting the Williams Firepower out; without them, this project wouldn't have happened.

I cleaned up the play field and removed the Sharpie writing. Almost everything is there; it's just missing one of the little 'cones' and the spinner assembly on the upper left side and the rubber around the flippers. I'll try and track down those parts before finishing off the top. The play field is pretty beat up, but I love the character it adds to it. There's no telling how many thousands of games have been played on the 27-year old machine.

(Sorry for the blurry pictures, I haven't quite managed to develop a steady enough hand for this particular cell phone camera)