The Seven Deadly Playfields 2: Skateball

A little movement on the DIA, since both the Solenoid Expander and DW ramp sold. I should point out that I'm not doing this the way I said I would... I said I would factor in the value of the parts I'm keeping to lessen the dumbassedness of the index. But we'll see how things go... plus, if I can hit 100 on both indices, that means I got the stuff effectively for free and will be even better!

I posted the DW playfield plastics and a few misc parts. It doesn't look like there's a huge amount of interest... I think some of those plastics just don't show up broken or missing as I might like. There does seem to be interest in the Tardis and the right ramp, so I'm looking for a little action there. I had the pictures taken of the Skateball plastics, but decided not to post them. I don't expect much from them... most of the plastics aren't in that great shape.

One thing about post DW parts is you find out what people really need, because they send you emails asking if you have such-and-such a part. An English Guy asked me if I had the plastic that goes on top of the mini-playfield. I do, but I was going to sell it along with the rest of the mpf. Since I currently have the mpf disassembled for cleaning, I did offer to send him some reference pictures so he could try to make his own. Good for him, I say.

I've been cleaning the mpf in the evenings... last night I cleaned the grime off the gray buttons and put the plastic through the dishwasher. If I have time, today I'll try to clean the frame and the wood portion with the Doctor & Ace holes and maybe start reassembling it. Then I need to pull mine out of the game and start testing the parts... for example, see why two gray buttons on mine aren't working. Seeing how the wood on the new game's mpf has been chewed up, I proactively bought a Cliffy Protector for mine from Bay Area Amusements, who seem to be the only ones who stock them (Cliffy doesn't even list them on his site).

Oh, I became the Loop Champion on my game today! \/ ^_^ \/

And now, on with the show. Skateball is a game that I think is OK... hate its ugly 70s style (I like the art better on the Taito Brazil version, Rally), but the gameplay is fine... kind of reminiscent of Flash. The playfield is just under OK shape -- unlike Fathom, it has a quorum of its parts -- but has some wear and at least one gnarley scratch. At first I thought it was totally complete, but as I took the plastics off I found that a couple of them aren't from the game... the weird blue thing by the outlane, the thing just below the center bumper, and I don't know what's going on next to the left flipper. I glanced at some games in vain trying to identify what the plastics were, but no luck. They're probably extremely worthless, whatever they are. The bumper caps are not original either, and two of them are broken. Most of the plastics are warped and cracked, so I don't think they're worth much. I'm not expecting much from the hardware, either. So overall, kind of a disappointment. I can probably scrounge for parts and use some of it for experimental porpoises.

I was thinking about using Skateball for one of my secret projects, but I don't think it's messed up enough for me to want to sand off everything and hand it over to my wife for re-painting. Who knows?

I'll probably post the plastics on eBay this weekend. I think I'm going to see how/if the DW plastics sell, and based on that combine the SB plastics into lots. I can also hope that SB parts are rare and owners are desperate.

So you, young Skateball; we shall watch your career with great interest. I'm guessing that I'll be burning it for warmth in a few years, so anything better than that will be a pleasant surprise.