Egg World: The Pinball Machine

In early 2000 I got this great idea that it would be fun to take an old pinball machine and restore it, changing the theme to my own creation. April and I got our hands on a 1974 William's Lucky Aces machine that was in mediocre condition for about $50. From there it sat in my parents' garage for about one year.

Finally in mid 2001 I decieded on a theme and got to work sanding all the old art off the machine. I repainted the box and added the eggs to the side. This was going to be the chance for Magic Egg Girl's eggs to show their stuff. The theme: Egg World!

My kitchen was full of sawdust from the power tools but we all knew it would be worth it in the long run. I learned to paint and mask and my wife April graciously gave up her dining room to my project.

The backglass gave me a lot of grief and I was about to put this project back in the garage, when I was offered a place to show it off in a gallery (provided it was finished). I figured this was a terriffic chance for the world to finally appreciate eggs so I got back to work. With April's help, I settled on mirror tint for the backglass and after many applications I got an acceptable looking variety of eggs attached to the glass. I can't tell you how difficult it is to try to paint on glass that is going to backlit. It nearly drove me mad. I also added lights to the top of the score box to give it a little more zing.

I saved the playfield for last, even though I knew it was going to be the most difficult part of the project to figure out. I created custom images to use as playfield decals in Adobe Illustrator. I used the same mirror tint to cover the playfield and blocked it off with heavy tape. I cut and sanded the plexi-glass into the custom shapes that would become the bumper covers and bolted them down. For those of you who have never worked with plexi-glass, it is no easy matter to cut it into unusual shapes, and I still have many shards of plexi-glass for sale cheap in my closet. Finally, in July of 2001 my baby was finished. She showed at "The Truth Show" from July 19-Aug 15 to great response.

The game is fully playable and actually has some pretty good action. You get 2 plays for a quarter and hitting all the deviled eggs lights the Egg Salad Special. I made about $8 in quarters at the opening night of the show, though I did put about $350 worth of materials into the game. Unfortunately, later that year i moved to Japan to live and now it sits unused in my mothers garage. And now...the EGGS salute you!