Spiderman Shop Job Part 1

A friend of mine recently picked up a Stern Spiderman from an operating location that was looking to change up their machines. He called me to tell me about the deal and I asked him if the game had seen a lot of use. He replied "Uhh yeah." (turns out it had over 100,000 plays on it over 7 years and the operator had never really maintained the game in all that time)! I went over to look at the game and my mouth hit the floor, it looked like someone had taken the playfield, thew it on a dung heap and then proceeded to slide it down a muddy wet hill. It was BAD, like HOLY CRAP BAD! The playfield surface was greasy, blackened, worn, wear spots in places. The toys were black with filth, the cabinet was black on the inside, like magic marker black! Blackest night black, you know! I just stared at it and was like: "So......... um, where should we start?"

Top area of the dirty playfield

7 Years of service and filth

Yuck!

He and I then proceeded to shop the game out. "Shopping" is when one takes a pinball machine and cleans it, fixes it, and replaces worn or broken rubbers, balls, parts, and toys. Good operators might do a full tear down shop job like this once a year. While a collector might only do something like this when he's about to sell a game. In this Spiderman's case, a job like this was LONG overdue!!!

We got some 91% alcohol (higher concentration is better, but this worked fine) some magic erasers, about 20 lint free soft shop towels, Novous Polish #2, and went to work.

We started by taking LOTS OF PHOTOS of the playfield and then formulated a plan of attack. We decided to start by taking the entire populated playfield apart to the wood (this means every mechanism, ramp, plastic, screw, even the washers and posts). I grabbed some cups and labeled them by area so that pieces wouldn't be lost (there's hundreds of parts on a populated playfield, not counting everything else in the game cabinet). 

These cups were a lifesaver!!!

Then the plan was then to clean everything that could be salvaged, take note of things that could not be, so that replacements could be located later, clean the wood and  polish it as much as possible, and then reassemble everything!

Easy right?!!?!?

Errrrrrrrrr..........

Uhhh, hmmmmm.....Where did these......

Gah!!! It's on my hands?!?!?!

Gross!!!!!!!!!!

Julian Noa style discombobulated announcer voice: 
"Are Eric and his friend way over there heads? Will there be enough shop towels to finish the job? Will they be able to put everything back in its place??? Will the machine catch fire before everything is said and done?!??!? Find out on our next episode...I mean entry!!!"