I’m starting this thread as a place to document my next pinball build project. As the title says, it’s going to be either a Medusa or a Centaur. Or, if I can find all the parts, perhaps both games.

To start things off here are some pics of the parts I currently have…most of which came from Allentown this year. Most mechs from a F2K, meteor and the harness of a Mr and Mrs Pac-Man. This is what got me thinking I could make this happen. I know these parts are not exactly correct as they are stern drop banks. But ain’t that close enough? I believe I could use these stern parts to make a Bally machine. What do you wicked smart guys think? Am I crazy?

Anywho, I’m thinking the F2K bank could be the upper drops on medusa. The meteor bank could be the center drops on Centaur. I have several Bally 4 bank drops from some extra Mr and Mrs Pacmans.

Opinions welcomed.

More to come….Stay tuned….

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Here’s a shot of the current donor cabinet setup. It’s a bit rough. I started to assemble it into a Gamatron….and it might be that someday if I can’t find a better donor machine to start from. But this is what I got for now, so Gamatron is out for now. I used this same cabinet to house a Fathom build last year till I found a better donor cabinet to convert to Fathom.

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What parts do you think I should be concerned about? I was thinking Medusa’s most unusual thing to make would be that red light box strip at the back of the playfield. I’m not sure what that thing even looks like outside of the game. I don’t have a zipper flipper mech yet. So that’s in issue too.

Pm sent. I want anything Centaur you got! Thank you!!!

I was thinking the memory drop frame from F2K would work the charm for Medusa’s memory drops at the top. I’d obviously have to fill in the missing slots that are not used on F2K. But that was my game plan there. What do you think? Stupid idea?

Well, that’s sorta the problem. That’s why I grabbed the f2k bank when I saw it. I’m open to using the correct drop bank assembly if anyone has one. I’d buy or trade ya for the f2k one. If not, I’m going to try and graft it on!

I went searching through my parts and found a few more mechs I’ll need. I forgot I had the center post for medusa. So that was a sweet find! The in-line mech I found only has 3 drops. I suppose 3 out of 4 ain’t bad but it’s not going to work.

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Quick little update. There are some behind the scene parts being acquired. Looks like both games have sufficient parts that I'm going to start on both playfield builds and go till I hit a road block. Then do other portions of work while I figure out the road blocks. The biggest one right now is finding a zipper flipper mech. If anyone reading this has one, knows of one or has a mchine with one in it for sale, please let me know. Who knows if it will all come together in the end....I may end up with a hot mess of a basket case medusa and centaur. I'm still gonna send it and have fun anyway! Stay tuned!

Looks like Medusa will be started first. Thanks to Pinsider Cheeks I have a bunch of Medusa parts coming in the mail as I type. They include a Nos playfield, reproduction apron, plastics and a stencil kit. It’s a medusa starter kit!

There is a centaur playfield coming from Pinballemporium in the coming weeks once we can meet up. Thanks to everyone who has offered up parts to make this possible! Thanks!

So with the medusa stuff showing up later this week. I’ve been pulling out parts I’ve been squirreling away for this very moment. Here’s some pics of the nuts I had hidden away.

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I’m mostly playing with parts at the moment. Nothing too exciting. The first thing I’ve been pondering is the F2K drop bank. It’s a cool item! It has 9 drop slots. I only need 7. So I’ll have to cut some off to shorten it up and fit it into the medusa. I sorta hate to do it since it’s 9 slots. But, it is what it is. And to move forward I’m going to slice it up. But first, I filled it in with some of the stuff I found in my hoard of parts.

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One hurdle to overcome with using the F2k drop bank is physically using Bally drops in a stern mech. The way the drop targets physically sit is slightly different by manufacturer, though their shape is basically the same. The Bally targets sit on a stationary ledge ,but the Stern ones sit on an arm attached to the memory coil.

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I’d like to have a Medusa that looks like an original machine even though its made up of junk and has the heart of a Stern game. So to get medusa images on the drops I could use white Stern drop targets and make medusa decals for them. But having stickers on drops is not appropriate for this era…it would bother me.

So that got me to wondering if Pinball Resource could hot stamp the medusa image on a stern style drop target? After an email and phone call, Steve graciously agreed to make some up in his free time for me! If that’s not fantastic customer service I don’t know what is! Thanks you Steve! I ordered up 20 drops to last my lifetime with this machine. Then it’s someone else’s problem. Ha!

We’re twins!!!

Here’s a few pics of my Fathom build. Luckily for me I was able to source two sets of Fathom parts when I was doing the work. I sold off the extra ones as I didn’t want to do a second Fathom. In hindsight I should have kept them. Oh well.

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You should call Steve and have him make you some drops while he has the jig set up for making mine. It will save him time. He will appreciate that!

Medusa parts came in the mail! Stay tuned!

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The Medusa playfield is NOS and has been clear coated. It’s absolutely beautiful! I set it up in the rotisserie and I spent a few hours just looking at it and soaking in its beauty. Then I waxed it and rubbed it with a cloth for a few more hours. I’m in love!

The playfield came with a repro apron, plastic, plastic protectors and a set of Bally drop targets.

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My first step is to get some rails on the playfield and fill up the back side with T nuts. I prefer to reuse all the old Bally parts whenever possible as apposed to reproducing or buying new parts. So I went to the parts playfields to see what I can harvest for parts. I had a few playfields with only t-nuts left…EBD and NGS. So I stole those. I found me some rails from an old Silverball mania. I also grabbed the flipper mechs.

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I don’t want to cut the drop bank either! I’m asking around for the correct assembly but I think this stuff is drying up. I’m happy to buy the correct drop bank from anyone who has one.

After some noodling. I think the F2K bank may actually fit centered on the medusa playfield. 7 drops in the center and leaving an empty drop slot on either side. It looks like there may be enough space to make it work. But, I’ll need to populate more of the playfield first to see if there will be a figment issues. So that may be a good compromise and save the cutting of the F2K bank. I can use the F2K bank for the time being till I come across the correct one. Who knows, that’s another days problem.

If anyone reading along has the correct 7 slot memory drop bank send me a message. I’m your guy!

Todays updates:
I filled, sanded and painted the SBM rails then installed them. Next, installed was the t-nuts. I ended with fitting most of the Yopps for the controlled lamps. Yopps are the best! I change all my Bally games over to them. I recommend them to everyone!

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Nothing real exciting going on. I’m sorta all over the place on this project. I tend to jump around on things. I’ve been chipping away at installing the yopps and GI sockets. I stapled in the wire tonight and soldered things together. I also started populating some of the top side with stuff I had on hand. I ordered up some more parts from pinball life now that I can see more of what I’m missing. Here are some pics of the progress.

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These showed up this week too.

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I messed around with fitting the upper drop target bank. I believe I can fit it in without cutting it up! At first I thought I would center the 7 drops and have an empty slot on both sides. But unfortunately the coil on the drop bank and the kickout hole coil are fighting for the same space. But if I slide the bank to the right and place the two extra slots on the left side it fits and looks like it will work. So that’s the plan moving forward. No cutting! Awesome!

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That’s nothing compared to the clear I need to carve out of those rollovers. Yikes!

I crossed my fingers and whispered sweet nothings and slowly bent the tab on that rollover back into place. It appears to be holding a star button just fine at the moment. Looks like a dodged that bullet.

I cleaned out all the roll overs. I think it came out decent considering the thickness of clear they have over them. Also added some switches to the back side.

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I’m tearing the drop mech apart today. Going to clean it all up best I can and install the new targets.

After disassembly, there are a few issues. One is that the drop target lift bar has broke in the past and has a less than stellar repair. I’ll have to come up with a fix there. Also the other side has a hairline crack just waiting to break. The rod that the drop fingers pivot on is worn out a bit. I’m going to see if I can source a new steel rod from somewhere or something.

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Drop bank is cleaned up and reassembled till I find some replacement parts. It’s nice to see the medusa drop targets sitting in the stern assembly. Not something you see every day! In the meantime while I figure out the lift bar repair, I mounted the drop bank to the playfield. I’m real happy with the results so far!

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Thanks Flaps! I appreciate the positive feedback. I’ve been using the pics in your playfield swap thread for reference on this build. They’ve come in real handy!

Today I took advantage of the beautiful sunny day and spent it cleaning pinball parts in the sun. It was great!

I collected up all of the pop bumper and sling shot assemblies I have hanging around. I also pulled some from one of the Pac-Man playfields. I gave them all a good bath and let them hang out in the sun with me to dry.

You can see some of the white plastic pop bases and one of the slings are yellowed real bad. These came off a playfield that was in a building fire. No amount of scrubbing will remove the yellowing. Luckily I have 4 pop bases that are brite white. I’ll use those.

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I found an old spinner missing all its paint. I cleaned it up and painted it with a can of red spray paint I found hanging around. I have a stickers for this after the paint dries.

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I picked out a bunch of switches I’ll need from the different playfields. I cleaned them up and straightened them the best I could. I fitted the pops and slings to the playfield for now. I’ll go back later and swap coils around. I’m not sure where the coils with the double diode are supposed to be. I also want to re-wrapper the coils. But I didn’t want to deal with that stuff today.

I finished up with mounting a few more of the clean switches.

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Today I made a center rail for medusa. The center rail and the left rail needed to be sanded to allow space for the metal posts. So those got sanded with a drum sander on the drill press. I quick coat of paint to cover the fresh wood then reinstalled. The left rail will need to come off again as there is one more cut to make where the ball gates attach to the rail. I’m going to wait to make this cut so it matches with the height of the ball gates I still need to find or make.

One interesting side note about drum sanding the rails. The freshly sanded wood smelled of stale cigarettes. That must be how soaked-in the cigarette smoke gets in these things. It was cool!

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The playfield got flipped over in the rotisserie so I could mount the ball trough. Those parts came from the SBM playfield…they cleaned up real nice!

The rest of the switches got mounted. The left hand red stand-ups are just a place holder for now. I have translucent amber lollipops coming for there to go along with the red and green ones behind the upper drops. But those aren’t here yet.

On the underside I filled in the wire harness loops. I didn’t have the large stand offs as per the original. I did have a bunch of extra red posts. Those make a nice sturdy mount that seem to work good enough. The yoppcicles take up less space than the original sockets, so those posts should be tall enough I was thinking.

Next on the to do list is the lower flippers and the 4 slot drop bank. That’s for later this week, as it’s back to work tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

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