Playfield Has Arrived!

My highly anticipated new playfield for Black Knight has arrived.  I've been wanting one of these for a LONG time, but never had the chance until now to make it happen.  I do owe my wonderful Wife a hearty bit of gratitude, as she helped out on the purchase.  She also said that when the time comes for us to have our own house, I am REQUIRED to purchase a minimum of 4 additional pinballs and 2 arcade cabs.   Yeah, I picked me a good one. 

It's going to be a while until I get this thing swapped over, as I plan on doing a lot of cleaning up of the various mechanical and electronic assemblies in the process.  Don't worry, I'll keep you all nicely updated.  Until then, here's some shots of it for you.

Ahhh, the unboxing.   Carefully inspected for any damage before I signed for it.  I definitely won't need to buy any fresh bubble wrap for a while, a judicious amount was used.  Everything came through unphased and in perfect shape, though I do have the nagging feeling that I'd like to see a bit more protection, particularly at the corners.

This thing just looks amazing in person.  Such bright colors and crisp artwork.  I know that the startburst style inserts aren't the same as original, nor is the smooth and shiny clearcoat,  but I prefer it the way it is.  This is how the machine should have always looked when it was new.  Just look at those deep blues in the inserts!  I'll definitely be using LED's to keep those colors rich, and to avoid the killer heat that ruins them.

This is another departure from the originals,  and it's hard to properly catch it on a camera, but I sprung for the "Silver Knight" edition of this playfield, which features the upper playfield knight printed in metallic silver instead of a dark grey.  The ones sold by Bay Area Amusements were actually an over-run of the silver version.   Originally CPR planned on doing 35 of this version, with a serial numbered plaque.  They expected a few flawed ones in the printing process, so they ran 5 extras in order to make sure they would have enough perfect ones to sell.  Thankfully all 40 came out perfect, and the 5 spares went to Bay Area Amusements.... sans the laser engraving and serial numbered plaque.  Oh, and check out that perfect "Magna Save" disk.   Not too often that you see this spot where it isn't worn down to the wood.

So, that's what arrived via Fed-Ex today.  I'm quite a happy little camper at the moment.  It's going to be torture waiting to play again,  but this is a job that I simply must take my time and do it properly.  I have a few extra little plans for tweaks here and there which I hope will help out in the long run both in the way of performance and appearance.  This is going to be fun.

Oh, and by the way, I hate Fed-Ex.  It sucks being one of the last streets on the route, and waiting until 5pm on the dot to get my deliveries.  UPS is usually around the area more toward 10:30am.