Hercules Pinball Machine

[daboks]

Has anyone ever tried to restore a Hercules Pinball "Worlds Largest Pinball Machine"?  I came by one for sale and was wondering how much trouble i would be getting into if i bought it.

[knagl]

Wow.  I've never tried to restore one, but I've played one before -- those things are MASSIVE.  It uses a billiard "8-ball" as the pinball.

I'm sure it'd be a fun project if you have the time (and space) to work on it, but I can't imagine a lot of people out there have worked on one of those.  If the electronics aren't working, that might be an issue.

More about the game at the Internet Pinball Database.

[Fourbyracer]

I kinda have a rule when looking at games to restore.  If the playfields are light in color, then it is much, much harder to restore and make it look right--so I pass on those.  This one is full of light, and bright colors which would be extrememly hard to match in the first place and harder to make look good if you have to re-paint.  So from that side of things, if the playfield needs to be restored, that would be very hard indeed.  I don't think I have ever seen any plastics available for it either.  So to answer the question of how hard to restore it, it obviously first of all depends on cosmetic condition, and second on mechanical condition (as I would think most things would be interchangeable there with other Atari Pins).  You may be getting into building some custom parts in certain places too.  Overall, you better know what you are doing and have a good knowledge of pinball mechanics as it sure end up a pretty big project. (pun intended)