I’m on a roll with Data East games lately. Shortly after Guns N Roses left, this Star Wars came in for a cabinet restoration. Luckily, the owner obtained the cabinet decal set from Phoenix Arcade. As I’ve always said, Phoenix makes the best decals.

After inspection, I could tell this game had been moved many, many times. There were numerous nicks and scratches throughout that would all have to be repaired. The bottom edge of the lower cabinet was starting to crack. This required special attention.

Most DMD pinball cabinets are black, this one was blue and it had to match the decals exactly.  I brought a head decal to my local Lowe’s store and they color matched it perfectly. While the paint was inexpensive, they only offer acrylic enamel. That’s okay for a wall in your house, but not durable enough for a pinball cabinet. An oil based clear enamel was sprayed over the blue in the final step. This brought the glossy shine up to match the decals and increased durability.

A couple of finishing touches on this game are the powder coated gloss black legs, rails, lock down bar and back box hinges. I painted all the bolt heads with gloss black enamel to match. One thing unique to this game is the glass retainer that is mounted at the upper part of the playfield glass. This one is metal and was able to be powder coated. The stock part is plastic. This metal part came from a Data East Laser War (Data East’s first pinball machine.)

The playfield on this beauty had already received the full Pinball Shark royal treatment a few months earlier. It got a full shop out with new rubber, new old school Bally red posts, a flipper rebuild, Cliffy protectors, clear plastic protectors, new pop bumper bodies and caps, custom target decals and full LEDs throughout. R2-D2’s arms were also repainted to match his body as they yellowed with age. Now, they look like new again. Like the rest of the game. May the Force be with you.