Wedgehead Pinball Podcast

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We are joined on the show by our friend Todd Robinett, to discuss creating a pinball scene from scratch in a small town near the Oregon Coast.  He operates pins in his two businesses: the Merry Time Bar, and the Labor Temple Diner.

When Todd first moved out to Astoria, there were no pinball machines.  Now Astoria has 45 pinball machines on location in a town of 10,000 people, and Todd operates about half of these games.

Todd tells us all about his rare games strategy, the initial confusion that locals had to his pinball obsession, and how he was able to make Astoria a pinball destination.

The Salty Mermaid Cup

An annual, 2 Day IFPA sanctioned Matchplay tournament happens on Easter Weekend this year. Saturday 4/19 (Qualifying) & Sunday 4/20 (Finals).

Limited to 64 players. Registration opens on March 1, 2025. Register here.

Astoria Pinball League

Tuesdays at the Merry Time, 6:30pm

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IFPA director, and former women's world champion Zoe Vrabel is back on the show to discuss the past, present, and future of women's competitive pinball.  Zoe tells us all about the rise of competitive women's pinball, and what she would like to see in the future.

Stream the Women's World Championship March 29th-30th on Twitch through Backhand Pinball

Local Portland Women's events mentioned in the show:

Gator Queens - Every last Monday of the month at Wedgehead. IFPA sanctioned, registration at 6:30, tournament starts at 7pm.

FLiP - First Wednesday of the month at Ground Kontrol. IFPA sanctioned. Registration at 6:30, tournament starts at 7pm.

Good Luck, Babe! - Second Friday of every month, at rotating locations around deep SE Portland. Website here.

Other Resources:

Belles and Chimes: find or start a local chapter

IFPA Resources

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In this episode, Alan is joined on the show by Zoe Vrabel, an IFPA director and former Women's World Champion to discuss some of the legendary women who have worked in the pinball industry, and we discuss their impact on the games that we all know and love.

....but, we do swear sometimes.

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This episode our special guest Glenn Waechter (of the Saw Homebrew machine) joins us on the show, to Die on the Hill for Stern's 2001 game, High Roller Casino.

This early stern, rare non licensed title wasn't well received upon its release, as evidenced by all the bad reviews we found, and it's low overall rating on pinside.  But it was loaded with cool mechs and toys, and actually features a very deep ruleset, complete with 3 wizard modes. And Glenn definitely loves this often-hated game.

...but we do swear when we get excited, and spoiler alert: we got excited. This is your foul language warning.

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This episode is all about the history of the licensed band pin starting way back in the late 1970s, with a couple dots in the 1990s, and finally into the explosion of them in the 2010s until today.

We talk about the effect it has had on the industry, and why, love 'em or hate 'em, old man band pins are here to stay.

Warning: If you don't know by now, the explicit warning you see listed in your podcatcher is there because we swear when we talk.  So, sensitive ears be warned.

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This is the finale episode of our 3-part trilogy of episodes that began with the first episode: Pinball Buyer's Guide, continued in our episode Pinball Maintenance, and finally culminates in this episode right here.

Alex and Alex talk about coming full circle on a pinball machine and give you some hot tips for kicking that giant box of lights down the road.

And if you're new to the show: we do all of that whilst swearing.  This is your warning.

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Companion piece episode here from Alan to talk about how to maintain that pinball machine that Alex convinced y'all to buy in the Pinball Buyer's guide episode.

There's a lot of bad or wildly unnecessary advice and ridiculous precautions out there on the forums, and it can get confusing fast as others loudly argue amongst themselves about what cleaner is or is not appropriate.  Do we replace the balls immediately out of the box? Every 300 plays? Every 10k plays?

And so, we wanted to make this episode to cut through all the noise and help you learn how to properly clean and maintain your pinball machine, when to replace balls, cleaning rubbers, and touch on flipper maintenance like rebuilds too.

Pinball Maintenance 101 in an easy to listen to format!  With cuss words!

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Scott & Ryan, the creators of the Pinball Map are back on the show to defend Scott's DOTH game: Stern's 2007 machine, Wheel of Fortune.  It's got a tweaked lower playfield, a theme nobody asked for, and code that was never completed.  But Scott loves this game. So listen up as Ryan and Alan read him all the bad reviews pulled from the internet and get his reaction to the haters.

Obligatory: Yes, we swear on this show by adults for adults.

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This is a sequel to our earlier episode 16 - So You Wanna Buy a Pinball Machine?  And in that episode (which we HIGHLY recommend listening to first) we mostly discuss a lot of the things that we wish we knew before we bought our first pinball machines, including a lot of the downsides that you might not even be thinking about.

But this episode is a deeper dive taking the plunge, and in particular, buying used games, which is a whole lot different than buying new machines directly from a distributor.

Alex give a lot of advice for sites to use to search for games, tools and vehicles for moving games, and what to look for.

We mention in the episode a very handy pinside thread that has a list of vehicles that confirmed will fit a pinball machine in them, but here's an easier to read at a glance list from the pinball wiki

As long time listeners know, we're naughty boys on the show and sometimes curse throughout our discussions. This is your warning.

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This episode features an interview with Ryan and Scott, two regular guys and former roommates who created the Pinball Map all the way back in 2008 right here in Portland, Oregon.

Alan talks to Ryan and Scott about the history of this incredible resource, and they talk about the expansions to bring in more cities and regions, the development of the app, the changes in features over the years, and we end the episode discussing some fun stats and some talk about angry operators.

You can and should support them via their own Ko-fi account 

Just remember, this is a show that features some occasional saucy language. 

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