It’s the little things
While I know that due to it’s design this machine won’t look like an ‘old-time’ game, I do want it to feel like a commercial machine when complete. This means that I will be spending a lot of time doing re-work to eliminate errors and sweating the smaller details.
An example of this mindset is my choice of screws. In past machines I had used black drywall screws to hold the misc parts including the marquee retainers. These screws are the wrong type to use but Home Depot didn’t carry any other black wood screws (and I didn’t want to paint steel screws for fear of scratching and rust.) At the end of the day the drywall screws really cheapened the look quite a bit.
For this machine I have purchased black anodized square-drive commercial screws. These were surprisingly hard to come by, but I was finally able to find them at McFeely’s:
