Getting the machine onto its feet

My mate Lennie’s son came around at 11 o’clock this morning. He was meant to help me with getting my pinball machine down my spiral wooden stairs….

To my surprise it went without much of a hitch. After just 10 minutes the pinball machine was in the cellar of the house and ready to have the legs mounted.

I wasn’t sure how best to mount the legs. Whilst surfing over the last couple of weeks, I remember seeing a web-site with recommendations on how to do it, and that it was necessary to be careful because of the weight of the machine. As I hadn’t bookmarked this page it wasn’t easy for me to find it again, so in my impatience I just attached the legs one at a time to each of the four corners, trying to match up the legs with the “indents” in the corners of the body.

Pairing the legs up wasn’t too difficult, as the height adjusters for each pair (of front and back) were very different, two legs being far more extended than the other two. I assumed these were the back legs and tried to match each leg with the indents as best as possible. I did the same for the front legs.

To transport the pinpall (on its back) I had used a trolley and the body was still on the trolley, so it wasn’t too difficult to fit all four legs on to the body of the pinball, as even the bottom corners were exposed.

A WORD OF WARNING: I used a wrench to tighten the leg bolts. Despite the fact that I had tried to be careful, I actually managed to overtighten one bolt in one of the legs and can only assume I stripped a thread, as all of a sudden the torque force reduced considerably. I immediately stopped tightening and left the bolt as it was. Not very professional I know, but I’ll keep my eye on it.

Now to the task of setting the pinball upright. I was really concerned with leveraging the pinball down on just two legs, just because of the weight of the thing. However, not having any other alternative I just went for it – the theory being, if I took enough of the load whilst lowering the machine, the rear legs wouldn’t come under too much stress.

So having put a mat on the floor under the bottom of the rear legs (to prevent them from slipping) I took the top of the pinball by the front legs and pulled the front down. This was easy until the rear legs met the mat and I had to force the front down taking as much of the weight as possible.

It all happened quite quickly after that. I got the machine onto its four feet and it was actually stable! Maybe I had done everything right!

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