Original Black Knights go for good money on ebay. Id say sell it there before ripping it to smithereens... as that would just be wrong. If it were something else like 'judge dread'... id say blow it up... as that game stunk imop.
(if the price is low enuff... and your close enuff, I might be interested in you b.kinght... email me: xiaou2@hotmail.com)
Theres a lot of sites out there on pinball restoration. Some are very detailed. For instance... one showed that for weak flippers, you can unwind some of the coil a bit. (But that also may just need a new coil sleeve or genral cleaning and joint lubrication... or coil replacement...).
If your machines have electrical issues.. theres usually places you can take them to for reapirs. Look in the phone book. Also... look for local pin'heads (collectors), as they usually know some great places for repairs.
As for the playfields... these always go bad after a lot of use. However... theres protective measures that can be taken.. and things to do to revamp them like new.
The Black Knight 2000 I have has awefull cracks / chips / and missing graphics on the field. I finally found a printing place that will scan and print such a thing. My plan is to scan in my feild... then take the data home to edit and clean it up - adding in the missing works from pics from a friends machine. Then have the scan reverse printed (with UV fade resistent inks) on clear plasic film (4mil)... and then that gets cold laminited. This new art would then get placed over the old field -providing beauty and a brand new hyper fast surface for the ball to roll on. Im guessing the prints will cost anywhere from 150 to 300$ with all these options + scanning.
(Theres cheaper soluitions for people who just want something to look 'ok' and function 'ok'... like just grapping a large piece of clear mylar and overlaying it over the feild 'as is)
Ive also seen a site that a guy made a gothic pinball from a toasted machine. Its not a project for the non-electrical genious I tell ya. Id say youd be better of restoring to learn how the things work mechanically before attempting to build something thats more complicated. Also... you should know how to fix and maintain your new creation anyway least it share the same fate.
I also do want to build my own pinball though. My thoughts were to make it using a smaller marble sized ball thus it take up less space... and cost a lot less to build.
Im not electronically savvy enuff to figure out the high power coil issues tho... well, that and all the rest too! (but that being the worst of it all)
I made a proto long ago (to avoid the 24+ volt high power situation) that used a high speed motor with a string attached to a wooden lever. When the ball hits the contact, it would turn the motor on for a sec thus blasting the ball across the room via the lever. However... I think this might fail over time... and may suffer from lag or burning out the motor..ect.
Hopefully someday someone will create a Build your own mini-pinball kit... that can use a pc as the backboard, link for multiple player games / scrore transfers..ect., and for programming the custom machines. One could even make replicas of some machines... then possibly use modded pinmame to be the brain of your replica... dream!
To conclude this... a word of warning. Pinballs take a Lot of maintaining to remain in great shape... and even then... will still degrade. They are expensive to buy, fix, restore, and even to buy parts for. They require good mechanical knowledge... and the desire to tinker for hours to take appart several assemblies just to clean / repair things that are 2 to 3 levels deep on the playfeilds.
With that said... they are great fun to play : )
some cool links:
http://www.marvin3m.com/fix.htmhttp://www.woodman.org/pinballlinks.htm