Beware of deals in Pittsburgh

[RayB]

Beware if any "too good to be true" deals pop up on Ebay or elsewhere for classic pinball machines and video games... they might be full of sludge!

http://www.papa.org/flood.php

[froggerman]

Interesting comments about the number of destroyed machines. Unless the machines were running when they got wet, I really don't see why most of them would not be salvageable. The most important thing would be to wash them off with clean water before the crud has a chance to dry. Then dry them well.

[RayB]

How exactly do you go about washing out mud that has diesel fuel and other crud mixed into it, out of 232 pinball machines, before they dry out....?? And then expect all the mechanical parts to work properly?

[daywane]

I would like to try?
but I will be honest, I hated working on pinball machines

[old school gamer]

Wood and water dont mix. More specifically,partical board or plywood and water dont mix. If there has been water absorbed into the wood , we are talikng about major swelling to the wood. If they were able to get to the machines in a timely manner,they may have been able to salvage some of them. Also, the electronics involved in the games would substain lots of damage. Its a shame somebody did not have the forethought to put these up on blocks or higher ground. RIP old friends!!! OSG

[knuttz]

And for years the only thing we had to worry about from Pittsburgh were zombies.

Seriously its a shame about those pinball machines.  I have one with minimal water damage and it was no fun to restore.

[Dougmeister]

How can you be a "Professional Amateur" anyway?

[mp2526]

Its a shame somebody did not have the forethought to put these up on blocks or higher ground. RIP old friends!!! OSG

At the very least save half the pins by folding down the head and stacking them on top of each other, but hind sight is always 20/20.

[MonitorGuru]

Dont forget (or perhaps you don't know if you didn't read the newsgroup threads). There was SEWAGE in that crap in those pictures.

No way do you even attempt to salvage ANYTHING porous (wood or other materials) if it has sewage on it.  There are some serious disease causing viruses and bacteria there.  Not to gross people out but there have been posts in this thread about people with even simple basement sewage backup due to huge rains and having USED condoms floating in the crap.

This is why insurance companies are more than willing to write off everything at a complete loss and *demand* it be immediately destroyed, or in the case of home basements, everything down to the concrete or green treat 2x4's removed and destroyed and then pay for intense chemical cleaning and disinfection.

Even if this was a super rare Computer Space or Discs of Tron or Major Havoc game floating in that crap, I would not accept ANY PART of it, no matter how 'clean' it was.

Once you throw out the expanding plywood, MDF or particle board, anything metal has already been compromized by being in sewage/rainwater for more than a few minutes. It's already rusting now waiting for the insurance adjusters (which require nothing to be touched before assessing as was posted by the owner of these).  

About the only thing that could be spared would be non-painted glass and highly glossy plastic parts that both can be blasted with chlorine and other chemicals to disinfect and clean.  But anything with paint, porous plastic, wood, metal, fiberglass is totally and completely shot.

But yes.. people need to be watching for damaged stuff for the next year or so from the east coast.

Sad as it is, but back in 1997 with the huge flood in upper minnesota / dakotas around here, a couple larger cities  (~90,000 people in largest two) suffered so much sewer and flood damage that you had to be careful buying used cars, even from dealers, for a couple years as they were being pawned off to make a quick buck. Insurers required separate inspection of vehicles and tracing of VINs to ensure they wern't in the floods.

[Gunstar Hero]

Wow man, what a disaster.

[Mugzilla]

Wow man, what a disaster.

You aren't kidding. I live in Pittsburgh, but in one of the "Higher ground" locations. The towns of Etna and carnegie flooded bigtime. BOTH towns were located above the 100 year floodline.

Nobody had flood insurace. 99% of the people found out that their homeowners insurance does not cover flood damage.

[mame_freak]

wow, i just saw the pictures. they are absolutly horrific.

the sad thing is, even though i know how nasty and toxic those machines are, i would gladly purchase a few at very reduced prices. Im so desperate to get  my hands on a machine, working or not.

besides it looks like these guys could use a little cash to help with the reconstruction.

Mame_freak