So with all the newbs getting into pinball lately, it's occurred to me that many on here may never have seen the pinball ninja blog at www.pinballninja.com.

You can go there, of course, but without a user name and password, you won't be able to enter. And you might think that sucks, but WAIT! You too can gain access to the ninja's secret lair.

The blog is operated by Clay Harrell (aka Shaggy from the TOP videos), although he might deny this if you were to ask. And say what you will about Clay, love him or hate him, he knows his stuff INSIDE and OUT. His knowledge of pinball is vast and deep and truly astounding. I like to think I know what I'm talking about when it comes to pinball, but compared to Clay I know nothing.

Anyway, the point is, the pinball ninja blog is, by far, the most valuable resource for repair information I've ever encountered and I *highly* recommend that anyone looking to expand their knowledge in the realm of pinball repair get in on it. Screw the old pinrepair.com manuals, the ninja site is where it's at. The posts are archived in order of posting and in order of hardware system (i.e. Bally -35, Gottlieb System 3, Williams EM, whatever) and searchable. After you read a dozen posts on the same hardware system, it becomes pretty clear what the common problems are and how to fix them.

I've been into pins for 8 years and I'm still learning new tricks from the ninja blog.

So how do you gain access? Well, if you go to www.pinrepair.com, you'll see a section called "Pinball Online Webzine". If you click on the "donate" link, you'll be taken to this page:
http://pinrepair.com/donate/

Specifically see here:


I don't know what Clay views as "something nice", but I sent him a $25 donation a long time ago and received a hearty "thank you" and a user name and password to www.pinballninja.com. I would imagine a similar donation would yield a similar result.

If you think paying for this sort of thing is below you or that you don't want to give Clay a cent because he pulled down most of pinrepair.com, I suggest you swallow your pride and think again. You'll forget all about that $25 when you repair that pinball machine on your own thanks to the skills the ninja taught you. IMHO, it's worth every single penny.

My name is J. Santiago... and I approved this message!

D

Thanks for the tip.

Are they anything like the PinRepair documents? I find them a tad confusing and hard to follow.

While I do agree that it's the best resource on teh interwebz for our hobby, I do have to wonder how his co-authors feel about him charging for the information -- yourself included, Corey!

I guess its no different then selling a printed repair manual.

But he's not the sole author. He's selling other people's work without sharing the revenue, or so I've been told.

That's someone else's battle. Fact of the matter is a very high percentage of machines, and I'm betting above 90%, have been repaired, maintained or saved as a direct result of pinrepair.com/pinball ninja.

Does anyone here who knows one thing about repairing a machine not owe all of that directly or indirectly to Clay?

I sent him 30 bucks awhile back, he is also doing videos of his repairs too which is awesome!!

That's pretty awesome. I'll pitch $20 later today.

You are incorrect.

Forget everything you knew about the old pinrepair.com. The information currently at pinrepair.com and the information on pinballninja.com is all Clay's. Anything he couldn't lay sole claim to on pinrepair.com was removed - that's why only the EM and Gottlieb System 1 stuff remains.... and the restoration tips/how-to info.

The pinballninja.com stuff was all composed by Clay within the last couple of years, and is in a very different format from how the old pinrepair.com was laid out. It's basically a (very, very extensive) blog. Again, the archives are searchable, sorted chronologically and by system.

Whether you buy into it or not, I personally don't give a flying shit. Think whatever you want about Clay. But as someone who's been fixing pins for a long time, take it from me -- you won't find a better resource.

Yeah it's neither here nor there really, I just remember that being a huge debate.. frankly I didn't know this existed 'till you pointed it out, so thanks for that. You're not such a prick after all.

- B

+1

No. While his guides have come in handy for me from time to time, I do not owe ALL of what I know about repairing machines directly or indirectly to Clay. I would say I owe the majority of what I know about repairing things to my father, and some of my teachers.

D

Does he still updates the blog? I thought it was a one year project just to see how much pins he fix in a year.
It was fun and contains a lot a stuff not included in the pinballrepair guide.

that was before "the incident".

he updates it pretty much every day !

Thanks! Didn't know that, I will have a lot of stuff to read
Time to make another donation!

This was my rudimentary understanding (correct me if I'm wrong).

At one point there was controversy because after he shut the site down, he "was" going to allow access to the full pinrepair.com site if you donated to a pinball museum. But the other contributors got wind of that and they wanted him to open the resource to everyone for free the way it was originally created. At that time the Pinball Ninja Blog closed as an open resource as well. I don't think it was ever really about making money off the information, Clay was giving the finger to all those who fed off his efforts and (I'm just assuming here) were involved in making life difficult for his pursuits.

He knows that we all have the original (and last version) of pinrepair.com backed up and accessible offline. Who doesn't?

Does he still talk in the 3rd person and slander all Canadians?

As a canuck who goes over to his new flipper city club (different then tilt town, another story), Clay has never been a bastard to me and I appreciate what he has done for pinball like Corey says. I know he has ruffled many peoples feathers but not mine. n = 1.

I have some of the pinball ninja info and the pinrepair stuff and I agree with Cooke, Clay is a fountain of knowledge.

Help set the record straight then.

Read my post above.

What you wrote above supports my understanding, and is only the later half of the story.

You suggested forgetting everything about the old pinrepair.com (which Clay has been slowly re-building with his own information), but it's out there, impossible to take back, and undeniably one of the greatest repair resources for pinball enthusiasts and collectors (besides the Pinball Ninja blog). It's not the "only" resource, it's one among many, but significantly impacted the hobby at a critical time, and increased the number of working older machines - no matter who or how many actually authored it.

How long it takes before you got access to the pinballninja lair? I got the 'thank' message by Clay saying another email will give access but receive nothing (two days ago).