Pinjuries, Secret Hidey Holes, and Other Adventures in Pinball Restoration

Our interview with pinball restoration artist, Ashley Ludwig

Ashley Ludwig is a pinball restoration artist based out of Rochester, New York. That’s a crazy job. There are only like six people who do it professionally on the entire planet. You’re like a hundred times as likely to be in the NBA as to be a pinball restoration artist. On the plus side, you’re way more likely to be able to fit in cars than those giant weirdos.

We sat down with Ashley to discuss how she got started, what she likes about the gig, and some of the nastiest pinjuries we’ve ever seen. Stick around, In the seven years she’s been doing this, she’s seen a lot of wild shit.

Nudge: You have such a nutty job with so many really specific skills. How’d you get into it?

Ashley Ludwig: I've always been artistic. I've always wanted a career in art. The first job I had, I worked for Wegman’s, which is a local grocery chain doing sign work. I started when I was 16. Then I went to school at the fine art studio at RIT, and by the end of that, I wanted to find a different job.

N: Did you teach yourself sign painting?

AL: I got hired by Wegman's kind of on chance because the store I was applying to just needed someone to do it. Every store had one person to do that and ours was going out on maternity leave, so they needed someone right away. Of course at that age, I had no idea what I was doing. But somehow they kept me and I was able to develop my free-hand skills. It was years and years of just like practicing and kind of failing at it.

N: That’s wild. So it just became muscle memory after a while.

AL: Wegman’s was great training because mentally it's really difficult. At times I would be, like, on a giant ladder on a Saturday and, you know, noon is the busiest hour, on the busiest day, and I’m in the middle of a shopping center. Every single person needs to walk by and tell me how high up I am, about talk about whatever and I'm trying to just, like, paint words.

N: What’s the weirdest thing you’ve found in a cabinet?

AL: Some woman brought a machine in and either her son or nephew, or someone was using the pinball machine as a hiding place. Nobody else had ever opened it. So there were like packs of cigarettes and his social security card. I guess, if you're a guy and you need a hiding spot, You know, a pinball machine is a great place for you to hide things because your wife or girlfriend, or whoever is never going to open it.

N: I’d say that’s traditionally true, but I’ll get so much crap from Belles and Chimes if I don’t push back against that idea a little.

I just mean these were designed by men for men so it's still pretty male-dominated. Like we bought a collection of machines from a woman that had just gone through a divorce. She was there to sell his pinball machines off. I opened it up and there were, like, porn magazines and women's underwear. (laughs) So I had to clean all that out of there before I get started. It's like, ‘well I guess it’s time to put the rubber gloves on!’

N: Do you listen to tunes when you’re painting?

AL: I do. I'm a really big techno and house music fan. That’s nice because usually these projects take a long time, so I’ll listen to a six-hour set. I can just put my headphones on and play something and not touch the playlist again all day. It’s atmospheric music, not a lot of lyrics.

N: Do you own any pinball machines?

AL: I always said that I don't need to own any because I have access to so many machines at work. But this past year I bought an Iron Maiden. We had one at the shop, and I played at the shop. I go to the bar, I played at the bar. I go to the show, I played at the show, you know, I come home and I'm like, dang, I would love to own one. So I finally bought one and put it in my studio apartment. So that says a lot.

N: A studio apartment? Wild. Where is it located?

AL: When I lay in bed it's right next to my bed. Yeah. I had to, like, I was like, if I do this, I might have to get rid of my couch -- and I'm totally fine with it. So yeah, it's a big part of my living space, but honestly, I love it.

N: Appropriately a Keith Elwin Pin. I watched this CNN piece where he basically talks about how his bedroom is all pins all the time.

AL: Yeah. I love Keith. He's actually a really great friend of mine and when he was in California he was a technician restoring games and he was working with a restoration artist. So he was basically doing the same thing, you know, that I'm doing. So we have a lot of like mutual respect for what we do. I Keep telling him like, Hey, if Stern doesn't work out, let's start restoring games.

N: It seems like Stern is working out.

AL: Yeah, it does.

N: Do you have any aspirations to do your own art for a pinball machine? Or is this sort of just a job

AL: Of course, it IS my job, but I do make work outside of work. My own personal stuff, but yeah, I'm always kind of like planning or thinking forward. If stern made an electrical mechanical modern game, I would love to do stenciling and design for a cabinet like that. That would be such a fun project.

N: It could be because we’re just pinball obsessed at this point, but everyone at Nudge has gotten way more into EMs (electromechanical) this year. There’s just something peaceful about them, like shooting horse. Can you talk about your EM work?

AL: I would love to talk about EM games -- they’re my bread and butter. I love wedge heads. I love restoring electrical mechanical machines. I think. The old Gottliebs have the absolute best, most beautiful artwork -- just a limited color scheme, but it's like, very graphic designy, comic booky, really just beautiful images. And I love them so much.

I'm an EMT player. But there's like a little bit of kind of a dance that you gotta do where. With modern games, I'm a little too stupid to remember all these modes and all these rules. And it's like, if I got to learn something, it's like, I got to, I have to have a, a friend show me how to do it.

N: TOTALLY, and a deep rule set sometimes feels restrictive, the opposite of a free flowing game. Everyone plays the same.

AL: Not only that, I have like a very like when I play EMS, I can feather between like a very light touch and a very hard touch, you know?

And I feel like there's a lot of players that have trouble like doing this. But yeah, I, when I'm like playing the Em's, I'm kind of like moving around and just like, I love it. I love clicking into like that gameplay.

N: What’s the gnarliest pinjury you’ve ever had/how many have you had?

AL: I feel like every single machine I touch I'm scraping my finger on something. I always joke and say ‘Oh, if I'm fixing your machine, and it makes me bleed, there's a $25 bloodletting surcharge added.’ But I'm constantly, I'm taking down playfields and cleaning everything. Doing rubbers and fixing mechanics and, you know, changing bulbs and doing all that. So it's just going to happen

I think the worst was when I was doing a quick, hard sand on something and I was just over-caffeinated and jacked up first thing in the morning. Maybe a little tired and maybe, you know, hung over too.

And I just started sanding and I didn't notice like a nail or one of those thin-like nail things sticking up. And I had already gone over it once, but it just happened to be one of those things that I missed until I came along and just completely ripped my thumbnail, like all the way from the tip of it down to the nail bed. Just ripped it in half. It was terrible.