A few months back I decided to try another home project. This time it was to make a playable whitewood of a rare game, to see if I could achieve it.
The project started late last year, and was progressing well until our friend Greg left us. Because he had been so involved with this in the background (a large amount of the parts used were given to me by Greg), I did not come back to it for quite a while after he passed, and then only because I kept thinking I could hear him say
"Just finish the f***ing thing, Nicky!" So a big thank you my friend.
Another big thank you to ddstoys - Dan sourced me a complete playfield from a stern and between the parts from Greg and Dan, the vast majority of what was done could be done.
Unfortunately, there are no documents for this game anywhere, no manual, no schematics, nothing. So I used a combination of photos and references to other games from this manufacturer to recreate a playfield plan and redesign mechanism placements, and manufacture some unique parts.
All games start with a whitewood. Pretty standard stuff to begin with. One thing I was not sure about was the shooter lane, but I decided on a technique. Initially a "v" groove was cut in undersize, then using a 3/4 inch dowel wrapped in course through to fine sandpaper, the shooter groove shaped. The whole thing took about half an hour and the result was pretty good.
<iframe src="
https://player.vimeo.com/video/131939526" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe> <p><a href="
">Test Multi ball Shooter</a> from <a href="
https://vimeo.com/user38045656">nick</a> on <a href="
https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
<iframe src="
https://player.vimeo.com/video/124286275" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p><a href="
">KP</a> from <a href="
https://vimeo.com/user38045656">nick</a> on <a href="
https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
![](https://photos.app.goo.gl/MDhTXT72bHgMeOVl2[IMG]http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad306/spaners/shooter%20sanding_zpsdydebbx8.jpg..http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad306/spaners/shooter%20finished_zpszhnbrtnw.jpg[size=12pt][b]A few more slots cut out, and some of the mechanisms test fitted. Once again, as I had no diagrams to work from, most things were progressed to a point, test fitted, and adjusted before moving on.[/b][/size]..http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad306/spaners/playfield%20top%20early_zpsfozcsqga.jpg..[size=12pt][b]The game has a unique mechanism to shoot the balls at the player for the start of multiball. With absolutely nothing to show me how it was designed, I came up with one that made use of a Stern ball shooter trough, cut in half. One half would shoot the ball up, and the other would become the "trough" area to collect the locked balls, mounted in a reverse direction. I am as far away from being an "engineer" as could be imagined, so this was to be very much trial and error. So I made up a mini test rig with the mounted parts.[/b][/size]|||http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad306/spaners/multiball%20launcher%20underside_zpsodlweioc.jpeg||http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad306/spaners/multiball%20launcher%20top_zpsgnvvoqpa.jpeg|||[size=12pt][b]Without any design diagrams, I was not confident, so when I tested it I was pretty happy[/b][/size] :D - [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnZZxBTP8K0&feature=youtu.be[/youtube].[size=12pt][b]Most of the mechanisms in place, and ground wires run for the switches so that these could be tested before getting to the high power devices.[/b][/size].http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad306/spaners/playfield%20bottom%20populating_zpsnpiwe8pq.jpg..[size=12pt][b]The most time consuming thing was making the wiring loom. perhaps the playfield and mechanisms took longer, but they were a number of separate projects to work through, whereas the loom had to be made completely from scratch, tested and tagged so I would not loose track of where they were going and have to re-trace things. I guess it might have been possible to buy the 50 or so different colour coded wires I needed, but I ended using up some stuff I had from some donor games, which meant I couldn't rely on a colour-coding system as there would be a number of doubles. Way too many hours went into this process, but luckily Mrs Pinnies4me took sympathy on me, and assisted with making me some Dymo labels as I worked through the loom to help keep things organised. [/b][/size]http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad306/spaners/switch%20loom%20wiring%20guide_zpsm0tw571g.jpghttp://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad306/spaners/switch%20loom_zpsa1skee6c.jpghttp://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad306/spaners/switch%20wiring_zpsrinqorr5.jpg[size=12pt][b]......and a lot of hours later, the bottom switches all wired up. The drop target banks were not initially installed, and stand up switches used to enable testing, as well as mechanical switches to test the opto switch circuits. Despite my best efforts to stuff things up, 48 switches were tested shortly after taking this photo - and 48 switches worked! Mrs Pinnies4me just stared at me as I danced around like I'd won lotto! I was pretty chuffed though![/b][/size] () http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad306/spaners/playfield%20bottom%20wired_zpscnpcqska.jpg[size=12pt][b]One of the hardest things to sort were the ramps. The left ramp begins with a unique entry which we'll see later, and when I went through my collection of old bits and pieces, found a Data East Teenage Mutant Ninga Turtles ramp, part of which seemed to fit the purpose perfectly, with little modification.However, the right ramp was another story. I scoured the web looking for similar ramps, and found a lot of candidates, but as I analyzed each one, found issues with radius points etc. ElTimbo86 has a lot of old ramps as you can imagine, and worked though them, still not coming up with a solution. Playing my MM while still trying to solve this one, I realised that its right ramp was exactly correct for about half its length, and that happened to combine from that point almost perfectly with the other bit of the TMNT ramp. Eltimbo came up with an old MM ramp for me, and with some special glue from my mate who has a plastics factory, the [i]Medieval Teenage Mutant Ramp (c)[/i] was born.[/b][/size] #*# http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad306/spaners/right%20ramp_zpsdb1w56uq.jpeg[size=12pt][b]The drop target banks were obtained for me by Ddstoys, and mounted, and finally all high power coils wired up and individually tested, again without any smoke......[/b][/size]...http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad306/spaners/finished%20bottom_zpsidrxvonw.jpg...[size=12pt][b]The first full power up after placement in the temporary donor cabinet was pretty nerve-racking, and switching it on one of the scariest moments I have ever had in pinball! I hit the switch and waited for pops/smoke/fire/electric shock - can't say I was disappointed that I got none of that, only the satisfying electronic dong of boot up! I'd love to say that once it was installed, everything worked perfectly, but of course there was a lot of tweaking of various things.[/b][/size][size=12pt][b]And finally, did it work? Well, in the words of the game's designer Mark Ritchie - " Very cool Nick! "Here's a video - Password is kp12345[/b][/size][size=14pt][b][url=https://vimeo.com/124355738]https://vimeo.com/124355738]http://s946.photobucket.com/user/spaners/media/shooter%20sanding_zpsdydebbx8.jpg.html.http://nicks.smugmug.com/KP/Kp2/i-FhD5DKM/0/XL/shooter%20finished-XL.jpg[/url][/b][/size])
