Be great to see the prices/cost of this project....

If you are on Facebook, there is a closed group for WPC remake builds. Lots of the guys have made drawings and such of the unobtainable parts. wallybgood might be able to help you.

Hey 565
PM sent.
Wally

Subbing to watch the show and help out where I can.

In all honesty and experience, find a doner. Parts are really that hard to find. I just spent 2 years doing what you’re doing with a Transporter the Rescue. I got hung up on nut lugs and posts, ramps that were not supposed to be made, a never made again ship part... If it wasn’t for luck and some really great pin heads and friends it’s taken a decade to develop; it would still be in pieces all over my house and work office.

Taf is 3x the Machine mechanically that TTR is, I have no doubt it can be done, but I think your In for a longer project than you realize without the experience in parts and people than you may realize.

Still though, you’ve got gutz and experience !

Hey 565
Second step is to look over past scratch builds, detailed restorations, and WPC Schematics.
Wally

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/there-s-one-more-scared-stiff

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/theres-one-more-cc

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/theres-one-more-monster-bash

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/theres-one-more-afm

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/theres-one-more-mm

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/another-home-made-medieval-madness-sees-the-world

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/two-new-medieval-madness-games-hand-built-in-minnesota

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/my-homebrew-cactus-canyon

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/my-nbafb-to-mm-project-update

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/theres-yet-another-mm

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/new-afm-project

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/addams-family-rebuild-

https://www.aussiearcade.com/forum/pinball/pinball-restoration-s/dmd-dot-matrix-display-pinball-restorations/101238-taf-from-scratch

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/orbitor-1-a-scratch-build-reaching-for-the-stars

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/best-of-pinside-documented-restorations

http://arcarc.xmission.com/Pinball/PDF%20Pinball%20Misc/Williams%20WPC%20Schematic%20manual.pdf

if you come across a cheap trashed doner buy it it will make your life 100% easier.

Is there such a thing for TAF?

of course just gotta find em
some even end up for sale on here but with crazy price tags

I restored a TAF a few years ago starting with a players condition machine and replacing nearly every part that was available. I broke down my costs in a thread I posted when I finished it, but I spent about $13000 including the $4500 for the original machine. If all parts had been available (light boards, transformer, wiring harness, etc), those parts might have been less than the $4500 for the original machine. I don't know. That stuff adds up quick.

See post above. You will spend way more on parts than the game will be worth or what you could buy a used one for. I'm not trying to dissuade you, but go in to it with eyes wide open that this project will be a money pit, not to mention all of your time too.

How do I find this group?

If money and time are no object, there's no reason to not give it a try. I enjoyed doing mine. I said I'd never do it again just because it's flushing money down the drain, but I kind of want to try again some day.

I bought the same Virtuapin cabinet you did, but I had them install the ground braid and decals I sent them also. They didn't drill the holes in the top of the backbox that a TAF requires. They also didn't install all the necessary ground braid that my original machine had so I had to buy some of that and a stapler for attaching it.

I made plenty of mistakes along the way and still second guess a few things. My original boards were pretty bad, so I replaced them all with Rottendog boards. Those boards have worked flawlessly, but do repro boards make a restored game less desirable than original boards? To some people yes. Also after waiting over 2 years for CPR to finish their playfields, I gave up and had HSA restore mine. Mine was in pretty bad shape. It's nice now, but still has some flaws I know are there like magnet burn on the back that a new playfield wouldn't have.

I have a ton of extra parts and tools I've thought about selling but I don't know if I'll ever need them again. I have a CPR Gold playfield. I have hundreds of nuts, bolts, IDC connectors, screws, etc. I bought several old wiring harnesses off Ebay and cut them up and cleaned every single wire by hand. So I have extra wires of every color and stripe needed in a TAF, but not enough to build a whole new harness. I made a hand rivet press tool with a clamp for assembling some plastics.

Everyone that’s telling you to find a donor machine is giving you really good advice because they’ve probably taken on a similar project to this. Just because it’s labeled a “donor” doesn’t mean you’re going to rob anything off it. It should really be your “reference” machine. What online threads and pics and manuals can’t do that a donor machine is very simple-the donor machine will quickly show you how your wire harnesses need to be laid out and routed. Having it right in front of you for first hand reference will save you MONTHS of painstaking work. I totally get needing to occupy your time to preserve sanity and the joy of learning and accomplishment-especially the accomplishment of such a daunting task. But the reference machine will help keep you from getting discouraged should you make an early fatal flaw that doesn’t show itself until you’re in the final assembly stages.

Here is my total cost so far and its actually a pretty decent amount of the impossible to find parts. These deals took about two years to find. Its possible, but you can't do this in a year.

pasted_image (resized).png

Best of luck, very interested in seeing how this turns out. If you haven't worked on a pin before then this is one hell of a first project. I agree with everyone else, you're best off finding a beater TAF and using that as a donor machine, it will make life much much easier and probably cut the project time in half. Right now I'd expect this to take you a year to complete.

Don’t use it as a donor. Just a reference.

Yup, Wally is the man in this area. Amazing skills and a top-notch guy.

Cutting on a rolling dolly!?

Yout can always resell what you don't need. But building from scratch, there probably wouldn't be much left over.

Do a Google search for mad amusements. It's better to avoid that one, as well as their account *pinballparts* on ebay.

Next time, chock the wheels.

He doesnt do the WPC stuff as of yet

Mad amusements is the only one I can think of with a very extensive laundry list of greavances.

Where are you located? I’ll have a used WPC widebody cabinet up for sale soon.

I would like to see this done with Fathom. The drop target assys would be the toughest part I imagine.

Fyi I am building a scared stiff from a playfield. I'm using homebrew controllers based on OPP and pinmame for the ROMs. Over a year and a half or so, I've picked up every assembly that was individualized. The rest is generic or can be manufactured. It's not impossible.

TAF is not a wide body

So just a thought...if I were considering this project, I may be inclined to practice by building a less complex game before going balls to the wall into a TAF. While TAF doesn’t look as complicated as some other titles, there’s more going on there than meets the eye. Maybe start with an early Bally solid state game. Lots of used parts available and most everything else is available at numerous sources.

Also, another thought from my suggestion of a “reference” machine, it’s also a test fixture. You can assemble your playfield and drop it into the reference machine to test everything. If you find some used boards for a good price, drop them in the reference machine and test them. What most of us may have forgotten about your situation is you don’t have 10-30 machines. Most all of us have a WPC title in our collections to use to test. This is to be your first. Granted, you can get the Siegecraft set to test boards, but I’ve not seen a setup to connect to a playfield to test all lamps, switches and solenoids.

In the middle of a TAF playfield swap. I wouldn't wish building this wiring harness on my worst enemy.

20191222_145718 (resized).jpg

I think building it from scratch would be better than fixing an existing one.

There's so many switches, connectors, and targets at the ends of the harness it's almost hard to believe. I replaced every single one when I did my rebuild. That was probably 25-30% of the total hours I spent on the rebuild.

Like I said, a reference machine would simplify your life!

So this is your first pinball project??

And that's why the new machines have gone to node boards.

As a former newbie who feels like they have finally stepped up to “rookie” on their projects, I simply have to implore you to listen to these fine folks.

I’m a little hurt that my own build of Orbitor 1 was left out :’) but so be it. I built that from “scratch”. I started with an empty cabinet and had to source EVERYTHING. After about a year I’ve gotten everything I need. Just waiting on my boards and fabricating those damn unobtainium spinning bumpers.

https://www.pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/orbitor-1-a-scratch-build-reaching-for-the-stars

These folks are right. As your “first” pinball project you’re seriously screwing yourself. It’ll probably take 3 or more years.
You absolutely NEED to get a machine and learn even the basics about that first.
Building it will teach you a ton, but if you were flying blind as I was, you’re just gonna get railroaded at every corner.

There is very little meaningful documentation for Orbitor 1. Stern closed their doors while they made it so only 889 were made and probably 1/3 or so still exist. Parts are impossible the come by, and getting good reference pictures for what is ACTUALLY happening under the playfield was hard. Thank god for this website and all the fantastic pinsiders who’ve lent a hand!

TAF has an asston of documentation and has been vivisected a thousand times, so that’s good for you. However actually understanding the purpose and logic of how these machines get put together would definitely help you in unimaginable ways. Start watching some factory videos and see how it was done.

Now to sound like a pessimist:
I remember being a starry-eyed newbie who thought “baaaah no one has ever done it before, so I’m gonna do it!”
That’s fine and dandy, but do be sure to listen and accept the help and anecdotes these fine Pinsiders offer.
Orbitor 1 definitely has been a testament to new guys doing the impossible, and the amazing community for making it happen. Without Pinside I’d have NEVER found a playfield.

I’ve also taken one more than a few basket case machines and brought them to life, I’ve just been horribly neglectful in posting my restorations.
The latest being an absolutely devastated Torpedo Alley that was passed over by 3 people. It’s a total disaster and a hunk of junk. But I finally got that bad boy to boot up to attract mode and enter diagnostics.
It took 11 months to breathe life into that piece of junk, and I couldn’t be more proud. Now I’ve gotten a few pinball friends trying to pass off new basket cases since they’ve seen I can actually bring the dead back to life.
More importantly, I’m one of the few foolish enough to waste all my time working on games that you can buy for like 2-3k. It’s just plain fun. And doing it this way you will learn a TON.

Mitch could probably tell you, if you get in too deep and aren’t careful, the joy of pinball will get sucked out of you and you’ll want to be done with it. Especially as a newbie, I started with an old Gottlieb Drop-A-Card... to be fair that project is still sitting in pieces BUT the projects that have come after it are doing much better!

At the very least, I cannot stress this enough as everyone has:
GET A WORKING MACHINE.
1) You will learn pinball
2) You’ll understand it’s nuances
3) You’ll need that join of a working game to rekindle your spirit after you hate this project 8 times over.

Hey Iso
Added your scratch build to my list. Sweet project! I probably missed a bunch of others too. Sorry that I forgot about Orbitor. I should have looked at my favorite list. Did a hurry up search to give the Op something to read.
Wally

Just Fully restoring an existing pin (stripping down to Individ hardware pieces for cleaning and replacing) and stripping and redoing the cabinet with knowledge/experience working on pins is a huge task. There’s a reason not many people are attempting complete scratch builds of A list WPC’s..

I totally get wanting to take on a project, and the satisfaction of completing it. You’ve already delved in but I still echo a few others— start smaller or at least get a pin to familiarize with first. Manuals are great but it’s also not quite a factory how-to build this from ground up.. I love projects and have fully restored a classic WPC and in doing so I def. can say I’d never want to scratch build.. not to say u can’t do it but you’ll need to collect a lot of reference photos and there’s def. going to be irritation at times Sounds like you’re prepared for that though. Good luck!

Build a rotesserie for the Playfield - that’s a must.

A source for several parts: https://mantispinball.com/product-category/addams-family/

Depending on your location, yes.