okay well figured i start documentation of a doctor who im slowly started on.
i want todo this as quick as possible, im shooting to be done end of november but i cant promise anything yet. this is a big project with tons todo.
if u have any tips for me please shoot

this game i got from someone in a trade, sight unseen i made a swap. what did u swap for u might ask? well alvin g soccer ball, that was fully working, maybe im crazy but i wanted a doctor who. he told me the original cabinet had crazy water damage, so much so that only way was to build a new cabinet. the only idea of how bad it was, i can see in the lightboard panel and some parts that have some rust on them, lucky the rust is not so bad as i have seen on some games, infact the playfield itself looks very decent and everything underneath is not half bad either.
he did build a new cabinet for it, but hes a busy guy and with so much still left todo , i kinda talked him into the swap.

So here is a list of what challenges i have , what im going todo and what im not going todo. ill add to this as i think of more, ill add photos to most things and explain how i did what i did, im in no means claiming to be a expert at this but i do lots of reading on this sort of things and some posts on the forum or videos on youtube help alot.

NOT DOING
1. Clearcoat the playfield, the playfield is in real good shape, just dirty , but from what i can see sofar no wear.
2. Strip everything from below the playfield, instead i will clean each mech and area piece by piece.
3. building a new cabinet, lucky this is already done, there are however some things i need to take care of.
4. refurbing the legs, lucky for me they are already painted black so no need for me to mess with them.
5. warning lable on the back, i dont have the silkscreen, maybe there is some easy way todo it so i might change my mind on this at some point.

DOING
1. Build a new lightboard panel, i have done most of the work sofar. the original one is beyond saving , wood is swolen.
2. Making artwork for the game, probably the hardest part, im based in south africa and its just too expensive to buy artwork and shipping onto of it also, i have never used illustrator before so im kinda teaching myself via youtube and google, hair pulling story, since im also a newb at photoshop, if i do however figure out how todo it i will provide the vectors free to anyone who needs them, this will be hours of work surely but i rather help out some people in some way. maybe in the future i can do more vectors in my spare time for other games that are faded badly, one such is indy jones, thats if i survive this one cause its not easy if u clueless.
3. Make new stickers for lockdown receiver and also refurb it, has abit of rust on it and just doesnt look great currently.
4. Make new stickers for apron area and also repaint it, the one on the game right now is rusted and just looks bad.
5. Remove everything from top side of playfield, only way to kinda clean every area.
6. wash the backbox wiring harness, its already taken off so might aswell do it, no point to put a dirty one back in. this is where a ultrasonic cleaner that is big enough might come in handy , but i dont have one yet and bigger they are the more expensive they cost.
7. small things like removing rust from every part, like metal ramps, ball guides etc. repaint areas that look warn or could look better with just some paint, example being something like the transformer.
8. regrain siderails, lockdown bar and most metal on the game.
9. tumbling and tumbling some more, tons of screws are rusted.
10. refurb the coindoor, its made from rust haha, kinda think this is the part that has the most rust on the whole game.
11. i will try and document best i could and take photos as much as possible, im using my iphone 4 so quality will not always be great but its not terrible.

CHALLENGES
1. holes for legs are not drilled as im starting this, need to make sure this is perfect, no idea how todo it yet but time for research i guess.
2. the guy who build the cabinet already drilled the holes for the start button and launch , problem they are switched wrong way round, a mistake i guess. boy oh boy i did discover this tonight so im not sure what im going todo just yet. i kinda want the launch where the coil is. easy way would just be switch them around, but i want it pefect as possible instead of wrong way round.
3. obviously the artwork.
4. all the screws are just in one or two containers, atleast he marked them so u know that this is for the head and this is for the cabinet. but still if u dont do this everyday and u did not take photos , its not easy, hopefully i can find some pictures in this regard to help me abit.

LIGHTBOARD PANEL

here is some photos of the lightboard panel when i got it. there is no saving this.
IMG_3489.JPG
IMG_3490.JPG
IMG_3484.JPG

here i removed all metal parts and the harness itself.
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here i remove the lables first the high voltage one, if u have not done this before there are staples in every corner, remove them first and then do the hair dryer trick. u could possibly use some scrape thing but i figure making the glue soft does the trick. this lable did not struggle to come off, however the thin part of plastic covering the warning lable can shrink cause the heat, but u dont need it anyways. if your lable is still in good nick u can use it again, the reason for keeping them is to just make sure u have the sizes correct when u print them.
lable 1.JPG
lable 2.JPG

this lable was a pain in the arse, its such a thin piece of paper.
lable 3.JPG
lable 4.JPG

Here is the new panel i made, its not 100% perfect, but im happy with it . my dad helped me with this and we used a jig saw, i just placed the old panel on the wood and marked it with a pen. we cut abit too deep at spots and i had to use sand paper to file away some of the wood so hence why i think it could have been done abit better in the area where the curve is at the top.
the holes for the light sockets however are perfect. i just put the old panel ontop of the other, and put the cutting tool in the hole and hit it lightly with a hammer to leave a mark so i know where to drill, that way if i drill the hole its perfect in the middle.

new panel cut.JPG
new panel cut 2.JPG

the cutting tool. this one is 16 mm and works perfectly. my suggestion is that u cut a hole on a piece of old wood , then check the light socket to see how it fits, u can only cut once there is no going back. also i would suggest after u made your marks, put a piece of wood underneath it so that if u drill to the other side u dont rip wood out like say for instance if the plank was laying over a edge. but this kinda stuff u only need todo if u making a new panel, alot of people probably wont go this far.
cutting tool.JPG

scanned the lables if someone ever needs them. the high voltage lable is messed up real good. might do vectors that way quality will be great.
doctor who lightboard panel stickers 300 dpi jpg.jpg

THE APRON, if u like rust u will love this.
i removed the stickers simply with a hairdryer, i think using a heatgun is overkill and i dont think the hairdryer ever gets so hot that it will melt the lables. also i dont have a heatgun.

alot of rust
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stickers removed, was very easy with the hairdryer making the glue soft. just take your time if it feels like it dont want to give , heat it up some more.
IMG_3949.JPG

did the scans for the lables. they need cleaning up or maybe ill vector them...
doctor who apron1 300 dpi jpg.jpg
doctor who apron2 300 dpi jpg.jpg

only crazy people attempt this sort of thing lol. its going to be alot of work, but i guess the fun comes from when u see it done at the end. summer here is too warm, lucky its not crazy yet but i know its coming.

no idea about the specs, this build was done by someone else. its not perfect but it will do i think. best bet would be to just copy another game. the only issue will probably be with the dalek head on the top, the guy who build the cabinet did drill holes there and stuff but if they are correct im not sure. get a game that has the same cabinet type of style, dr who i think was one of the last games to use the whole pivot system for the playfield. other games that used it i know for a fact is party zone, terminator 2, hurricane, Gilligan's Island, black rose. there could be others obviously.

that pivot system is the same as system 11 from what i can tell, but i could be wrong. even the leg plates seem the same on a system 11 game. where the changes come in is the way the backbox is mounted to the side of the cabinet if u compare it to system 11 game. if those things that are same as on the sys 11 are 100% correct im not sure, maybe someone who knows more can give some info on that?

i myself need some measurements to drill holes for the legs.

the start button location u can surely just copy from another game. the launch button if u can find a bsd u can copy it from there. or i surely think any other wpc game that used the launch button?

obviously if someone has measurements for these things it would help cause then u can just get wood and cut , instead of having to measure stuff.

THE PCB PANEL

the front dont look that bad in the photos, i guess the water never really got to it .
backside u can clearly see the problem
pcb panel front.JPG
pcb panel back rust 1.JPG
pcb panel back rust 2.JPG

lable removed
lable removed.JPG

if u are about to remove alot of screws a tool like this cuts the time down alot i recon. if u had to remove parts from a playfield this thing would surely save ur life. plus it just feels cooler using this compared to the manual way.
a tool u need.JPG

ahh rusty screws, cant put this back looking like this
rusty screws.JPG

into the tumbler they go. shine they must.
rusty screws goes into tumbler.JPG

what a pain in the arse this pcb panel is to get it up to standard. im giving bryan kelly credit cause if it was not for hes ij restore i would not have seen how todo this. im sure everyone learned the tricks they know from someone.
i tried doing 180 grit sand paper on the pcb panel at first, the stains at the back just didnt seem to want to go away. so well i went to 80 grit sand paper, maybe crazy but even that took its sweet ass time, it did not make deep scratches on the metal obviously i would have stopped first time i started it. 2 hours of sanding later and things look alot beter, i just wanted most of the stains on the backside gone and obviously any rust, nobody will see the back so going overly crazy with it is just frankly a waste of time in my mind, i will however put some clear on it to protect it.
i went over the front and back one last time with 240 just to get a finer sand on it.
i then figured try some metal polish on the front, ive seen people get metal to shine like a mirror before, but if thats not the look u want then its surely not a must.

picture of half the panel i did, photo i took is not the best, but u can kinda see where its going. i just used some autosol and a buffer wheel on a drill. i think some metal parts if u want a shiny kinda look this is the way to go, it doesnt take long either.
panel polished.JPG
metal polish.JPG
polish tool.JPG

hope u come right. the doctor is worth saving.

well there are a few guys here who collect but its not crazy like u find in the states. u guys are lucky.
there are infact a decent amount of games up for sale every month but prices can be abit crazy at times and u do find alot of ems are up for sale, u know people think they have a pin so it must be worth a fortune.. also not many of the higher end games come up for sale as i would like, stuff like medieval madness, attack from mars, monster bash i never see for sale and i have never seen one in person or know of anyone who has one here.

there are some of the newever sterns down here. arcade here has elvis, rbion and rolling stones. i myself managed to buy a shrek from someone who did bring one down from dubai, guess i got somewhat lucky.
i know someguy used to import games and he sold a spiderman to someone but im yet to play one myself.

also there are atleast one or two guys who do it for a living as in buy and sell machines and do repairs.
but its not a big market, finding a pins to play is hard, me and my friend did a trip like a few years back and i went to plenty of places and found not a single pinball even in the arcades.