So you could provide the manpower to produce these in quantity, and you'd be doing it as a "not for profit"?
SWEET! When can I order one?
lol -seriously though... wonder if you could offer them as "tokens of thanks" for anyone who donates 10k or more to the school.
; )

Why isn't rick making our metal pieces?

I have sent the CAD files of MM ball guides and other metal parts to those who requested them. These have the most current revisions. If I missed someone send me your email through Pinside or direct to wallybgood at comcast dot net. Wally

From all of us, thank you for all of your help Wally!

Vid, you're welcome. Glad that I could help. Wally

I'd like to see a similar project for CC.

I would be interested in this project as well....either assisting with a group build or buying the parts. What a fantastic initiative!

Some info. Pinball Life is now showing the Castle Actuator Bracket 04-10933 in stock. Previously, it had gone from rare to NA. Wally

High Class pinballs lists that MM playfield at 10,892.50EUR. That works out to $14656.95. Am I missing something here??

Anim..., the High Class Pinball website is pretty bad, especially on items out of stock. The last run went for $879 shipped. (additional $50 for dust free, additional $70 paypal use fee) Mirco is planning another MM run in Feb. (per his site) Wally

Will got the first set of ball guides back for approval.

These are from AFM. They look amazing.

So this is still moving along I assume?

Of course, did anyone doubt that it would? ;.)

Haha, I hear ya. I will continue to monitor this thread and see how this progresses. Hope it works out.

Those do look very nice. I might have missed it so are you going to bend the guides yourself like Wally did?

I could never build one but will happily buy one from he who does : )

I imagine once we have a bunch to do, we will draft a bending schedule and have them mass bent.

But I have a break and a slip roll at the shop I rent space in, so I'll roll and bend the first ones.

Q: What is a Slip Roll?

A:

One of my clients has a CNC wood shop and finally quoted our cabs.

In quantity, they can sell us the wood cabinets for $250.

They will ship flat and will be within UPS weight limits.

Fresh wood sure sounds better than sanding, filling and bondo on an old stinky one.

That is awesome. Cheaper than what you were looking at originally too. Glad to see this is still moving forward. I wish I had a skill that would be helpful to the project.

SWEEET!

Damn that is a good price on the cabs

Vid, that is a great price on the cabs! I'm assuming that it includes the backbox also. Thanks for taking this on. When it comes time to get a list of buyers it may be good to start a specific new topic so that it doesn't get buried here. I would be interested in one. I can see where there might be people interested who are simply restoring a different WPC-95 pin. It would be nice if there was a single option to have the coin door section cut for either a launch button or a plunger shooter.
Are the individual sections and joints cut siimiliar to this?

Again, great job. Wally

Yes, of course.

Sure. I imagine that some people will buy a few and leave them unassembled for future restores.

Those loc-joints are notorious for coming apart. I've fixed literally 100s over the years.

Being a wood worker, I'd like to see Biscuit joints, but I guess we will have make a decision. Loc-joints for historical accuracy, or Biscuit joints for strength.

That would be a quick programming selection, and would not affect the price (at least I can't see why it would).

I vote biscuit for strength.

We want better than original!!

Thanks for all the leg work vid!

I've got to ask, why are little biscuts stronger than the entire piece of wood as a joint?

Sweet progress.. looks like I'll have a new job about the time this project really gets rolling. Time to sock $$ away for a home built MM.

Better is always better, but what would a plunger add to the game?

Biscuits are hard pieces of Birch, mechanically compressed. Much harder than the spruce, pine, fir that plywood is usually made from.

When the Biscuits become moist from the glue (you can't use epoxy for Biscuits), they expand and can not be removed.

Even if you wet them with water to make then expand, it is almost impossible to pull them out.

You still glue the entire joint, like the loc-joint, but you also add the Biscuits.

Dovetail joints would be even stronger (the strongest wood joint in the world) but the pattern of the joint would telegraph through the paint. Not acceptable in my opinion.

It would add nothing to MM, but people needing a cab for another title would need the cab routed for a plunger.

IMHO, the cabinet would be stronger as originally designed. While biscuits are convenient for alignment, the actual surface area for glue is reduced. Using the correct glue with the proper clamps will result in a structurally sound cabinet.

Steve (in Escalon, CA)

I guess we would have to mock up some joints and test them in a press to see at what PSI does the joint fail.

On all the ones I've repaired, its not the glue that fails, but the soft tongue of the wood just breaks off.

Next time you repair a split cab, take a look how the joint breaks.

The Spruce Pin Fir plywood used originally was 5 core.

If we used 13 core "Baltic Birch" plywood, it would be 4x stronger than the SPF plywood that was used by Williams. It would also be twice as heavy and probably 2x the raw material cost (so maybe $40 more at the end of the day, plus the additional shipping charges). I would have total confidence in the strength of a loc-joint in Baltic Birch.

Would a heavier game be seen as an advantage to anyone?

They also make SPF plywood with a thin veneer of MDF so you just prime and paint with no sanding needed.

I vote for biscuits too.

I'd rather have strength over a heavier cab.

I nominate for cichlid fo the best avatar on the entire site.

This seems like an awesome project, what else is needed I am willing to help out if theres anything I can do. I have a background in machining, I think I could even make wire harnesses if I had an original set to copy. Just trying to think how I could help out and also benefit from this project Oh and my brother already makes Killer wooden playfield rails if we had a set to copy we could crank them out too!

This has me excited about a cool project. There's a few assemblies on the underside that isn't available aside from the top side. Sounds like someone can do the side rails. How about the back panel?

No Prob

Have we had any forward progress on this ?

This is, without question, the coolest project on pinside.

I'm curious if there are any changes you would make to the original, since you are going to be building it from scratch? Is there a way to redo some of the metal parts that might be more prone to break than others, or redo art on some of the plastics (take the basketball off the catapult?) etc.

I don't mind this at all, it fits the theme. It seems to bother some folks for some reason. It's no more out of place than converse shoes on the troll, or a toasted marshmallow on the arrow

This is supposed to be a re-creation and not a remastered version of the game.

Have we had any forward progress on this ?

Sometime next week I believe the ordering for the AFM wire ramps will be open to all who are doing the AFM rebuild. Cost will be $250 a pair.

I got the test set back for my customer, made from stainless steel, and it came out great.

They were first was going to do red powdercoat, but they told me this afternoon that they had sent them out for Black Nickel plating.

Sorry about the crappy picture, I did not take it:

afm-wire-ramps.jpg

Where is home base for this operation? OR or WA sounds good to me. Would be down for a week long workcation to assemble.

It's your game, you can do with it what you like.

You are not the first person to say get rid of the "gay" basketball.

New art could be used, or you can just polish off the art and leave it clear like F14 does.

The new wire ramps are TIG welded, rather than braised like the originals, so those welds are never coming apart (the weld is stronger than the wire frame itself). They won't rust either because they are stainless steel.

Will those polish to a mirror shine?

The plastics after the basketball is removed? Yes.

The wire ramps? Stainless Steel polishes easily with Green Compound.

http://www.harborfreight.com/1-4-quarter-lb-green-polish-compound-96778.html

You can also do powdercoat, Nickel, Brass or Hard Chrome depending on the look you want.

Maybe Pinchroma will give you guys a break if he does all the powdercoating at once.

Oops not the plastics lol. The wireforms. Good deal on the powdercoat

Nice work on the AFM ramps. When are the MM ramps starting or is that waiting for the AFM ramps to be done first?

Sam

There is going to be some overlap between the MM and AFM builds.

I know, everyone wants the game they are working on to be completed first, but some items, like the ball guides will "nest" better doing both games at once. That will make the cost less.

And then sell it when a bulb burns out? You got to start doing some maintenance!

Dan

These are the repro AFM ramps from Pinball Inc.

They are much better than the thin junky ones Williams made.

Jim has been running the set of 3 with decals for $249 at all the shows.

Same price for the 3 piece MM set.

http://www.pinballinc.com/ramps.html

AFM-plastic-ramps-decals.jpg