(Topic ID: 137489)

Restoring Bally's Dungeons & Dragons

By seshpilot

8 years ago


Topic Heartbeat

Topic Stats

You

Linked Games

Topic Gallery

View topic image gallery

image_3.jpg
image_2.jpg
image_1.jpg
image.jpg
image_6.jpg
image_5.jpg
image_4.jpg
image_3.jpg
image_2.jpg
image_1.jpg
image.jpg
IMG_2786.jpg
FullSizeRender_1.jpg
IMG_2791.jpg
FullSizeRender.jpg
IMG_2747.jpg

#1 8 years ago

How about something different? I mean everyone here on Pinside seems to be documenting restoring their expensive B/W games like Twilight Zone (relax, I documented restoring mine too). Here's a post detailing the restore of a game I rarely see worked on: a 1988 Bally Dungeons and Dragons (designed by Ward Pemberton).

    THE PICKUP:

I have never played this game. While it's pretty rare that I pickup a game I've never played, I just couldn't resist on this one: the theme is great, the artwork is super cool, and the unique features look quite intriguing (manual firing inlanes?! SOOOO cool!). When it came up for sale at an extremely fair price from a nearby Indianapolis arcade enthusiast, I didn't think twice. He had had it in his possession for some time, with the intent to restore it himself. Long story short: like so many of us, time got away from him and after it sat for a year or so, he decided to sell it to me for a very fair price as I had been inquiring about it for a few months.

When I picked the game up, it was a mess: tons of pieces were removed from the playfield (though nicely organized into baggies), the head was completely falling apart and was being held together by some horrible custom metal bracket hacks, the side rails, legs, and lock down bar were rusted and nasty, and while the mylar had been removed quite well, leftover mylar adhesive was still all over the playfield. In short: it was pretty gross (which is just how I like em)!

In addition, there was a very cool topper made for this game (complete with epileptic seizure-inducing strobe lights), which are super hard to find. As is the case with many others, this one was missing the topper. My guess is that the game didn't fit height-wise in some arcades (or people were seriously having seizures), and the original operators would remove and toss them in the trash. Not sure what I'll do here yet, but we'll see.

    THE CABINET:

First things first, the head needed to be rebuilt and restored. As I mentioned, the backbox was being held together with metal brackets, which not only looked terrible but wasn't doing a very good job. If this didn't get addressed, the wood would have fallen apart in no time (all Bally 6803 pins from the 80s were made from cheap MDF). I wish I had taken some pics of the hacks, but I spaced it and forgot.

There was a huge chunk of wood missing on one side of the backbox. After I removed all the metal brackets, I addressed this missing piece by rebuilding it using wood filler and sanding smooth: IMG_2595.JPGIMG_2595.JPG IMG_2596.JPGIMG_2596.JPG Here's a shot of the head after rebuilding the side and cutting the plastic trim channel in with my Dremel: IMG_2594.JPGIMG_2594.JPG I was very careful to not ruin more of the artwork than necessary, as artwork for this game is currently unavailable. Next up was masking off the artwork using frisket paper to paint and detail the head: FullSizeRender.jpgFullSizeRender.jpg

While I was masking areas of the backbox off, I figured I might as well detail up the cabinet too as it was quite dirty inside (forget cleaning, just sand the thing down!), and the blacks could definitely use a touchup on the exterior: IMG_2597.JPGIMG_2597.JPG FullSizeRender_1.jpgFullSizeRender_1.jpg

I'm honestly shocked at how cheap the cabs of these 6803 games are. Yes they're MDF (better not get it wet!), but even worse, the cab barely holds the playfield in place. You can't even lift the playfield up without it practically falling into the cabinet. I've never seen this happen with any of my Williams and Gottliebs. As this is one of the very last games produced by Bally before they were bought out by Williams, it's clear that they were trying to maximize the cost vs. profit ratio as much as humanly possible! That said, it's still pinball and I could care less if the cab is made of MDF, plywood, or marble.

In order to not utilize the awful metal bracket hacks, I had to pull out all of the brads, rent a compressor and brad gun, and reinforce the sides with brand new brads and screws.After placing a few orders for parts, I was thrilled to see that my replacement siderails had arrived! I installed these after finishing touch-ups on the cabinet. Here's a comparison shot of the old and new siderails: FullSizeRender_2.jpgFullSizeRender_2.jpg

And to finish off my post for the day, here's some pics of the finished cabinet after detailing and woodwork. In order to not utilize the awful metal bracket hacks, I had to pull out all of the brads and screws. As I wanted the cab to look as seamless as possible, I decided to rent a compressor and brad gun so I could reinforce the sides with brand new brads. Here's the side that had the chunk missing out of the backbox: FullSizeRender_3.jpgFullSizeRender_3.jpg

Here's the other side after painting (did I mention that I love this artwork?!): FullSizeRender_1.jpgFullSizeRender_1.jpg

Here's the cabinet with new buttons, legs, bolts, and side rails installed: FullSizeRender.jpgFullSizeRender.jpg

Up next is to work on the electronics boards in the head, then playfield restoration!

#2 8 years ago

I love that the 6803 games are getting more attention lately. I used to have a D&D and regret selling it now. Great soundtrack and fun gameplay.

2 weeks later
#3 8 years ago

A few quick photo updates of my progress.

First, some shots detailing the playfield towards the end of the teardown process, but prior to cleaning up. Overall, not too bad. Just needs a few touchups and some TLC!
IMG_2744.JPGIMG_2744.JPGIMG_2745.JPGIMG_2745.JPGIMG_2746.JPGIMG_2746.JPGIMG_2747.JPGIMG_2747.JPG

Next a shot of adding "flour" to the playfield. Combining this with Goo Gone helps get the mylar adhesive off the the game. I know it looks funny, but it's the best way I know of to get that nasty stuff off the board!
FullSizeRender.jpgFullSizeRender.jpg

#4 8 years ago

Next, detailing the apron. The blacks had quite a bit of scratching and a few rust spots in them. I knocked the rust back with some steel wool, cut around the artwork with frisket film, and sprayed. Here's a post-frisket, before-painting shot:IMG_2791.JPGIMG_2791.JPG

Then, I moved the lithium battery off the MPU board and added a remote battery pack (w/connectors for easy removal). Be sure to install a diode in there as well, as the original circuit will try to charge those alkaline batteries if you don't (see this page for more info: http://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Bally_6803): IMG_2786.JPGIMG_2786.JPG

Finally, I noticed that the trough boards were in ROUGH shape. Some of the 6803 games (D&D is one of them) came with opto boards that were extremely prone to failure. Thankfully, Great Plain Electronics makes new reproductions that are of higher quality. Mine came in the mail tonight:
FullSizeRender_1.jpgFullSizeRender_1.jpg

That's all for now!

#5 8 years ago

Nice thread! There's something very satisfying about bringing the shine back to these older games.

#6 8 years ago

super nice ! gosh i miss that pin, had the topper and everything, playfield restored and clearcoated, ledded, sides cleaned up.
That topper is the icing on the cake. go find one ^^, + its interactive with the game, and true it blinds the sh*t outta you

can´t believe how good the sides of the backbox turned out, impressive skill.

the pita on this one are the flame inserts, and the ones that have a white lettering.

keep it going man

3 weeks later
#7 8 years ago

It's been too long since I updated this thread.

-circuit boards are completely fixed. Had to replace one SRC for 2 lamps and 3 transistors for some solenoids.
-here's a shot of the underside of the PF all finished up:image.jpgimage.jpg

-cabinet front reprinted, along with all metals:
image.jpgimage.jpg

-shots of the finished playfield (minor touch ups and Mylar in heavy traffic areas):
image.jpgimage.jpgimage.jpgimage.jpgimage.jpgimage.jpgimage.jpgimage.jpgimage.jpgimage.jpg

#8 8 years ago

-A few shots of the finished game (with new hardware installed):
image.jpgimage.jpg
image.jpgimage.jpg
image.jpgimage.jpg

-And because it's Pinside, an obligatory shot of the shooter lane:
image.jpgimage.jpg

All done! An incredibly fun game that is wicked fast with blazing pops at the top. Isn't going to stay in my collection, but I've enjoyed having her for the time being. Enjoy!

#9 8 years ago
Quoted from seshpilot:

-And because it's Pinside, an obligatory shot of the shooter lane

NICE JOB!

#10 8 years ago

Niiiiice.

So, who's got a topper?

Pete

1 month later
#11 8 years ago

very good work!!!mine is a keeper for me.did you touch up and clearcoat your playfield?

Promoted items from the Pinside Marketplace
$ 18.95
Eproms
Pinballrom
Eproms
$ 15.00
Cabinet - Sound/Speakers
Gweem's Mods
Sound/Speakers
3,700 (Firm)
Machine - For Sale
Canton, GA
$ 44.99
Cabinet - Shooter Rods
Pinball Shark
Shooter rods
$ 5.95
Playfield - Protection
The Pinball Scientist
Protection
$ 12.00
Tools
Nezzy's Pinball Prints
Tools
$ 36.95
Eproms
Pinballrom
Eproms

Reply

Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.

Hey there! Welcome to Pinside!

Donate to Pinside

Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!


This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/restoring-ballys-dungeons-dragons and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.

Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.