this is a story i have to share. in 2011 i kinda got into pins, i know i wanted one. im from south africa, here its not always easy finding them for good prices. anyways i looked online and prices where just too much for some games, then i found a sf2 for 200$ but it was in another city, picture of it did not reveal too much the dmd and translite was missing, i figured no big deal, i contacted the seller and asked for pics of the boards, all of them there. then i had to decide was it worth making the mission to get the game, driving there and back would cost alot in petrol but i figured it would be a good little getaway roadtrip for me and my friend and i really wanted a pin badly. so the monday morning we use hes minibus to make the trip, tents and clothes food , water etc and a mattress in the back. this was not a single day trip, took us the whole week 2 days there and 2 days back. a total of 1000+ miles there and 1000+ miles back. so we get to the persons house and there the sf2 was ready in the driveway, didnt look all too bad , i mean the legs where rusted and the good old siderails rusted but i knew i could make it work. as we proceed to load to machine it starts to rain , bummer but lucky we get it in and i was soaking wet that sucked. so the road back was more difficult compared to going there, firstly me and my friend could sleep in the back when we went there but the pin took the oneside so we could not, we didnt want to spend more money on renting overnight places, so the one night he slept in the front and i in the back with the pin. the second night was the worst he didnt want to sleep in the the front again and i have hard time falling asleep if i cant lay flat out, we drove in the middle of nowhere that night to find a camping spot, it was dark and on a dirt road, we even did see some zebras there, one spot was so tricky cause we went uphill on the wrong road and nearly got stuck and almost rolled the damn minibus, im talking pitch dark u cant see ur hand infront of ur face if u put the cars lights off... eventually we get to the camp spot and i set up the tent, that night was the coldest night i ever had , i think i slept like 2 hours max and froze my ass off, but hey i got the pin i was happy all this crap was worth it...
so i get home in the end, tired and all set the game on its legs and go to sleep. awhile after that i did start work on the game, plugged it into the wall, switch it on, nothing no lights came on at all. so i had to open the game , me having no pin experience. my dad helped me drill the lock, open it up and the funniest thing, some crazy hack job, the power cable wire was cut with only the earth still attach at the back... so no wonder the game did not want to turn on, no power to it. so how did i get power u asked? someone had some white wire attached to a plug inside the game , that was the power cable, why i have no idea... also it was not connected to earth. so i then proceeded to fix this issue... turned the game on , ahhh here we go lights on the backboard, but nothing else, i figured okay wow lets hope its not too serious. so i received some advice from a friend online on what to check etc, got myself a multimeter and proceeded to check voltages, well indeed power was not getting to some places. then i just messed around with some of the connectors inside the cabinet, maybe something was lose or not plugged in correct and it went on. i was happy about that. so u might ask where is the horror in this story? its coming. after awhile i figured well the game is very dirty , the playfield etc so i need to take it apart and give it a good cleaning. i strip the whole top side, took me ages cause i marked everything, took pictures of every single part and put them in bags, at the back of the playfield i noticed something was not right it was like there was playfield damage , i figured at first it was that. but the wood was very soft and some of the artwork there would just kinda come off and if u press on it, u could feel it was sort of nothing underneath, but still i had no clue, then i start peeling some of it back and see some brown stuff at first i figured oh probably just playfield damage or something u know. but the more i checked the more i see of this stuff, like little round balls almost. after some looking online, to my horror i was sure it was termites, then did some more research and i was pretty sure it was drywood termite frass. boy oh boy what todo, they might still be in there or they might be gone, i wanted to toss the cab at that point talking it over with my parents they said it would be best, but i just could not do it i mean all that trouble all the petrol money to just toss it, i did some more reading and some people talked about using bug bombs. so i removed everything from the bottom of the playfield to just make sure i dont damage anything, took pics , marked stuff, u name it. put 1 bug bomb in one day and a few days later another, also put a bug bomb in the garage for good measure. but still my mind was not at peace, the more i was reading online the more i got scared what if one of those suckers where still alive in there. so i figured only one way to find out , so i decided to break open the bottom panel of the game, easy to replace and i could maybe see if i could find some live termites i mean that would give me peace of mind atleast, i start breaking apart the bottom panel and didnt find too much damage just some holes at alot of places on the bottom side, but then after awhile frass and more frass, but no termites yet. then i found one dead one and another after breaking it apart. i was not at ease still , cause i found alot of damage side wood at the bottom, like the wood would just come apart , it was basically just paint with nothing underneath. in the end i decided to toss the game 
just was not worth the risk of one of those things for a game like this. had it been something else of value i might have tried to build a new cab and get a playfield or something but not for a sf2 it would not be worth it. i took the head off and geez i noticed tons of holes there too, some part on the underside of the playfield also had pieces of wood that came of real easy, so those suckers went to work on this game. i mean out of everything termites who would ever think of that, last thing i expected to happen but it did.
tossed the playfield, the head and the cabinet, kept the boards and wire harness plastics etc. now i never want to see another sf2 pin in my whole life, i guess kinda same goes for gottlieb unless its maybe a stargate.... in the end, i learned alot. pin price was $200 dollar, the petrol was like almost 3 times that and i did not even think it would be nearly as much as it was.
anyways lesson learned, going that far for a pin better be something thats worth it and not in bad shape, if its missing the dmd and translite tread carefully, even if i i did spot that termite problem at this persons house i would still be out the petrol money so it would still have sucked.
right now i have only 2 games, both i got after the sf2 issue, big guns that im busy working on, picked it up for $400 delivered to my home, was kinda in worse shape than i expected it to be. some idiot pained over the side art and front with black paint. but atleast the game works, just some raised inserts i have to fix and playfield touchups. the paint i have sanded down to reveal the artwork todo stencils, did not want to risk using paint remover... other issue with it , the person who had worked on it loved putting oil on everything, so much so i think he might have worked for a oil company, the drop targets mechs where full of it, this person figured probably cause they didnt go down quickly anymore add more oil. all he had todo was just give the spring more tension and it would have worked. lucky most of the stuff i have todo is more todo with time compared to money. when im done ill upload the work i have done on it with pics at some point, well hopefully before 2055 haha.
the second game i have , if u can even call it a game. i checked a add for a pin on one of the classifieds and see a very beat up high speed in the pictures, the guy didnt say how much he wanted, just said he wants to swap it for what u have. so i call him, he tells me a guy is coming over to look at it , i tell him just call me if he doesnt show... so then he does call and say the guy never pitched (maybe he did but ran for the hills when he saw the game), i go check out the game, man oh man bad shape not the word. the whole backbox is falling apart, like u cant repair it have to build a new one , its so warped it cant even stand upright, he explained to me that the game was stored in a building and the roof leaked and it got wet. the cabinet well atleast its not as bad, but side art looks real bad and the game was standing outside atleast under a roof . playfield from what i could see under the glass looks decent, doesnt seem to have received any water on that side. so i stand there and think to myself is this worth even the trouble, so i figure right let me ask this guy what he wants, he says well he didnt say but how much would i give him for it, i tell him. the thing is in bad bad shape, most people would just toss the whole thing and it would take a ton of work to get it back up and running and thats if it even would come on at all. i tell him 35$, i figured he would say no, but he said sure when u want it. probably hes wife on hes arse to get the thing out of there was only too happy, my dad was with and he told me afterwards ur basically paying to take away someones trash haha. next day i go pick it up with my friends minibus, now its standing in the garage still and i have not touched it yet, smells like crap inside thats forsure... not a bad deal for 35$. im going to try to save it, cause i hate to toss another pin, but trust me this is the worst shape high speed u have ever seen in your life. no i have not tried to turn it on yet, ill have to be carefull not to start a fire and unplug the boards test etc , bit by bit to see whats the story with this game. boards seem to look clean, if u consider the whole backboard they are attached to is rusted. translite is toast... hopefully if it does work, i can finish this one maybe before 2055.
hopefully my next game would be something more shall we say, less junkyard trash. u guys sure are lucky to be in a country where finding pins are easy, in my whole trip i looked at a few arcades and did not find a single pin at all, even asked some people and nobody could point me to some to play...
Somerville, MA
Old Colwyn
Cape Town
