Ground up dedicated Mr. Do!

TheShanMan

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Donor 2011, 2024
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From the ground up dedicated Mr. Do!

My wife's favorite game is Mr. Do, so almost a year ago I started a mission to get a Mr. Do for her. Eventually p1899m told me he knew of a more or less NOS empty Universal cabinet (never made it to the end of the factory assembly line, but was destined to become a Devil Zone). Got it for a great price, which included a Universal coin door (not NOS but nevertheless pretty nice).

Then gameguy1957 who had a junk dedicated mr. do (cab in bad shape, had been painted black) offered me anything I wanted out of it for the cost of shipping! What a guy! He went to a ton of trouble disassembling everything for me. I took almost everything except the bezel (was a conversion plastic bezel) and control panel (was a little bit hacked) and of course the coin door since I had that.

Noice87 offered me his artwork (glass bezel which has a little bit of flaking, nice cp with weird joystick, very nice back art, and decent but faded marquee) for the cost of shipping. Another guy I'm indebted to!

So a huge thumbs up to p1899m, gameguy1957, and Noice! You guys rock and you played a huge role in enabling me to build a sweet game for my wife!

Here is what I started with:

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It took a lot more work than I anticipated since I wanted to do it right in order to do the cabinet proper justice. Special thanks to charger (a local) for allowing me to incessantly ask questions about his Mr. Do and request pictures and measurements! I also owe thanks to mc300baud for selling me a board and harness cheap. For a while I was having trouble getting the game to boot and I got impatient so he helped me out and it was very helpful for tracking down my problem. I think my original board does still have a problem but nevertheless I have a spare now.

I do have a few minor tasks left. There's a small gouge next to the coin door I'll need to touch up once I figure out how to do a decent job of color matching. I have an original Mr. Do joystick coming to replace the goofy one that's on there now. I need to do a little monitor adjustment (somehow the purity is off even though I recently did a full convergence job on it).

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I have a K7000 in there (custom mounting brackets) and I wish it didn't have a remote board. Just seems out of place to me (and I'd need to lengthen the harness to make it reach properly) so I'm thinking of installing regular pots on the chassis and doing away with the remote board.

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Every dedicated mr. do marquee in existence has faded pink in the center (the marquee bulb doesn't light the marquee evenly because it's narrow). Rikitiki was kind enough to notify me of an ebay auction for an NOS conversion sticker and while the stripes are different I'm happy with the bright pink! Comparison of original to conversion...

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And now the money shot (I like how the orange lines in the bezel glow in the black light)...

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Nice work, I did this same thing once with a Cosmic Avenger. Too bad I never had a bezel or the right control panel. I think Flynn finally got it restored. They are beautiful machines.
 
Amazing work! I love Mr. Do! and hope to have one someday. I've said it before, but I wish Universal would've done something better with the side art like most other Universal cabs.
 
Man, that is beautiful. Maybe I skipped over it, but where did you manage to find the dedicated CP? I've been looking for one for quite a while now with no luck.

Edit: Nevermind. I learned how to read.
 
When I saw the thread title, I thought someone had decided to make a video of a cabinet being fed into a wood chipper.

As did I.

I'd say awesome restoration but it was more of a fresh assembly almost 30 years later. Awesome just the same!
 
this is awesome, my brother was a 14 year old pro at this game when we were kids.
He got challenged by the adult at the local sandwich shop in this game cause the guy thought that he was hot sh!t.

They let the kid (my older brother) go first and after like playing for 40 minutes on his first man, the other guy finally got his first turn. He was so intimidated at that point that he just gave up w/out playing his first man.

That's a beautiful machine. I've been open to finding a dedicated Mr Do as a gift for my brother but I don't know if it'll ever happen.
 
That reminds me... years ago, I restored as in cleaned up and got working, a dedicated Ladybug-

It was filthy and obvious looking in the back that mice had been in it. When I removed the marquee, the biggest 'nest' I'd ever seen was in it. It was if it was raining down mouse droppings, and that wood area was stained. It gives me the creeps to this day..

The power supply had mouse urine corrosion and wires that were chewed through.

I fixed up the original p/s, new fuse holders, and I replaced the dinky BR. Got it working.

It took a ton of cleaning, and then I probably spend $40 on a boardset. The monitor chassis had a bad flyback. I found a decent chassis and did the cap kit.

I think I sold it for $250. Totally wasn't worth the time I put into it, but it was a fun restore. I don't miss it.
 
Bumping my really old thread for an update...

Background: Back in 2010, because my wife's favorite game is Mr. Do!, through a little networking I got wind of an NOS nearly pristine Universal cabinet that a big collector in CA had stored away, and I picked it up during CAX. I collected all the parts and built a really nice Mr. Do! The only significant flaw it had was a hacked control panel with a goofy joystick (see earlier photos). The joystick hole was greatly enlarged and the button holes were also slightly enlarged to fit standard buttons. I found a Universal joystick for it minus the shaft. I got dimensions from someone and had a coworker who owns a lathe reproduce the shaft. I had to put a big dust washer on top of the control panel to cover the big hole. I always hated that but didn't have a better alternative. I even found an NOS cpo for the control side to eventually replace the original hacked up one.

Last year I found out about sendcutsend.com and decided to reproduce the control panel. Unfortunately while they have the ability to weld studs to sheet metal (IIRC they call it "hardware insertion"), they didn't yet support it for stainless steel. But that changed at the end of the year. I do a lot of CAD work for 3D printed stuff, so creating the CAD file was no big deal but getting all the dimensions precisely correct took quite a bit of iteration using test 3D prints. I was really happy with the manufactured product, and my post-processing work. I used the NOS control overlay I had waiting, and reused the original instruction overlay from my other panel. Here's the end result, after a nearly 14 year wait...

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