A pinball annoyance

[paigeoliver]

http://www.centsibleamusements.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=180

This annoys me.

I have a pin that uses at least 7 of those round targets. When I got the machine one target had the plastic cracked, and now a year later, one has the plastic cracked and another is missing the plastic altogether.

Why can't I just buy the little plastic disc, why do I need the whole assembly? It can get expensive paying $10 a pop to replace them, when the only part that really wears out is the 1 cent plastic disc.

[APFelon]

The plastic disc is pop riveted in place. I think replacing the disc itself would be more trouble than it is worth, IMHO.

APf

[Ken Layton]

Marco Specialties sells the individual plastic targets. Some target are not always available. In the old electromechanical pinball days you could always buy the individual targets and rivet them yourself. In those days a target was only 39 cents.

[ErikRuud]

If you can get one off without breaking it, you could probabl resin cast duplicates.

http://www.smoothon.com

I have done it for a few things, and I resin cast slotcars as well.  

http://erikruud.freeservers.com/maelstrom/resin

I have an old tower crane that was sold by Sears in the early 70's.  One of the gears had cracked.  I used one of the good ones to make a copy.  The replacement gear still works after nearly two years of use.

http://erikruud.freeservers.com/maelstrom/crane.html

[Chris]

I bought a resin casting kit a couple of years ago when it was on sale.. still haven't even taken the shrinkwrap off it....

[ErikRuud]

Resin does have a shelf life. It slowly absorbs moisture from the atmosphere, and that causes bubbles in the castings.

You might be OK, because it is shrink wrapped and you haven't opened the bottles yet.