Arcade Collecting > Miscellaneous Arcade Talk
Build your own Pinball Machine
fredster:
Aren't the playerfields made of Birch?
Maybe birch plywood, about 5/8" thick?
mp2526:
--- Quote from: Chris on August 20, 2004, 10:38:23 am ---I had considered using thin plexi as well, because of the insert issue. I can't think of a way to make lamp inserts that will lay nice and flat; one could just cut holes in the playfield for the lamps, put a lighting gel (essentially a really thick sheet of cellophane) over the hole, and cover it all with plexi.
--Chris
--- End quote ---
Ok, I get the problem now. I could see a few ways around this.
1. Use your gel idea and get it as close to flush as you can and build up enough wax protection on the board to flush the lamp covers.
2. Do the same thing, except instead of counting on the wax to flush up the covers (which I admit is a bit of a stretch), spray a few coats of polyurethane to level the playfield.
3. Cover it with plexi (or non scratching similar product), but it you would need to make sure the switches and what not were extended to account for the extra thickness, or use a thinner playfield. Also, you would need to be sure you used a material that would not yellow with age and not become brittle as the ball would probably crack it over time.
4. Another solution would be to use mylar sheets and cover the entire playfield. Pinballs usually use mylar to cover areas where the ball would tend to do the most damage to the playfield, but some people have covered entire playfields with mylar
mp2526:
--- Quote from: fredster on August 20, 2004, 11:23:46 am ---Aren't the playerfields made of Birch?
Maybe birch plywood, about 5/8" thick?
--- End quote ---
Yes, I just opened up the pinbot I have here at work to look at the lamp covers and noticed that the playfield is about 5/8 " thick and does look like it could be birch.
Chris:
--- Quote from: mp2526 on August 20, 2004, 11:39:47 am ---1. Use your gel idea and get it as close to flush as you can and build up enough wax protection on the board to flush the lamp covers.
--- End quote ---
Lighting gels by themselves would not support the weight of a ball, unfortunately. The poster at VPForums building his own table solved the problem by just not putting any lamps on his table...
I guess one solution would be to cut circles of plexi and glue them into routed circles on the playfield, putty the edges and sand flush. That would work, although doing non-circular shapes would be tricky. You'd also have a slight dark ring around the outside edge, but a good black border around the edge of the insert would hide this and the putty.
Maybe this is doable after all...
fredster:
Is there a site that can explain how the electro mechanical pinball machines worked?
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