I'm with Unclet on the skee-ball issue with the cheapo ones. The ramp is just a straight plastic board with probably a 30-45 degree part that launches the ball. It doesn't look like a skee-ball, even though you are still putting balls in the holes. Its just like with the arcades, you could play MAME with a gamepad, or you can build an arcade cabinet for the real 'feel' of the game. All depends on what you want to do.
I want my skeeball to look and feel like the real version, and I'm willing to probably be the first one to actually build one and document it for others to do as well.
I've thought about being able to take a mold of the curve somehow the digitize that with cad. If anyone wants to grab some playdough, clay and saran wrap, they could take a mold, let it harden, then trace the curve on a piece of paper, please do. Mail it to me and I will put the curve into cad.
For me, I'm not worried about going to an arcade somewhere and playing a skee-ball machine. The only place near me is Dave & Busters that has skeeball, and most of those are the new fancy ones which don't hold the same appeal as the old style ones. I don't play arcade games outside of my MAME machine at home unless they are something really interesting (like the gun/fishing/firefighting ones). I have no desire to collect tickets to earn some cheapo prize, so if my curve initially isn't exact, its ok. I think it will be close enough, and I will try to get some measurements on that as well.
Since the subject came up, Unclet could you take measurements of the curve every inch down to where it becomes the flat ramp ? That might help. I plan on trying to heat-form lexan to get the curve, but if that is not successful then I may have to build a mold and use bondo. Could even take a heavy board (like 1-2" thick) and cut multiple sections out of it, then glue together to form the 19" wide curved section. I think there are more ways to do this than people realize. The wood cut would be easier I believe, and can't believe I didn't think of it earlier. You woulc just cut out S shaped pieces out of wood then glue them all together, sand smooth and mount. A good scroll or bandsaw would make this easy.
I am starting on the project this weekend, so I will try to get a website up with some pics, or at least put it in the project announcement section.
Brad