I'm designing a custom pinball project and am thus getting a quick education in small-scale manufacturing. Looks like short of raiding an old machine, I'm on my own when it comes to certain playfield parts. Specifically, drop targets.

Love them drop targets, yep. But I have yet to locate a 24-hour Drop Target Superstore. Hello sir, what size do you need? How many? What color? Alas... no such luck. Same for specific ball return troughs, ramps, hoo boy what a list.

I have a feeling boutique builds live and die on parts. And/or backglass & playfield construction. Nevertheless, I soldier forth in the name of almighty pinball!

Have any of you custom builders hit the parts wall and survived?

Yes a good way to go... but the bigger stumbling block is the mechanism to hold everything together, switch states, mount the brackets, the brackets, etc.