(Topic ID: 150775)

Freeplay40 Ramps

By Freeplay40

8 years ago


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Topic index (key posts)

56 key posts have been marked in this topic, showing the first 10 items.

Display key post list sorted by: Post date | Keypost summary | User name

Post #1 List of remade ramps Posted by Freeplay40 (8 years ago)

Post #200 F-14 ramp mold Posted by Freeplay40 (7 years ago)

Post #210 F-14 ramp preview with various colors Posted by Freeplay40 (7 years ago)

Post #232 Examples of the F-14 ramp installed in a game Posted by Freeplay40 (7 years ago)

Post #241 F-14 ramp finished Posted by Freeplay40 (7 years ago)

Post #258 Hurricane ramp form test Posted by Freeplay40 (7 years ago)

Post #264 Original Hurricane ramp differences Posted by Freeplay40 (7 years ago)

Post #289 Hurricane ramp finished Posted by Freeplay40 (7 years ago)

Post #305 Finished hurricane ramp photi Posted by Freeplay40 (7 years ago)

Post #310 Finished hurricane ramp Posted by Freeplay40 (7 years ago)


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You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider pinheadpierre.
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#870 7 years ago

Pinbot please, if possible - when you are healthy. (I posted this before reading the last posts in the thread and went back in and edited this. I hope you are on the road to recovery.)

2 weeks later
#898 7 years ago

Any plans for PinBot or Comet? Comet especially is a good candidate. Lots of folks need the center ramp and the corkscrew ramp for Comet.

#911 7 years ago

But not nearly as strong as Comet! Comet is a celestial cash cow waiting to be milked.

#917 7 years ago
Quoted from DonnieTsunami:

I'd be interested in being added to the list for future Pin Bot ramps.

Ditto

#927 7 years ago

Wow - those are nice.

1 month later
#1016 7 years ago
Quoted from Freeplay40:

Attached are some photos of the rough cut Strange Science ramps that are now ready to be final machined. Mostly just wanted to show the color. The original Anti-Gravity ramp is in a couple of the photos as reference. I have completed the forming and the dying for this first round, but I expect I will do a few more since I really don't have a good idea of what everyone wants. Sometimes the photos can change your mind.....Like Genesis..In the end 94% abandoned the stock pink ramps for the clears.

I love the colored look. How do you do that?

3 months later
#1338 6 years ago

Yay PinBot - looking forward to it!

1 month later
#1375 6 years ago
Quoted from CraigC:

Comet cork screw ramp? Nice and small and most are trashed....
-c

Quoted from chad:

Put me down for 2.

Quoted from chad:

I am in as well. Can't wait.

Quoted from shicketmaster:

I'd take a comet corkscrew

Comet corkscrew! PLEASE!!!!! Clear or transparent would be awesome.

1 week later
#1410 6 years ago
Quoted from Freeplay40:

On another note, Vid1900 said he would dig out a Comet Cork Screw rap and send to me....

Hooray! That is awesome news!

#1438 6 years ago
Quoted from Freeplay40:

I've just completed a run of G n' R ramps to get to the folks on my waiting list. At this point I may have one or two extras and might make a few more, right now, but this will probably do it for G n' R for some time. So if interested let me know ASAP.
The next ramps I want to see if I can do right now are Pinbot and the Comet Cork Screw ramps.

Yay! Count me in for one of each!

3 weeks later
#1478 6 years ago

Best wishes for your surgery and recovery. Take it slow with the recovery. Health is the only wealth we really have.

3 months later
#1643 6 years ago

Holy cats - that's intense. Please take it REALLY easy for a LONG time. Months upon months if that is what the body needs. Screw pinball. Health is all the real wealth any of us have. I don't care how long I have to wait for ramps. Seriously. May you be comfortable in your body once again sooner rather than later.

3 weeks later
11
#1658 6 years ago

I vote no ramp talk until Mark tells us he is FULLY recovered.

3 weeks later
#1689 6 years ago
Quoted from Freeplay40:

It's a little dicey but not rocket science. The dye I use is called Idye Poly. Basically it is a dye used for clothing. There are two types of dye (that I am familiar with) for different types of fabric.....Cotton and then the other is for Rayon or Nylon. Both Rayon and Nylon are basically plastics.
The dye is prepared per manufacturers instructions. PETG will distort at temperatures nearing 140 Fahrenheit....so best to stay under 130. The process does require warmth for the dye to work, so typically you are reheating the batch sometimes several times to get the desired color density. Between "dippings" the pieces are rinsed in cold water then re-immersed. To reduce the risk of distortion, I will rough cut the pieces to be dyed, leaving lots of extra plastic for support....then once dyed, the pieces are final cut and finished. The dye fully penetrates the plastic.
Honestly it is a lot of extra effort, but the results....colored PETG....is worth it.

I have done this to dye pop bumper skirts also. Start with white skirts and dye to your color of choice.

1 month later
#1764 6 years ago

Yay for Comet! I plan on starting a partial restoration of a Comet tomorrow. The spiral ramp on my project is trashed, barely held together by tape. I'm really glad that you are healthy enough to get back to working on Comet!

#1794 6 years ago

How is the Comet corkscrew mold coming along?

#1798 6 years ago
Quoted from Freeplay40:

It's next up. Also will be receiving an NOS Pinbot ramp on Friday as well. So planning on molding both of those. Molds will need to cure for a week to 10 days, but we're getting close.

Great! I'm still in for a Comet but you can take me off the PinBot list. (I sold it.)

#1820 6 years ago
Quoted from Impzilla:

Another pinbot lift ramp was on eBay and sold for 125.00 buy it now price same day it listed.
Jeesh....

When you say lift ramp do you mean the ramp that is basically a plain piece of acrylic with a blue metal flap riveted to each end and lifts up and down to open/close the collect solar value alley?

#1824 6 years ago
Quoted from Impzilla:

Yep - that ramp. Two ramps listed by same seller and they both sold for over one hundred.

Good grief. If you've got one it's a REALLY easy part to reproduce so long as you have a rivet press.

2 weeks later
#1868 6 years ago
Quoted from jaytrem:

Anybody planning on painting the corkscrew ramp orange when it comes out? I'd love to have an orange one, but would prefer to have somebody who actually knows what there doing to paint it for me. Would be willing to pay of course. Translucent orange ones should be interesting, can't wait to see how those look.
Thanks!!!

I am betting that Mark comes up with a really good looking transparent orange. The interesting thing about painting a clear one is that the originals had a black painted rim. I question how that would look on a clear ramp painted orange underneath. It's one of those details that I probably wouldn't reproduce. The original rims were sloppily painted and didn't look all that great. I think transparent orange would be a cosmetic upgrade which also opens up creative lighting possibilities.

3 weeks later
#1910 6 years ago

Almost done with my Comet playfield restoration. I sure would love to be able to put a new corkscrew ramp on it rather than patching up the crappy broken original. How's it going with that one?

1 week later
#1940 6 years ago
Quoted from IdahoRealtor:

Comet! The right ramp. We all need one.

Someone made those not too long ago. I picked one up from Marco last year. Looks like they are out of stock now.

2 weeks later
#1990 6 years ago

How's that Comet corkscrew coming along?

1 week later
#2009 5 years ago
Quoted from Freeplay40:

Roughly finished a clear and a dyed orange Comet Cork Screw today alongside an original. See photo and let me know what you think of the orange.

The orange looks great!

2 weeks later
#2153 5 years ago
Quoted from Freeplay40:

I've been following pinheadpierre's restoration and he mentioned that he was trying to get the game done in time for the Golden State Pinball show. He said he did not want to ask but was hoping he would have the new Cork Screw ramp in time so that he would not have to put his broken taped together ramp back in. This is going out to him tomorrow morning.

THANK YOU, Mark! You are awesome. I can't properly express how excited I am!

1 month later
#2386 5 years ago

Forgive me but I've lost track of which PinBot ramps you are making (besides the clear lift ramp). Corkscrew? Big blue ramp? Both?

4 months later
#2663 5 years ago

That's one badass looking Pinbot!

1 month later
#2742 5 years ago

I hope you asked Santa for a larger vacuum setup!

5 months later
#3165 4 years ago

How is your work on the larger heater progressing? Are you still thinking it'll be online this month? (At least that's what I seem to remember you saying awhile ago as a goalpost for the project.)

1 week later
#3183 4 years ago
Quoted from Freeplay40:

So...I think I am actually catching my breath with ramps. Pretty much wrapped up the Guns' 'N Roses...I seriously doubt I will ever do those again! Focusing on just filling orders for existing stuff and working on the molds for Black Belt and Transporter. I have almost finished prepping the Blackbelt donor ramp for casting. Will probably hold off casting the Blackbelt until I get the Transporter ramps ready...btw...going to do all three of them. Once I have all of them cast, I will probably be taking some time off to enjoy a little summer in the mountains while the molds cure. I chose to set up the Blackbelt mold first 'cause it was a bitch!
You all know I get lobbied for ramps a lot. Over the past couple years I have pretty much promised certain ones that I have not gotten to yet. The hardest part and probably my least favorite, is making the molds. I did get a request for one of the ramps for Radical, and I explained that it just was not on any near term radar. He asked if it would help if he made the mold...uh, yeah. So we talked a few times and he took a shot at it. He sent it to me just a week or two ago. He did pretty well....probably 90% there for me. He worked on it a long time and said he never wanted to do that again. I spent today tweaking his handiwork and have it ready to form. Hoping to pull the first one tomorrow. Attached are two photos...How he sent it to me and how I modified it.
[quoted image][quoted image]

What was your thinking behind the modification? Does that somehow make it easier to finish after the pull?

4 months later
#3611 4 years ago

You will enjoy and endless amount of opportunities and requests for ramps that fit your current setup. Hopefully the temptation to do “just one more” with the current heater will not win out over finally getting the big unit into production! I’d be curious to see if the big unit makes you more efficient, too, by allowing smaller ramps to be formed concurrently with large ramps if there’s room on the sheet. Heater! Heater! Heater! Yay!

1 week later
#3653 4 years ago
Quoted from Freeplay40:

I honestly haven't played around with decals for several years. I recreated some plastics for my High Speed years ago with reverse image water slide decals which were then shot with white paint for the translucence. It took some experimenting to get the color saturation just right but in the end, they looked great. The hardest part was to get the black dense enough. I handled that by simply making an exact duplicate of the plastic image and removed all color except the black. I then just ran the decal through the printer again only printing black over the already printed decal. Printer (Ink Jet) lines it up perfectly for the second pass of just the black.
Bottom line is I think good quality reproductions can be made with a bit of tinkering if necessary.

Quoted from Freeplay40:

I honestly haven't played around with decals for several years. I recreated some plastics for my High Speed years ago with reverse image water slide decals which were then shot with white paint for the translucence. It took some experimenting to get the color saturation just right but in the end, they looked great. The hardest part was to get the black dense enough. I handled that by simply making an exact duplicate of the plastic image and removed all color except the black. I then just ran the decal through the printer again only printing black over the already printed decal. Printer (Ink Jet) lines it up perfectly for the second pass of just the black.
Bottom line is I think good quality reproductions can be made with a bit of tinkering if necessary.

It’s really not difficult with the right materials. I’ve made entire plastic sets for old games with unobtanium plastics. You’ll need access to a HIGH quality printer. I use an Epson that shoots archival pigment based inks. Deep, rich blacks and resistant to fading for around 100 years. Print on good quality archival photo paper. Cut out and adhere to the bottom of plastic, ramp, etc with Drytac (an optically clear micro thin two sided adhesive film).

Edit: I must’ve been thinking about this in my sleep because the first thing I thought when I woke up this morning was that although this has worked great for flat plastics, it might not work as easily for ramps due to the curving, twisting nature of the plane in some applications. I suppose if you got the shape just right you could still do it with paper, but for ramp decals where there is a twist involved the project better served doing it on flexible material (maybe vinyl?). Interesting challenge.

3 months later
#3880 4 years ago
Quoted from ccbiggsoo7:

good luck! larry is having a time with that one.

Seems like Larry has been humming that tune about Space Shuttle for a VERY long time. Don’t hold your breath.

5 months later
#4056 3 years ago

How’s the Big Unit coming along? (Your new heater, that is.) Hope you’re doing well and staying healthy.

2 weeks later
#4071 3 years ago
Quoted from KoSLoW:

can't wait to mount mine [quoted image]

That’s NOT what those holes are for! Way TMI.

#4073 3 years ago
Quoted from KoSLoW:

Ok let me change : can't wait to install *

Ha!

1 week later
#4095 3 years ago
Quoted from lrosent345:

Hi Jody. There is a downside to placing smaller ramps around the big ones. Let's say you add an Airraid ramp to an Addams Family tool. You run 50 and when the Addams Family ramps are gone you still have 45 Airraid ramps. Probably a bad example but you get the point.

I don’t see how that makes sense. If you’re pulling a large ramp, the material gets used no matter what. Better to have the scrap material be something with potential use/value, right?

5 months later
#4274 3 years ago

I’m still in for a Comet center ramp too!

1 month later
#4399 3 years ago
Quoted from Freeplay40:

New machine is nearly assembled....Just have to figure out where this goes???? Pinball shown for reference.
[quoted image]

The neighbors are going to wonder why their lights suddenly started dimming now and then.

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