One day and you have a prototype already??? Wow!

“Gairdians” ??

Lol

Is there a creative story to the widened lower part of each? Are they just art or functional?
These are amazing!

I want to like it, but I agree with you about the visual that you'd probably need more artifacts going up the arm to really tie-in. Perhaps simpler might be better (and save you some TIG time!)

It's fun to watch your artistry in progress, and a number of us commenting really feels like we are collaborating on the design. What a great experience. I am already thinking about whether I will keep them bare metal as supplied, have them chrome plated, or powder coated in black or purple. (There some thinking ahead huh?)

Fair to say, you will land on a final design, and you'll end up with dozens of orders day-1, and after those are made, could likely keep dropping a few at the places like Little Shop to keep them flowing for so many of the HUO owners that don't follow this thread.

The first picture in this note has two of the left ramps sitting on the board. It's pretty amazing to compare the left one which seems to be an early prototype to the right one as the design was refined which appears to be the near-final product. You are now definitely the the commercial grade zone for look and function.

It really *is* a fun game. I passed on getting one a couple of years ago, but finally decided to give it a try last month. Like you, I am keeping it as it just feels, fun, easy to navigate, and you can play mindlessly if you like without the need for following the rules too deeply. Your ramps will be one of the few MODs I add to the machine.

I tip my hat to you sir!

You are getting close!!

You are now officially having too much fun!

I dropped a note to HemiOrange09 who does powder coating of ramps. Are these made of steel or stainless steel? I hear powder coating is harder on stainless, but not sure of that. I will let you know what I hear back.

Would accommodating the existing flashers be possible if you welded two or three "tabs" to the existing wire (approx in the current locations of the flashers) and then had a simple flat piece of PETG made to match? (Upkick in Dallas can knock those out with polished edges in any shape in minutes). The existing flashers could connect to the 4 new custom PETG pieces, and the PETG pieces could be mounted to the new tabs with matching mounting holes.

Thoughts?

I thought I heard that there was a special technique or preparation needed to powdercoat stainless steel? I think it included thorough surface cleaning, passivation (the hard part) and sand blasting before the actual powder coating. If so, does it add a ton of cost or make the resulting finish less desireable?

Just asking...

Are you getting close to an estimate on the final cost of the ramps set?

That's pretty frickin' cool. I am not sure if those cuts would interfere with ball travel, but it looks really cool. Perhaps you could be careful in your placement and NOT cut into the ramp in the CENTER of the ramp, so that the ball path would be clear, but the see-thru lines would be left and right of center line? I am guessing that the center 1/4 - 3/8 inch or so would need to stay clear, if the travel was any sort of issue.... not sure why we haven't seen metal ramps with illumination slots like this in the past (since plastic ramps have been illuminated from underneath for 30 years!)