I'd give the Flewton ball a shot, as I'd always wanted to swap out that block on my machine; I have a surface grinder at work that should take it down easily, then I can break the edges afterward so there are no hard corners. Hopefully once you get past the outer 1/32" of these balls the inside is not all air pockets, mercury and Chinese medical waste, but will find out. I will order a handful and try it out this week.

I Flewtonized ("Flewton" TM by Rarehero ) one ball this morning on the surface grinder and will throw it in the machine tonight to see how it plays.

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Flat newton is installed and works really well. As mentioned this makes the Sparky shot off the right flipper easier to make, and the ball recoils nicely to the coffin magnet.

Pic of ball in place. After about 50 hits I'm seeing some marking so might try oil or air hardening the new face and see how that holds up.

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One more head-on. The shot is pretty sensitive now and registers a hit even with softer glancing blows.

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I'd like to try hardening the face first for the best longevity, but after seeing what works best if anyone wants one of these I can probably make up a batch.

You just have to make sure you hit each side of the ball an equal number of times every game.

No, but seriously, this occurred to me too, but so far it's doing well. I think that unless the face is really wide the hits don't put much torque on the ball to break the nut loose, and it would only by hits to the right side (the "unscrew" direction) that would hurt it. Will see how many games it lasts with just the nut holding it. I can always weld a T-nut to the top of the post that, once drawn in from below with a nut, would keep it oriented indefinitely, but that means tow little fang holes in the top of the PF...not my favorite solution.

Sure, I'll pick up some more balls and try one a little deeper.

Maybe I got lucky but on my machine, I never felt it was that terrible. But this feels as good or better. I'm interested to get a couple of these out to have some other opinions.