I mentioned in another thread that one of the coolest ideas I've seen in a long time is the PinBox 3000. This is a tabletop size DIY carboard mechanical pinball. It takes a little over an hour to assemble, you play with marbles, and best of all, you get to design and swap out playfields. I'd love to see pictures of what people have done with this and hear about ideas as well.

I'll start by showing off a project I'm currently working on. I bought two tables at Pintastic -- one for me and one for my daughter. My design is based on the great Neil Gaimon novel "The Graveyard Book." Here are some pics:

PinboxGY1_(resized).JPG
PinboxGY2_(resized).JPG
PinboxGY3_(resized).JPG
PinboxGY4_(resized).JPG

That's right! The Pro version comes with a spinner!

This is still a work in progress. I'm going to make a little cardboard graveyard chapel to go behind the ramp. And, I'm thinking about adding some bumpers but not entirely sure about it. I'm also thinking about a ball lock under the wireform.

Yeah, I found it helpful to build mine before I helped my daughter with hers. Her decorating is nearly complete. I'll post some pictures of it later. She did one based on one of her favorite books.

Since I last posted, I added a ball lock and the funeral chapel. The ball lock works moderately well. My main issue at the moment is that when I launch a ball, it hits a rubber band behind the ramp and comes back down the shooter lane. I'm going to try to make a flap out of some card stock to prevent that from happening.

Other than that, I think I may be done. I keep thinking it needs one thing more, but I'm not sure where, and I feel like I'm running out of space. This must by what real pinball designers feel. Making maximum use of space is harder than I thought.

Yeah, I should probably also complain about the inferior quality of the clearcoat. I'll never buy a PinBox 3000 NIB again!

Hmmm . . . I'm not sure why someone is giving me down votes on each of my posts. This thread is pretty tame and innocuous. Perhaps it was a mistake.

Anyway, my creation is done, as is my daughter's. Here is a photo of the two of them. My daughter's is based on one of her favorite books "The Book of Story Beginnings". One part is about a King who likes cats and a Queen who likes birds and how they cannot get along. My daughter chose that aspect for her theme.

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Thanks! She appreciates the thought.

Did you say you were involved in the company, or did I misread that?

Those look great! Thanks for posting. What were the issues that you encountered in the Beta?