I can’t speak to pinball plastics in particular but we do a lot of printing on acrylic, PETG, and other plastics for my job.

Ink is put down in layers on one side of the plastic, so the order of application all depends on what finish you want to have. You can hopefully see in the photos of the cat below how the side with the ink is more of a matte finish.

So then it also depends on what type of image you want the end result to be. Sometimes we want some transparency so we don’t use a white layer. Other times, like in this example, we want the colors to be really bright and pop, so we need the white behind the artwork as a base. Finally, if we want the art on both sides, like this, we do COLOR>WHITE>COLOR. A one sided matte finish might be WHITE>COLOR, while a glossy one sided like on most pins would be COLOR>WHITE.

I’d have to confirm with our vendor, but most of our printing now is digital, not screened. We print first and then do the cutting, and in this case, the heat-bending.694476AA-EEE3-4369-A9B5-E598F7EB881B (resized).jpegDC583C52-4D5C-45E5-B8D3-58C812B052C2 (resized).jpeg42BEF5E5-BE84-4336-A4B9-401F53C5C49C (resized).jpeg

DCE4A275-A171-4701-B8E0-D4A6297B3FF8 (resized).jpeg

As for the exact material used in a pin, it’s pretty hard for a plastic so I’d initially think plexi (see link below). Have people had issues with cracking though when using alcohol to clean around the plastics? We had to put out a warning to our customers never to use alcohol on the acrylics we send to them bc we’ve experienced significant cracking while cleaning them.

https://www.hunker.com/13418602/acrylic-vs-plexi-glass

I’d have to ask my vendors. It’s not that uncommon, but for doing a single run of plastics for a pin, it’s likely to be pretty costly for piece bc you are absorbing all of the set up charges into one piece.