It was too cold and rainy to do spray painting today, so I switched back to my other parallel task, the playfield swap.

My goal with my Space Shuttle pinball game is for it to look as new as possible when it’s done. To do this, I’m throwing as many new parts at it as possible – all new plastics, playfield, ramp, etc. The new reproduction ramps that are being made are of much thicker plastic – this has the benefit of making for a much tougher ramp that is less likely to crack over time. The downside is that the ramp cannot be installed cleanly into a playfield, as the extra thickness of material causes a clearance problem. The problem and one solution is described pretty clearly in this Pinside thread.

I decided to take the plunge and, while it sounds scary, route out my brand new expensive reproduction Space Shuttle playfield! Here it is with some painters tape to protect the clearcoat and mark out the material that needs to be removed:

Next, I went to a friend’s house who was kind enough to not only let me use his wood router, but also teach me how to use it and practice on a scrap piece. Let the chips fly!

Here’s the result. I was easily able to stay within a 1/16″ of my taped edge going freehand, which is plenty enough precision for this.

Now the ramp should install cleanly. I won’t know for sure until all the other parts are installed of course, but it looks good so far.