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Wanted Tron steel ramp flaps

Monkeyboypaul

Monkeyboypaul

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10 Years
Joined
May 29, 2013
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5,642
Location
South of York
Anyone know where i can get some stainless steel ramp flaps for Tron?

My game has the thin blue steel ones and they're scuffed & little bit rusted. Be nice to replace them as i'll be taking the ramp out to do the lit ramps mod anyway - 2 birds 1 stone.

Can't see them on Pinbits' site..
 
If you've got one or can borrow one just get busy with a Dremel and felt buffing wheel. Have a look on @Hiro996's shop log for LOTR. I did the ramp flaps on that and they went from patchy pitted blue to near mirror polished.
 
image.jpg
So you used the original blue ones to create those?
 
Monkeyboypaul said:
View attachment 17345 So you used the original blue ones to create those?
Click to expand...

Yep, those are the original flaps. They were polished without removing them from the ramps because it's a bugger to replace the rivets. It'd obviously be easier to polish them if they were removed but just about doable in-situ. The Dremel can't quite get in the corner behind each rivet head so there is a minor amount of hand polishing.

I'm sure @Hiro996 will confirm, but if I recall correctly he tried polished them by hand with Autosol which pretty much removed most of the blue (it's a sort of dye for steel called "bluing" that helps prevent rusting to a certain degree) but there was still a fair amount of pitting from the light surface rust and hand polishing just wasn't getting a good shine. I'd say around 5-10 minutes work with the Dremel using a 1-inch felt wheel and white finishing compound sorted them out!
 
Yep @Nedreud is spot on. I polished them by hand which removed the blue but didn't give the mirror finish I was looking for - fortunately @Nedreud loves polishing things so I handed them over to him!
 
Hiro996 said:
Yep @Nedreud is spot on. I polished them by hand which removed the blue but didn't give the mirror finish I was looking for - fortunately @Nedreud loves polishing things so I handed them over to him!
Click to expand...

Hi Kevin,

What did you use to polish the ramp with the Autosol? The Dremel with an [X] attachment again?

Would you say this will keep them from marking or rusting for the near future?

I'm not after a mirror finish, just a silver/steel that looks better than this blotchy blue....

IMG_0848.JPG
IMG_0847.JPG
 
Monkeyboypaul said:
Hi Kevin,

What did you use to polish the ramp with the Autosol? The Dremel with an [X] attachment again?

Would you say this will keep them from marking or rusting for the near future?

I'm not after a mirror finish, just a silver/steel that looks better than this blotchy blue....

View attachment 17432 View attachment 17433
Click to expand...
Hi @Monkeyboypaul,

Kevin started by polishing the flaps by hand with Autosol, I assume with a cotton cloth or the like. But it was slow going and not getting rid of the signs of corrosion or achieving a high shine, although it did remove most of the bluing. It probably would given enough time but it's tiring work by hand. So I had a go with my Dremel. I use 1" felt buffing wheels with a final-finish polishing compound for steels, both readily available on eBay. It was tricky getting the Dremel right into the corners behind the rivet heads (I used several layers of thick masking tape to protect the gold ramp itself) but I managed to polish pretty much 99% in about 5-10 minutes each. The type of blued sprung-steel is prone to little dots of rust, which are clearly visible on your flaps. Whilst the rust is easily removed polishing out all trace of the blemishes would be difficult.Kevin then gave them a final "tickle" with Autosol to finish off the corners, but Autosol also helps to prevent/limit future oxidation and corrosion.

If they were really bad I would bite the bullet and get new flaps made by a metal fabricators in stainless steel which can be mirror polished, but then you've got to **** around with those rivets. Heck, it's so thin you could cut it yourself with tin snips. I don't know why Stern uses such ****ty sprung steel on these? I get why they use sprung steel as it's thin and will remain snugly pressed against the playfield, but I think they're shaving mere cents off the cost of using something better.
 
Hi, yes i'm loathed to **** about with rivets if i can help it, except if i got some new steel flaps of course. The ramp's coming out for the Eli mod anyway, 2 birds 1 stone etc. I'll give your method a go, dremel all the way. thanks.
 
No harm in trying, just cover the plastic part of the ramp with plenty of tape (masking is fine) as the Dremel is so fast that it heats up and melts plastic very quickly! Ask @Hiro996 about polishing plastic ramps... :eek:

One thought if you can't find any rivets or don't have access to a rivet press (I don't) is you can get some very small dome-headed hex key bolts. I had to remove a broken plastic from a pair of stand-up targets on my GOLD BALL which were riveted on. As a temporary replacement I used some tiny M3 thread 10mm long A2 Stainless Steel Socket Button Head Screw Bolts which came with Nyloc Nuts. They are lovely and shiny, and the hex holes are very small and recessed (on a stand-up target I was worried the ball would get damaged if there were sharp or protuding edges).

Here they are:

c1.staticflickr.com_9_8709_17607570228_b2808014a7_c.jpg

c1.staticflickr.com_9_8880_17672896758_cff446c6db_c.jpg

I'm sure these would work fine on these ramps too as they're tucked so close to the edges the ball probably can't even touch them. The other option is to find someone on here with a rivet press who could fix the flaps back on for you. There was a group buy of rivets and dies a while ago, I think @Paul was involved so maybe he'd know who to ask?
 
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