This pictorial is demonstrated on a cool Star Trek The Next Generation pinball machine made in 1993. However, these tips could be used with virtualy any machine that has plastic ramps, that well may be almost all of them since 1990 and well before that!. We'll demonstrate how to do it and what's going on.

IMPORTANT! - If you are not confident in your repair abilities and if you have never done any repairs before, TXPinball does NOT RECOMMEND doing any kind of diagnostics, troubleshooting or repairs. If you do not know how to solder, if you have not worked on pinball machines before, if you are not comfortable holding a propane torch that gets EXTREMELY HOT, but you read this and "it seems easy", please don't do it.

What we are doing here is holding a torch with open flame slightly melting plastics at high temperature. It is risky and you CAN RUIN YOUR RAMP COMPLETELY!. So, if you are not comfortable with doing this, please stop right now and right here.

IMPORTANT! Please use due care and precaution while following this pictorial. Use at your own risk. If you do not have any repair or refurbishing experience and/or knowledge, do not work on pinball machine circuit boards, power supply, transformer, connectors, propane torch or anything inside at all, and step away from the machine!

This webpage is for informational purposes only. TXPinball will not be held liable or responsible for any damage that occurs to your pinball machine or any bodily injury or any kind of damage to you, your pinball machine or pinball parts like plastic ramps, by use or misuse of this technique. If you have no idea what you're doing, step away from the pinball machine! Drop that propane torch! Now, onto the pictorial...

Almost all modern pinball machines have clear plastic ramps on them. How to get them back to almost like new condition? Here at TXPinball, every machine we sell goes through this process. It is sort of hard to capture with a digital camera the intricate details of a molded clear piece of plastic and to point out flaws and improvements on it, but we'll try. Many online places selling ramps have them tinted in the pictures, because clear, see-through plastic is hard to get properly shown on camera.

Guess there are many ways to go about this and many ways to do these things. This is ours.

What exactly is going on here? Many pinball machines have clear plastic ramps mounted on their playfields. Over the years, since they were generally neglected at locations, poorly maintained and not cleaned regularly, these ramps became hazy and worn looking, sometimes developing cracks. In addition to that, pinball "ball trails" have been formed on them over the years. That means, pinball has been travelling over and over and over on that ramp so many times, it "carved" itself a nice little, very visible ball trail in its path.

Here is the "Alpha Quadrant" ramp from the Star Trek The Next Generation machine. I've done many of these games so far, so it is almost routine to me NOW, but it hasn't been like that always. So, practice as much as you can if you wish to do this. Remember, flame polishing ramps takes steady hand and practice. I had some junker ramps lying around and I worked on them before I tackled the "real" thing. It is suggested you do the same.

Here it is from the side, with ball trails, dirt, grime, cloudy, not clear look and haziness. We'll try to remove all that and make the ramp all nice and shiny. Depending on the abuse every particular ramp has had throughout its life, the results will vary from ramp to ramp as each one of them is unique in terms of being worn, although it is the same exact product.

On some less abused ramps, they wil look crystal-clear, almost new, nothing short of spectacular - when done with flame polishing. Some of them with heavy ball trails will be less so, and the results will vary. But, virtually on ALL OF THEM, there will be noticeable improvements. For that reason alone, it is worth to us to do these steps in our refurbishing process for each and every machine we sell. You may choose just to thoroughly clean it and leave it as-is, which is just as well.

Now... First thing to do of course is take the ramp off the playfield. Second, clean it up as much as you can with Novus 2. Then, wash the heck out of it preferably using fine steel wool, warm water and soap. Try as much as you can to get the ball trails off and out of the ramp. The prep job is 95% of the job and outcome of this. Any jackass can wield a propane torch around and roast and melt stuff. So, the better it looks when washed with soap, water and steel wool, the better overall end result will be.

Besides steel wool and other stuff mentioned above you will need a propane torch. That's where "flame" in "flame polishing" part is coming from. Home Depot sells them for around 35$ - 40$. One we use here is made by BERNZ-O-MATIC company, cool name, huh? One propane bottle can last a good amount of time and they are cheap to replace, 8$ or 9$ per bottle. You want a model that has a small flame (I believe the model is 4006, will check later and add here), not something you can weld pipes on a skyscraper construction site, this is plastic we are doing here. Follow manufacturer's directions to assemble the unit and be careful. Fire it up, stare at the flame for a second then get to work and try it out on some junker ramp (or a clear piece of plastic). Practice the point of no return too (a second or less, just to be on the safe side).

You can see even after a lot of prep work, there is still a little bit of the ball trail left in the middle. Time to whip out the heavy guns, and use 600 grit Wet/Dry sandpaper. If that doesn't help, go down to 400 grit, but no more than that. Be gentle with it, do not press too much. If 400 doesn't help, leave it alone. After done with this, the ramp will be a bit hazy in the areas where you used sandpaper at this stage. Flame polishing will clear that out later.

Use some Novus 2 and follow the trail with sandpaper, buff and clean thoroughly with a cotton rag. Again, do not press too hard with sandpaper, you don't want to obliterate the ramp and show it who's the boss 'round 'ere, you want to get rid of ball trail ONLY. So, don't go medieval on it, remember the ultimate goal and what you really want out of this - clear, clean ramp.

1) Keep the torch in constant back and forth motion an inch or two over the ramp. Remember, what we are doing here is melting a thin TOP layer of the plastic to make it as shiny as the plastic underneath the top layer, so we're dancing a fine line here.

2) Don't pitch a tent and camp out on one small portion of ramp ever. Keep moving along, or you will surely screw the pooch big time, if you keep your torch in one area for longer than 1 second or less (DO LESS JUST TO BE SAFE). Rather, let the ramp cool off in that area, then cautiously revisit it later.

3) If that portion of ramp is not as good as you want it to be, move to other parts and revisit very cautiosly later. If it's still not good even then, let it be and live with it. Better a little hazy with a ball trail, then bubbled up, charred, roasted and melted.

4) Keep moving in flow at all times, or you will melt the ramp BEYOND THE POINT OF NO RETURN! What is the point of no return? If you see small bubbles forming on the spot you've been torching, then you've gone too far. You will absolutely positively never ever get them out, they're there to stay and will be quite visible. Use every precaution and move in constant flow to avoid this.

5) Only do top surface of the ramp! You can do bottom if it's clear. If there is a decal or sticker applied there, like in our ramp here, do not torch on the decal side or you will melt it and destroy it. Only top side - where the decal is, not over decal itself.

6) Flame polishing is part art, part practice, part experience and part a right technique.

Now, let's see the finished results...

Finalized ramp. Not perfect, but very clear, shiny, almost like new and TONS better than before and very nice overall.

Ball trails gone, it shines now.

Another angle, ball trails gone. If we went farther than this on this particular ramp, we'd have almost reached the point of no return, and we really, really don't want that. If it happened, nothing you can do about it, but either live with it, or buy a replacement ramp.

As you can see flame polishing is very effective and makes your ramps look clean, clear, prettier, nicer and newer FOR A WHILE! Ball tracks will return over time, there is no way around it.

Anyway... This ramp is ready to join the others, already flame polished before this pictorial and get installed in the freshly refurbished game. After that, and reassembly of the machine, it will be shipped later this week to a gentleman that bought it. After the guy pays the remaining balance on it, of course...

If you have any questions, please email us and we'll try to help you. Remember to do all these steps safely and frequently check and recheck your work.

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