Our pinball playfields are done in-house. Your playfield will come direct from pinball designer with both machine data to have the playfield cut (G-Code) and a top-down layout image (jpg) that you can use as a reference guide to plan your artwork. All you have to do is send over your pinball designer game folder and we load up your design. It then can be directly exported for cutting and printing immediately. See pricing options below.

Each playfield starts from a piece of 1/2" 7-ply wood with a maple top and bottom. This is pretty standard across the industry.

The playfield is exported directly from Pinball Designer and machine cut.

Next the playfield will go through 1 of 3 different print options. (A)Print Overlay, (B)Resin Inserts, or (C)Standard Inserts.

For Resin and Standard Inserts, artwork is applied, then a clear coat. For the print overlay, no clear coat or inserts are needed. See video demonstration.

Playfield Protection

Here are some examples of the playfield protection that comes standard with all overlay printed playfields, all mass produced Pawlowski Pinball games and is an optional purchase for your individual playfield if you chose to do a traditional or resin playfield.

These are some photos at a local aracde from various other manufacturers. Some of these games have a lifetime of 3 weeks, 3 months, 1 year. You can see how scratched the playfields are and some in a very short period of time.

This is a sample overlay printed playfield for the Pinball Eternal demo machine. These photos are after 5 minutes of quick hand rubbing motion with steel wool. This is a very aggressive test to check scratch resistance and simulates thousands of hours of play. The steel wool is also more aggressive than a smooth ball that rolls, rather than bits of steel being dragged across the playfield.

(Click photos to enlarge)

See it in action. 20 minute steel wool scratch test.

Pricing

For a fully completed playfield you are looking at $400 minimum, up to $725.

Playfield Cut: $250 - Your playfield is cut out and shipped without artwork. Typically you only want it without artwork if you feel like you want to iterate a few designs before or you decide on a final layout. When iterating your game layout, typically you will cut the playfield without any insert lights so that you can start shooting without spending time and money filling light holes with resin or inserts. Just drop in a blank playfield and start shooting your game.

Playfield Cut(Iterative): $120 - Subsequent minor changes to your playfield design get a discount cut price. If you realized you wanted to add something new or need to make an adjustment to something on the playfield. The layout change needs to come from the same game. This is not a discount towards an entirely new game design.

Playfield Art (Option 1): $150 - A pre-printed artwork is overlayed. This is a very high quality and vibrant artwork glued down onto the playfield. With this option the light bleeds directly through the artwork rather than through an insert or other material that light would shine through. The artwork is then protected by an anti-scratch overlay.

Playfield Art (Option 2): $400 - If you are using standard pinball insert designs, these will be glued into the playfield. The inserts get sanded. Then your artwork is printed directly onto the wood, followed by a clear coat. After this a flat sand and polish step takes place.

Playfield Art (Option 3): $450 - If you have custom pinball insert shapes, a custom insert process must take place to create the light shapes. A resin is mixed and poured into the holes. This requires extra preparation and work. This also requires an additional 3-day hardening period. Then your artwork is printed directly onto the wood, followed by a clear coat. After this a flat sand and polish step takes place.

Playfield Protection(Optional): $25 - If you chose a resin or traditional insert playfield, this protection will go on top of the clear coat to make it scratch resistant. See other examples on this page.

Playfield Plastics(Optional): $120 - If you have any raised plastics such as ball guides or inlane guides, these can be printed and cut directly from pinball designer. Flat charge for your entire game including any standup character artwork such as you would see on the X-Men or Foo Fighters Pro models (typically called flat plastics).