How tall are metal ball guides in modern 90's machines?

madmrmax

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I'm trying to recreate a pinball machine but I don't have physical access to the machine. I'm trying to estimate out the height of the metal ball guide. From the estimate of the height, I can probably estimate out the height of the top-tabs where the plastic sits on:
1708219844806.png
I always thought that 29mm is the correct height of metal ball guides, but now I'm not sure. If it was 29mm then I suspect the tabs would be at least another 1 mm tall, putting the base of the plastics starting at 30mm. My understanding is that for plastics on star posts, the plastics generally start at 29mm? Thoughts? For real pinball machines (modern 90's era and beyond) what is the general offset where plastics start?
 
It might depend on which brand you are trying to emulate
Data East/Sega/Stern will attach a plastic to a ball guide
Bally/Williams dont

Attaching a plastic to a ball guide will A) cause the paint to come off. B) cause the ball guide to rub on the plastic

The picture below are parts from a White Water
The ball guide is 28.7mm high
The plastic post is 27.4mm high
The nut on the post screw is 3mm thick
Which would place the plastic 2.5mm away from the metal ball guide
 

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Thanks! This is Balley/Williams Theatre of Magic. The offset for the plastics should help me reverse engineer the height of the ball guide. The ball guide has a few of these "tabs" which the plastics sit on (and either a nut or a standoff attaches to). I've highlighted the tabs in red:
1708235317709.png and further around the right side 1708235345743.png
and you can see the plastics sitting on them in these shots. You can also see the large metal stand offs that rely on those "tabs"
1708235392407.png
1708235460416.png
 
Cirquis Voltaire
to the top of the tab with the thread 30.1mm
 

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