what a productive day!

Ok, so it all started with getting a good loop-da-loop ramp made.  I shrunk the diameter from 5" down to 4" (I may not be able to fit the violin neck through anymore).  I still built it from cardboard, but this time I just used thin manilla folder cardboard (easier to form and curve).  But because it's flimsy, I ended up stiffening it by adding ribbing.  Ribbing on the sides, ribbing down the middle, support walls (closing off dead areas).  It works, FINALLY it works (most of the time).  Out with the old, in with the new:

I was so excited that I  rebuilt the VUK, but now have the entrance hole on the right side instead of the back (going from the back at a weird left angle was just too hard to shoot for, especially with a loop right just behind it).  I just continued to fix other walls, and then started really shooting for everything, and I stumbled upon a pretty nice flow (with multiple options for getting to the upper playfield).  Plunging will either go into the orbit shot, or a soft plunge will hit a bank of targets on the left.  You can bounce of the back wall separation (pops to go behind there) to get to the VUK from the lower right flipper, you can shoot directly through the loop-da-loop ramp from the middle right flipper into the VUK, or choose to go up the loop-da-loop ramp for a 2-shot comb.  The middle right flipper will also still shoot up the piano captive ball ramp.  There's also a shot from the lower right flipper into a left side lane target.  The lower left flipper still goes into the spinning record (not shown yet), and if you shoot for the loop-da-loop, you get a neat effect where the ball goes halfway up and pops back onto the playfield (sometimes causing a left outlane drain, that'll teach you to shoot the loop ramp wrong!)  I'm going to get a balcony wall installed on the right side of the upper playfield, clean up a few more walls, and I should be able to shoot a new video showing the current gameplay.