neelshiv,
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Standard quickest way to get freeplay on your Tornado coin-op is the same as at regionals or majors. You open the table, take off the easily removable ball tray in the middle by sliding it upwards. You do this so you can easily reach inside to the ball return rail. Otherwise you can't get to the rail without opening the table again. Stop the balls from going through the hole in the wood back into the ball rail mechanism. You can do this with a little block of wood, 5-7 beer coasters, or even just stuffing it with napkins or a rag.. so the returning balls can only roll to the end of the rail and not into the ball rail mechanism.
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You shouldn't be using only one ball if you can help it.. because for one, with 2-3 balls.. there's always one or more balls ready to pull out while the just-scored ball rolling back is still on its way. Another reason is to prevent overuse and wear that comes with using only one ball. This is a non-problem at tournaments, since even one ball won't wear enough in 2-5 days of a smaller to larger regional or major tourstop. But for everyday practice, you'd like to rotate 3 or more balls.. this also helps with convenience when one or more balls indadvertently fall off the return rail to the sides because of spin or the table moving.
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Of course the other way if you have the table in a den or home or garage room, never to be moved... is to use the blanks that should have come with your table. Or easily orderable, too, although the plug blanks should already be in the coin mechanism when you open it. Taking off the springs and simple screws from the top of the coin mechanism is pretty straightforward. You insert the plugs to close all the quarter slots and bolt the top back. Several other threads on here go through this in detail.
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If you wish to practice on the black side, instead of the yellow, coin-op side... then your idea to block the balls at the goals before they even go into the ramps at all, becomes convenient, although you should still rotate the balls every so often, especially if you tend to play or practice for hours each day. Simply stuffing the goals works, of course, but you lose the nice loud Tornado BLAM! sound and feedback eachtime you pound a ball into the goal. Putting rags or duct-taping your paint stirring stick cut off to measure just out of sight of the goal but still easily retrievable by hand would then be most convenient. Using rags or foam.. whether in back of the goal or just below goal height inside, works of course, but as I said.. no booming shots and even any rag or foam just below the goal where the ramp starts can alter the sound and feel of scored balls. So the paint stirring stick, cut to the width of the ramp, then glued or duct taped to the end of the ramps, would be the best alternative... booming shot sounds, easy trap and easy recovery of the same ball.
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