Picked up a 4 million BC yesterday with what I thought was a really nice playfield, but when I got it home and set up I noticed some of what I'd thought were flecks of dried rubber were actually the white undercoat showing through, and bits of paints were starting to flake off. Examining the playfield this is happening throughout, mostly in the greys and greens, although some don't seem to have an issue, I can't really see any pattern to it.
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A lot of it isn't quite flaking yet but you can see from the texture that something has happened to it41126660_315262489231701_2072591624654815232_n (resized).jpg

Other parts seem completely fine though... I was able to novus 2 the kickback lane pretty roughly without any issue, and the usual dirt trails cleaned up very nicely.

What's the best way to handle this? I've only had one other game with flaking paint but that was due to rats, and only in two isolated places, so I just sucked it up and wiped off the flaking paint, then put a spot of mylar down. This seems pervasive enough though that I don't think spots of mylar would really work. You'd need to cover a quarter of the playfield probably, in lots of weird shapes, and I doubt the 'almost flaking' paint would look very good crushed under mylar either.

Of course the full solution is probably to wipe off all the flaking paint, clean up the ball swirls with ME, make decals, touch up, clear, etc, but I don't have the skills or tools necessary for that. Would just putting down some clear over this be useful (if I somehow could do that)? Or would the raised areas of nearly flaking paint mess with the clear?

Are there any places around that I could send this to? I don't really need a perfectly restored playfield or anything but as it is this is unplayable and I can't really think of anything I can do that won't make it dramatically worse which I'd hate to do

It's definitely not playable as is. The balls would be coated with chips within a few games, PotC style

If I could do that sorta work I definitely would, but I don't have the skill or setup necessary Plus by my understanding you usually start that by cleaning the playfield to get up the ball swirl, etc, which I don't think you could do here? So you'd end up with a slightly ugly playfield... under a nice clearcoat.

Hadn't thought of that, hmm. Either way I guess it doesn't matter much though. I was reading HEP's 4MBC restore thread and even that one seemed to have a bit of flaking, so maybe it was some manufacturing issue that was just magnified on mine due to bad storage

Someone else recommended I just get a playfield protector, which could work, if I can keep it still well enough to not slide around and loosen more paint. Not available for this game though. I ordered a blank sheet of PET-G and will see if I can lay it down on the stripped playfield, mark all the holes, etc and then cut/drill it by hand. Will be a bit of a pain though as the side rails appear to be stapled in, not screwed

Do you think that doing it on the playfield is better than marking the holes and than taking it off to drill? That's what I'd been planning.

I made one for my em black jack before (although that was laser cut from acrylic), but at the time it was recommended to leave room around all the posts to allow the protector to flex from heat, etc. So that one slides around a bit and dust gets in all the exposed edges. This time I figure I'll just make the minimum amount of cuts possible (usually under posts, etc) and just clamp it down everywhere, see how that works. There's not many lights on this playfield or anything.

An update to this: I finally finished the protector, shopped and rebuilt the game, and got the EM kinks worked out. Played about 20 games, and I can already see more bits of paint have come off under the protector and are being ground into dust from the play. When the ball rolls over the playfield you can hear a faint crunching as the protector compresses the flaking paint. So protector seems to be a failure. Not sure how bad it will get, it might work to just let that paint come off and hope it eventually gets all the 'bad' paint off and enough survives to be presentable.

At this point the only other real option seems to be to tear it down again and go the full playfield restoration route: lock down any flat paint, wipe off any that's bumpy enough to cause an issue, and then do lots of repainting and touch ups. I did scan the playfield in with my HP scanner before starting so I could at least have some basis to go off of. I don't have any place to do clearing or painting though. Would have to investigate if there's anyone I could bring it too.

Or maybe I'll just have to sell it.

No sign of anything like that

Damn that just sounds scary