So beautiful! Good luck with the restore!

Ahhhh....eye candy. I need one of those for my machine.

Not sure I've ever heard anything bad about Ron's work. he cleaned up and clearcoated an MB playfield that was absolutely amazing.

Ron's work is amazing. One of the best!

Gorgeous. Makes you want to strip down and roll around on it.

Figuratively, I mean.

(No, I mean literally. I would be all over that.)

Ron's work is stellar. IMO certain fan base on RGP is the only neg.

Looks nice, but also looks like the registration on the lettering and inserts is way off? Obviously this is not Ron's fault, but please correct me if I am wrong. Looks good either way, its much, much nicer than the one in my game!

Green inserts for sure. They should have been touched up before the clear was added

Ron does AMAZING work.

Unfortunately, the CPR example is poorly misregistered. Curious, what grade level was this? gold, silver, second?

still will look great once installed.

Pinballer 22, should admit that he had a misunderstanding with me last week, and publicly called me a douchbag because he thought I sold a translight to someone else when I was holding it for him. So lets be fair. Is it going to be one of those deals where you post on everything relevant to me? I don't go on pinside that often and someone had to show me this. Let it go.

Most cpr pf are way off, and it is a lot of work making it right. There is also a budget. How much is someone suppose to spend on top of the price of the pf? it gets expensive. There was plenty of work done making flasws disappear. They don't line up the screens, and it shows worst on the inserts. I am finishing a fathom today, and guess what was the biggest problem? it wasn't the clear, but the color screens wer'nt lined up and it shows around the inserts. When the background is not black you have to make the key line wider. I do that with a paint brush and it takes time.
Thanks for all of the nice comments, I REALLY appreciate it

By the way, the translight is still available

Here are some before pics of what I am talking about on fathom. This is not a Halifax, but a later release. If you just color in the moon area, it will look oblong.
all in a days work.
Plus it helps the installer to cut out the clear of the roll over stars.
This pf was just finished today, as I clean out the rubbing compound out of the holes, I will take some after shots when it is clean.

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Oh how I wish I had a Centaur. Nice looking playfield! Going to be great when you install it.

I have several people emailing me asking "what's up with Ron's trashing of CPR playfields?" and directing me to this thread. I got here and my eyes nearly popped out of my head with this claim (above). Wow. Ron? Are you OK ?

First off, I'm never on here much, so I'm going to take this opportunity to toot our horn a little bit.

- No, the VAST majority are DEAD-ON. Like 90-95%+ That's the whole point. Next year will be 10 years at doing this.
- CPR playfields are the best repro playfields, period.
- Repro playfields aren't going to get any better than this.
- Even factory cannot surpass the small-scale "boutique" attitude and run quality we're at. Churchill included.

I am currently surrounded (on my home office walls) with one of every playfield we have done. Not cherry picked. Just a random grab/keeper from every run. I can walk up to any one of them and they are all dead-on for alignment, registration, and yes even the clearcoats are high par. I (personally) wouldn't see a need to touch any of them. And if I did, I'd get a $150 3M kit (as shown on our site) and bring these babies up to flat glass at about $3 per playfield. (because the complete 3M Perfect-It kit gives you enough materials to do 50 playfields).

The pictures I am looking at grind my gears when they don't include the necessary backstories. Putting them out there as examples/paradigms are just not fair. Nor honest.

CENTAUR - for starters, what I am seeing is a red-misaligned second. That playfield would have been sold for a discount, and caveated up front (usually with pictures to the buyer) of the red areas outside their black lines. I need to know who bought it, or where it's origin was. Somebody please step up and tell the story.

So yes, that Centaur is off (red layer only), but the full-priced paradigms were not. We always have a few misaligned playfields in every run (unavoidable) as we tweak the wet press into registration over the *first 5-7 boards* of every print run. You need that many hits to get the crosshairs dead-on. Once you're dead-on, you lock the press and proceed. Every playfield after that is crosshair-locked, and the color going down is dead-on registered with the ones previously put down. You HAVE to do this, in order for the blackline to sit on top at the end. You're building a stack of colors where you can't go back when you're laying the black over top at the very end. You have to get your stack correct.

FATHOM - Those rollover circles are NOT off. The art package was placed exactly where it was supposed to be on the face of those woods. Remember, we have IPB's (Gene's) original Bally films. EXACT artwork as on everybody's playfields in their games. Not a redraw. So those rollover outlines are exactly where Bally had them. Their line weight is exactly as intended. Our cut of the woods is exact as an original (within a 1000th of an inch, by micrometer) as we always cut-and-recut 7-8 tests on MDF (with tweaks per pass) clamping the repro cut to the original playfield and looking/feeling through all the holes. The final "official" cut is so good, you can hold the clamped original/repro up to the light and look/feel through every hole and they line up perfectly. I've added an IPDB photo of the Fathom upper playfield area below. Everybody's rollover rings are not centered on the insert. It's in my opinion to try to paint/touchup those rings to make them somehow not show wood around the insert edges...would be frigging with a major esthetic of the playfield look. Unnecessary.

Had the Fathom (or Centaur - also IPB films) artwork been digital redraws in vector, I would personally tweak/relocate/center insert rings on inserts to MY liking. Which I do on all our playfields where the artwork is native CPR. I have that freedom. On Fathom and Centaur I do not. I've included a photo of the S&S repro bowling pins rollovers to prove what CPR DEAD-ON looks like. It's because I controlled where the openings in the white ink were, and I centered them in the artwork to physically dead center on the rollovers.

I say spend nothing. It's in my opinion that nothing (zero) is required for our playfields, out of the box. Swap them and go. And if one wants to wait for 4-6 months for the clearcoat to shrink down and do it's slight vertical ripple texture (which ALL do, and ALL will - regardless of repro maker, Churchill, Stern, WOZ, etc) then they can perform the 3M Perfect-It process as outlined in detail on our site. Besides, even somebody going the third-party clear route - after 6 months THAT clear job equally goes vertical-rippled after the clear shrinks. You can't really win. Not unless you want to work on the clearcoat 6-10 months after it has completely, and I mean completely, settled and stopped shrinking/moving. All automotive clearcoats look flat and like perfect glass in their first month or two.

Now of course, people do come in at the end (or at shows) and take the seconds/leftovers/discounted playfields. They spend less, but want to bring them up to higher standards with touchups and re-clear. That's precisely where you (Ron) come in. So they have some wiggle room in their budget, if they are that determined to make those discount-playfield flaws go away.

Even you know this Ron. You have frequently taken end-of-the-line lower-par playfields at deep discounts, welcoming their flaws, for planning to spruce them up with the Ron Kruzman magic (I have the emails!). I thought it was a great idea. I went back through PayPal, and noticed you rarely got a full-priced playfield shipment (Gold) because on several of the preorder lists the last few years, you hadn't hopped in before the preorders closed. Maybe you're so used to buying/seeing/working on CPR seconds that you think that's what everybody is getting. As if that's what we're making up here.

The art package is laid dead-on where it is supposed to be on the wood.

To move those rollover rings centered on the rollovers would mean shifting the entire art package right/up and would misalign the whole artwork to the rest of the upper (and lower) playfield features.

Five slightly-hokey keylines around five rollovers are 100 times less important than the actual artwork sitting in it's correct spot on the playfield. Especially when the hokey keylines are as Bally had them! I have the original blackline film to prove it. Every Fathom out there proves it.

No.... No, you don't.

I disagree. The keylines are exactly as intended. But I am interested in seeing your "after" pictures to see the alleged better alternative. I want to see what "corrected Bally" looks like.

PS: all our rollovers (for the last 4 years or more) are plugged with the factory rollover plugs (like you use) and get ZERO clearcoat inside them. They are lifted out just after the each coat shoot. Until the last coat (after 4 coats with zero). On that last coat they may get a slight "dew" or mist... but it's tons better than when they used to get 5 coats with the rollovers wide open to get mist.

You do great work. No question. One of the last in the hobby at this tier. But as much as you've been a great loyal customer to date, these offshoots of strange blanket critique do blindside us from time to time.

KEVIN
Classic Playfield Reproductions
http://www.classicplayfields.com

fathom-upper.jpg
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I can honestly say Kevin the latest play fields I received EBD, Fathom, Mata Hari, Firepower, Flash Gordon, Centaur are over the top. I have owned probably 150 or so original NOS fields and their quality is not close to what you guys are producing. I am a happy customer and your discounts for blemishes are pretty dang nice. The rollover clear is a separate discussion.

I have a CPR Centaur PF and frankly can't tell the difference based on the pics, maybe some before/after pics would help? I can understand where a persnickety collector may want touch-ups to perfect inserts and orbits around holes as they are never perfect on any factory playfield for many of the reasons Kevin mentioned. I have two other CPR playfields and they all look amazing straight from CPR.

personally I think I'm getting the best of both worlds with both CPR and Kruzman. I really don't mean to bring back this old debate, but one thing Ron's clearcoat does besides giving these great playfields a great shine, is help eliminate the dimpling. On Space Shuttle I noticed quite early that quite a few dimples were forming where the ball comes off the ramp on my new cpr playfield. I put some mylar there to help, but later I bought a limited edition Space Shuttle playfield that I sent to Ron for clearcoating and waiting to find another SS for a restoration project with this playfield, Anymore every playfield I buy from CPR is sent directly to Ron for clearcoating. It's not just cpr but any new playfield I get, it goes through Ron first. To me it's worth it, for others it's overkill, to each his own.

I like to think I'm on good terms with both Ron And Kevin, and to me they both are stellar people and really bend over backwards to help if any problem should arise and both are friendly kind people. Both are very proud of the work they do and the products they create and I'm hoping here what we have is a simple misunderstanding and no long term harm.

Do you know the backstory on your Centaur origin? Did we sell it to you and ship it to Ron? Did Ron own it and sell it to you? Etc. Is it possibly stamped with Silver or Bronze on the back? We started rubber stamping playfields a few months ago, so I'm curious.

I'm sorry, I just don't know who you are by your Pinside handle "chouca". Forgive me.

KEVIN
Classic Playfield Reproductions
http://www.classicplayfields.com

I'd love to get into a time machine (<--- not the pinball machine), dial it back to 1981 and sit in on a Bally board meeting where they were discussing registration and alignment on their current run of playfields.

The nitpicking that goes on here is crazy.

Grrr. This whole thread may have slowed production of the Medusa playfields by 15 minutes. Unacceptable!!! Moderators, please shut down Pinside until Medusa is complete. We can no longer afford any more distractions.

Steve (momentarily off his meds)

I still haven't seen the Final Artwork yet on Medusa, last I was updated by the artist it was sitting at 99% ( that was in September ) and I send out emails to the entire art team monthly for updates......eventually the artwork will get finished, then I can proof it, then we can schedule it for production.....but for now there are at least 4 other titles coming out prior to Medusa, probably more......

Their request list is getting pretty small, most of the games are locked out. I hope they update that page soon.

All joking aside, we're incredibly appreciative of your efforts to keep this great hobby viable.

Thanks,
Steve

.

First of all, there is no such thing as a perfect playfield.

IPB, CPR, Mirco, etc. - would have to charge a fortune for their playfields if we expected them to be on par with Ron’s work. Remember, these companies are in the business to manufacture playfields; they aren’t in the business to touch up every registration issue/imperfection and buff playfields until you can see your reflection in the clear coat (that would require 40+ hours of work per playfield). For $700 what do you expect? The average consumer is probably happy with the product as is (sure beats a ragged out 20+ year old beater), so they are the target market.

Some guys are pickier than others. Some of us enjoy restoring machines, attempting to make the nicest examples possible. For these folks it’s nice to have a go to guy like Ron that does excellent work (a level of detail that most people probably don’t even care about, but for some of us that level of quality matters – so we are willing to pay a premium for it). I’m glad CPR reproduces playfields and I’m glad Ron is willing to dress them up. Seems like a win-win to me. I'll continue to give both my business.

I have purposely stayed away from this post because I was warned of the reaction by cpr, and was told Partial emails were posted (which I think is bad taste and bad business, and maybe there are emails you didn't post that are not in your best interest. I don't plan to post them. water off a ducks back) and it all became about cpr is perfect except bronze and they are not perfect but they are bronze. I just want to mention 2 things and I will get to my point. first is, I sell about 4 pf's a week, about 25% are cpr. I buy almost all of my pf's on ebay, or from my friend who gets great deals from the manufacture even though he is just going to flip to me. But since most the pf's I sell have not been made in years, I get them on ebay. The other thing is cpr just started doing the gold silver and bronze thing in the last 2 years I am guessing here I don't know the date. But either way when I buy them from ebay people guess what grade they tell me they are?
Here is my idea. Its from one of my favorite manufactures. Levis. They are very concerned with their quality and reputation, and they have maintained it by not selling anything with the slightest flaw. If it is flawed, it is stamped right on the size tag IRREGULAR/FLAW and sold overseas or to jobbers at pennys on the dollar and not to the public. By doing this you can buy a perfect product, or you can buy a flawed product for less than half by the time it gets to retail.
I know it is stupid to say anything about cpr on this fourm because people think they are a flanthripoy org (sorry about spelling) they are earning a buck to feed themselves as am I. Lots of good people have supported me on the post and by email, and that helps.

That's all I care to say about this overblown post, where it seems like the customer was attacked, and I where you may think I called out cpr, I didn't. I was just talking about a day in my studio. we are all entitled to opinions as this post has shown. I work 7 days a week doing nothing but clearing and restoring pf's. On my only days off I volunteer at shows and auctions. My life is one dimension pinball. I love what I do, and I chose to do it. So I don't care about the last word, just get it over with , and make this post like a ducks back and fade away. (I don't share the feelings of water off a ducks back, and by everything said either does kevin, but it sounded great)

get off your computer and play pinball, or spend time with your family. kruzman

I have CPR Centaur/Fathom PF's in my pins and love them. Neither of them needed tweaking. My Fathom PF developed a rare "split shooter lane" in the clear, however Kevin explained what occurred (can happen years after the clear is done) and both Ron/Kevin advised me on fixing it (which I did).

Both of these guys are perfectionists, so I'm not surprised they each get a little bent out of shape when discussing PF issues.

I think Ron's suggestion to label/stamp a PF with it's quality level makes a lot of sense.

Kevin has been stamping PF Grades on the Backs of each PF for the past 2 title runs ( at least that's what I have been told )