CCC is not going to give you any confidential supplier information.

Nicely worded letter, kpg

I just thought if there was a falling out maybe someone could get some kind of read on the conversation

I take it for face value that they went back to Churchill, waited and have bought with confidence in November with no issues thus far except dimples

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I wonder if someone is wiping down the playfields with something they shouldnt before clear is applied and that is causing adhesion issues. When i was building furniture, i always wiped down the wood prior to applying a finish coat to remove dust and other particles, typically with a naptha or alcohol based product. Any product with silicone in it is deadly for a finish and i had made that mistake early on. You get fish eye, clouding or adhesion issues. I would think companies would be well aware of this, but labor turns over all the time and someone new and/or inexperienced may be making a mistake. It takes very little silicon to ruin a piece. Humidity issues can also cause clouding issues, perhaps playfields are being shipped too quickly before they have had time to cure, which can take as.much as a month depending onnhow thick the clear coat is.

If you wax your table saw,.router, sander tables, etc., and that wax has silicone, say goodbye to your work as the wood becomes infected.

The pinball manufacturers always used multiple playfield vendors throughout it's history; many at the same time.

CCC, ESC, LS, SP, TAG and now Mirco have been used interchangeably .

No manufacturer or supplier wants to burn any bridges, because you never know what the future holds.

Jared did it for Chick-Fil-A by accident, why isn't he doing it for Stern? Or is he trying and getting shot down from the top?

Vid....... after looking at my pictures from Nov playfield dates do you feel that these could be Churchill ?

Be interesting to see how the MDF fibre board playfields in the home Stern Spiderman games stand up to wear and tear.

Thats really what they are made of.................. WOW 4K down the toilet

Mdf? Is that being used? Good luck when you lift and lower the pf. Mdf does not hold screws as well, its weaker and the edges are prone to chipping, unless its been laminated. The benefit is you get a much flatter surface. No furniture maker would ever use mdf unless they were building for walmart, in which case i wouldnt call it furniture. I guess the home version pins arent really meant to have the glass taken off.

The only thing I'd say is that it's not a Mirco.

The Bally ones from the late 70s seemed to hold up OK; you still see them occasionally.

MDF is super stable compared to plywood, but it's heavy and not as durable in rough handling.

"The PIN" games are actually testbeds for many new Stern technologies (remember that is where Spike was first introduced and tested). The Pin Transformer had the MDF playfield too.

I wouldn't go that far. Amazon doesn't care or want to care about selling counterfeit goods. I bought two bottles of cologne (Curve and Tommy) and both were fake. Guess what? You can't return liquids. Guess what else? The same sellers are still selling the same crap.

Also had a seller on Amazon selling prints of my mothers artwork... Good luck getting anyone outside their overseas call center to even respond.

Would MDF be prone to warpage without it being mounted on a frame ? I know cheaper pool tables use MDF. I wonder how they hold up over time ?

I wouldn't use MDF for pinball ever! I have some cheap shelves made out of MDF and they are not any stiffer than plywood. Seems like they would be more prone to warpage and they are VERY non-resistant to water damage.

Some of the guys in the puzzle world Im in use almost every wood they can get, and have to cut, sand and finish to Micro tolerances.

In general conversation, they say some wood, no matter what they do, just shit doesnt stick right.

These are guys also making $5K-$10K products sometimes.

Makes me wonder about environmental pollution at the cellular level.....contaminated water over a period, or air pollution....

....Just grabbing further into the unknown abyss......

or a change in the Petroleum supply, that feeds the clear coat manufacturer....

In manufacturing, when I have had these type of defects with factories around the world....something passes inspection, and then fails
afterward, Ive only found and fixed the cause about half the time.

Just thought a picture might make this thread look prettier too......

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I wonder how the years have treated the Bally Speakeasy playfields that were made of resin ?
Was this the only game to have a resin playfield ?

Orbitor 1 was not wood, right?

Started out flat but suffered from SERIOUS dimpling.

Major warping on the two I've owned. Same thing with the Bally bingo playfields that were made of resin. Bad idea.

If this is true, what a horrible way to save $10 in material costs. I really can't believe they would do that...Pics, anyone?

Thanks for the update. I thought since Stern switched back to Churchill that all playfield issues have been resolved but that doesn't seem to be the case, even with games. It seems like recent Ghostbusters and Batman 66 owners haven't reported issues with Churchill made playfields. Maybe just far fewer issues are occurring since the switch back?

I'm hesitant to buy a Stern game even now as who knows if the problem doesn't start to develop until a few months down the road.

Nobody knows if Churchill are making them. Just rumors as usual.

Churchill used to always stamp their name on their product. These new PF's do not have their name on them.

So apparently this info is "classified" ... Only in pinball

Yeah, who knows. Well, towards the end of October Pinballnews.com did a Churchill tour and posted pictures of Ghostbuster playfields being made.

From all the rumors and speculation I've read and heard it seems like Stern switched playfield manufacturers in early 2016 to a company called Fun Amusements, then the problems started occurring while games continued to be shipped with Fun Amusement playfields and then they were forced to go back to Churchill.

Did Churchill and Stern get in an argument over pricing and their partnership end until Stern was forced to go back to them? Could Churchill not keep up with Stern's production timeline and another company, Fun Amusements, get brought in to make playfields along side Churchill? Is Fun Amusements still making some Stern playfields? Who knows, lol.

http://www.pinballnews.com/learn/churchill/index.html

Yeah well it's certainly no bed of roses getting a Stern NIB lately. When I got a TWD Prem I remember setting it up and thinking "oh god don't let me get a f*ucked up one"... lol More anxiety these days than pleasure.

And I *like* Stern

Are these ghosting issues having an impact on game play?

word on the street is it's a cosmetic issue.

In some cases, yes. Ghosting is turning into full on cracked and chipped away clear. This dramatically impacts game play.

I just got an email from my dist. regarding shipment of my BM66 Pre and he said Stern is rejecting almost all the playfields. Said he might know something later today. Makes me hopeful Stern is trying to do the right thing.

Maybe they found the "calling card" so to speak as to what is causing these issues.

That kind of scares me rather than making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

I would much rather see Stern reject questionable playfields than except them.

I feel bad for any SLE and LE owners who might have gotten questionable playfields before Stern started rejecting them.

That was an immediate thought of mine as well. If they're rejecting tons now, is there a NEW problem? Or did they discover the cause of an existing problem, but unfortunately the SLEs and LEs had to go out the door early and now bad playfields are sitting out there waiting to be discovered.

Me too, but if they are rejecting almost "all" playfields what does that tell you about the company that's making them?

Exactly. They haven't found the problem. Still.

When did the first batch of bad playfields start to be used in shipped games? I have GOT Premium and I believe the manufactured date was either Dec. 2015 or Jan. 2016. I got the game in February 2016 and have not had any playfield issues other than dimpling, and the clear coat was slightly cracking in the ball shooter lane. The dimpling is barely there now with almost a year of plays, and the shooter lane clear coat I covered with a cliffy protector.

This is scary. The issues with GB and SP-VE started to show soon after opening. Now "most" are getting rejected before shipping. What does that say about the few that pass?

Schrodinger's Pinball.

So, SLE and LE owners are essentialy the guinea pigs then? Wow, that's disturbing.

And the SLE owners had to submit a video for the rights to be a guinea pig and then write a check for 15K.

I feel terrible for those folks.

Would be great if they just came out and publically said this. I can understand they don't want to do a massive playfield swap at one time for production reasons (keeping the lineup moving), but it also doesn't make sense to do them all and then still_ have problems. If the ghosting and chipping only manifests after play (airballs, vibration, who knows) then it's extremely hard to QC. Of course, from our side, so much of this is speculation because we really don't really know specifics about who's making the playfields and which are showing problems, but I'm sure Stern has this data.

Uh, no. Uneven inserts, cracking inserts, and chipping in impact areas has a real effect on gameplay. Mild ghosting is just cosmetic, but if you have a playfield that has moved beyond just a mild amount, cracking or chipping is the next step.

Are the ghosting issues happening straight out of the box with some of you, before a ball even touches the playfield, or is it something that develops and progresses over time?

Also, if you have a few hundred plays with no ghosting is it safe to assume you're in the clear?

Thought so.

That doesn't mean they have any intention of helping people who have already shipped messed up playfields. Indeed, we still see little if any evidence of that.

The cratering - not 'dimpling' - on some of the BM66s (combined with clear chipping and ghosting) is absolutely crazy though, so perhaps it's reached the point where they feel they can no longer ship them. That point should have been reached 10 months ago.

If true, this is going to be a very costly shutdown for them, and perhaps with no resolution in sight given the rumours that Churchill have walked again.

But we'll see if either BM66 or any of the other game owners actually get resolution any time soon ...

Operation fatten the books looks like it might finally be about to implode.

I have not seen one Batman with ghosting. Am I missing something?

I don't know why people think they can't figure out the problem. I deal in NDT equipment and have equipment that could break down the elemental makeup of the clear coat thickness, hardness, density....a ton of things to analyze. They use the equipment on a known good play field, and on a known bad play field and figure out what is the difference. Christ, it could be done in a day. The problem is either they don't know it exists, dont know you can rent it (retail cost for the minimum equipment you would need is $50-60k), or think they don't need it. Almost every industry uses NDT equipment, as QC is such a vital part of the process and some guy doing a visual inspection with a micrometer is rarely enough to get the job done anymore.

I have only seen crazing, but no ghosting. Pics of some chipping have surfaced, however.

The big issue is that QC was so relaxed again, even on a premium product. Games arriving DOA or with issues that should have been smoothed out in testing.

But yeah, don't think we've actually seen reports of ghosting.

No ghosting that I have seen, I have seen a couple of owners report some pretty excessive dimpling, one guys BM66 playfield looks like it is made of soft cheese, it looks terrible and saying it looks like the surface of the moon doesn't do it justice, especially on a premium release.