If they were grading gold, silver, and bronze, yours would have to be a bronze.

I’m not trying to make light of what you received, but I think with the lights on and the play field glass on I don’t think will notice it very much; especially when you are playing.

Ughhh, maybe CPR stands for Can't Proof Reliably?

Also, is it just me or do the greens and oranges look a fair amount off? I've had 4-5 Cheetahs over the years and I recall both being a fair amount darker and or more subtle in tonality. Regardless, you should be getting either a new PF or full refund, that is just WTF.

More like aluminum IMHO.

The upgrade that was planned since day one of my build has arrived!

How long are people letting their playfields cure nowadays?

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i am always backlogged with projects so mine cure 3-6 month minimum but CPR recommend 30 days minimum with 45 days better:
https://classicplayfields.com/playfields/

I'm not sure if I missed this info or not, but I reached out to CPR to see if they are planning on producing Cheetah backglasses as well.

They make both playfields/backglasses for other Stern titles (Stars, Meteor, F2K), so I just assumed that a Cheetah backglass would eventually get produced. But now I'm not so sure.

If anyone has a good donor backglass to scan, perhaps you could reach out to them & see if they need the artwork.

Those of us planning Cheetah scratch builds will need a reproduction glass at some point.

http://bgresto.com/?p=2877

Sorry but after my QS backglass, I would like to avoid if possible. Plus I tried contacting him several times to place another order for an AS backglass & got zero responses on multiple attempts. He's likely overwhelmed with requests & his communication in the past has been lacking.

communication has always been hard with Stephen, make sure to follow this:

"Please Send any new request to [email protected]…. I do not monitor emails unless their threads where initiated from the [email protected]"

I'm sorry. What happened to your QS back glass?

I bought QS, Dragonfist, and Big Game from him. All 3 looked great and I put them back in the box. 4-6 weeks later I pulled them from the box and Dragonfist and Quicksilver had condition where the graphics were separating from the glass. Stephen was no hassle and Jonny on the spot. He paid for me to return them in his box and sent me 2 replacements and all 3 still look great.

This.

Well I'll have to try contacting him again about the AS backglass. Perhaps I was not sending them to the correct address.

I just thought the BG was dark overall & let much less light pass through it than silkscreened glasses. But it was the communication I was most frustrated with.

I'm curious to ask the people who have received their CPR Cheetah playfields:

Has anyone attempted to install theirs yet? Or how long are you planning on letting it cure before you install?

EDIT: I should have scrolled up. So CPR says 45 days after receiving you are good to go? I wonder how long they cured before they were shipped. Does anyone know?

I was told there'd be no math.

Did you install yours yet?

I guess that would be about 3 months of cure time on the first run

I have noticed that on my BG Resto BG back glass. Especially across the top above the displays. Those bits of orange are too dark compared to the OG glass.

I am slowly coming to the realization there are going to be minute differences between repro anything and the originals. We are all in the same boat.

mine is still back at the clearcoat guy for "repair of issues"... i am gonna go through it with a fine comb when it finally arrives

It was damaged when you got it?

they didn't even send it out, got an email asking what i wanted to do since my PF had "issues" coming back from the clearcoat company. told them i am not in a hurry and they can just send it when it is fixed, that was a month ago and i haven't heard from them yet.

That’s a bummer. If they are reclearing it will probably take a couple months

So I had a recent conversation with the folks at CPR & I thought I’d pass along…

1) They are looking for a good donor BG to scan before they can recreate & digitally print Cheetah backglasses.

2) The initial run of CPR Cheetah playfields sat at their shop for 1 week after coming back from clearcoat. They shipped out to customers the 2nd week of April. So they really haven’t been curing for very long. If you are planning to install soon, you might want to hold off. They recommend at least 45 days after receiving before installing.

3) Their old silkscreening process gave slightly different results per playfield, but their digital process does not. Same registration everytime they say. Therefore they do not do gold/silver/bronze grading anymore.

4) If you recall from an old post, my playfield had a small defect by the u-turn that wasn’t noticed during clear coating. But they were very accommodating & gave me several options to make it right. I decided to keep my playfield instead of sending it back.

5) The reason I decided to keep it is because it has the prototype blue bonus countdown inserts. Only the small initial release run of CPR playfields will have the blue inserts. All future Cheetah playfields will have the green bonus inserts.

6) And speaking of more Cheetah playfields, the next batch of 20 is being clearcoated now, and should be in CPRs hands in approx 3-4 weeks. So if you missed out on the first run, keep an eye out soon when they go on sale.

Hate to say it but those inserts are not correct on a "true" blue original cabinet, IF,,,, CPR was intending it for a blue cabinet cheetah.

Mine start with 2 shades orange (dark & light), then mix in pink (light and dark), blue vary faint, light gray almost washed out blue).... with the top being dark blue. CPR is not even close to being accurate if that was their goal.

yeah that's the batch my PF is with, well i have already 5 PF to swap and now in the middle of a very time intensive Barracora PF swap, everything needs work!

Well this was completely unexpected….. but my long search for a Cheetah is over 14 hour round trip but it was worth it! It’s quite a feeling when you finally acquire a grail game after a long search.

So no scratch build for me. Thank god, as I wasn’t looking forward to attempting that. I’ll give this one the A list treatment after the playfield cures. Unload & pics tomorrow.

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ohhhhh congrats, 14h is definitely worth it!

Well crap, someone else said that they all would be made with blue inserts only. When I heard that, I put my Cheetah back in the restorer's line up. I don't like the blue. Red and blue go together. Orange and blue? Maybe on a 3 second dragster going down the strip.

This time, I will leave mine in the line and complete my Cheetah with my OG play field.

Congratulations man!

Was that the one listed here on pinside? I think it was in AZ?

Congrats on the score!!!!

Yes that one. It's has a whole bunch of issues & pretty filthy throughout. But the cabinet is nice & doesn't need to be painted, and the backglass is nice. I'm restoring it anyway when my playfield cures, so it will just require a little more work. Just happy to have it really. I'll make her look pretty again

awesome. Congrats man. I am still on the hunt. That was just way too far from here and too much $$$ to have it shipped blind. Cant wait to see a few pics when you are done, or before you start for that matter.

RB

Looking forward to your restore and hope you don’t mind me asking a bunch of questions when I get around to my scratch build HoakyPoaky

Well I have a BSD that has been haunting me for a long overdue shop job, so that will be next while the Cheetah PF cures. Then hopefully by the time my Cheetah is done, Mirco will have released Alien Star playfields, so I can get busy restoring that.

I'm tempted to grab another Meteor for a Star Gazer or Nine Ball scratch build as well. So I will be busy, and my wallet will be hurting buying parts, for the foreseeable future

I'm not even seeing a Cheetah from Arizona in the archived pinside for sale ads.

Where was it listed?

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/archive?s=1&radius_latitude=37.675&radius_longitude=-97.32&keywords=cheetah&ad_condition=0&machine_type=&ad_machine_manuf=&year_from=&year_to=&radius_distancekm=0&sort_by=ad_end_date&sort_order=DESC#results

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/ad/114826

This ad looks like it is still for sale. I did not look in in current ads.

Yeah that's the one

Original PF out of this factory Blue Cab Cheetah I am currently restoring had all blue bonus inserts for what it's worth...... two of them have somewhat color shifted toward a violet color after 40+ years, but were all Blue from Stern. There is no conceivable reason whey Stern would have used a bunch of different colors in a solid row of inserts on the bonus countdown unless it was an accident when installing inserts at factory. These original inserts tend to change color a but based on their history, where it has been stored, amount of UV light, amount of bulb heat they have seen etc.

Blue cab models "should" have all blue inserts & black cab models "should" have green inserts to match the green & black cab colors. Did some leave factory with different combo? More than likely..... if they had some blue insert PF's done & ready when cabs switched to black, I don't think they were going to scrap them & wait to make a run of green insert PF's. They were just trying to make $ & keep the doors open, not shoot for perfection.

I keep forgetting to take pic of original PF, but it's sitting in my shop right now & probably will be for sale by owner after the new PF is in the game. It's actually in pretty nice shape, just has some shrunk inserts & minor touch ups that would be needed to be addressed.

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Good information.

That cabinet came out great (edit - in your restoration thread) https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/weatherbymag-s-bally-amp-stern-restoration-blog#post-6174383

Are the colors custom mixed or off the shelf? Is the blue the same as Flight2000? Thx

If anyone is looking for a cheetah look up amphicar4fun here. I was in initial discovery phase with him getting pics etc. When i found another one that made more sense logistically.

https://classicplayfields.com/shop/pinball-playfields/cheetah-playfield/

FYI everyone!

New batch of CPR Cheetah playfields with green bonus inserts now available

In the picture provided, it looks like there are a number of insert color or opaque vs clear differences. At least from what I see when comparing it to my original which looks unmolested. Not a huge deal to me, but you may want to compare carefully if that sort of stuff matters to you.....

Playfields back in stock at cpr

when they notified me yesterday I placed the order. they then came back and said the picture on the site was still with the blue inserts and wasnt accurate as the new inserts are green. they gave me the option to cancel but I knew they were going to be green so I told them to ship. They said they were going to "fix" the picture which I am guessing was fixed with graphics modifications as opposed to a new picture being taken. I jave tracking already so I will have it early next week. I will take a few pics after I take it out for curing.

Frankly I'm surprised they didn't fix this...

Screen Shot 2021-06-04 at 4.55.38 PM (resized).png

Same double-print error is on the first run.

Still, I'm more than happy these have been made in the first place.

got mine back from being recleared a couple days ago, need to open it this weekend and go through it.

Unbelievable. It least in the great scheme of things it will not be that noticeable.

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I'm trying to figure out what funk hit that orange insert.

When CPR came out with the blue insert play field, I told my restore guy to put my Cheetah play field back into his queue. A few minutes ago I told him the option of buying new was back on the table. I am waiting for what he says on whether he wants to even do my play filed. He does not need the work.

IDK how there can’t be a “double-stamp” blurry print error on inserts when these playfields are digitally printed. Problem with the digital art file? Just doesn’t make sense to me

keeping it close to the original they used that was silk-ed screened maybe? I assume they redraw all the fonts though so it's weird that they end up with double font printing at the end...?

For those who want to compare CPR VS Original

This is NOT CPR's clear. I re-cleared it, even though the CPR clear was pretty nice.

IMG_20210606_143415 (resized).jpg

IMG_20210606_143425 (resized).jpg

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IMG_20210606_143735 (resized).jpg

IMG_20210606_143742 (resized).jpg

IMG_20210606_143806 (resized).jpg

IMG_20210606_143813 (resized).jpg

IMG_20210606_143825 (resized).jpg

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Interesting to compare. Thank you for sharing.

I read a space invaders thread where there was a lot of discussion about that black outlining and how much thicker it is on the reproduction, to the extent of losing small details. This can be observed here as well.

I do like the filled in white areas under bonus. I presume this was intentional.