Even just regular Naphtha in a can smells fine.

But if you are using it indoors, you should still wear your painting chem-mask.

Don't risk your health with spraypaint, paint thinner, 2PAC, solvents.....my GF even wears a chem mask when using the soap scum remover in the shower - toxic stuff.

Everyone needs to keep in mind that proper **cleaning** is non-destructive.

If your **cleaner** removes the top coat of your playfield, that is NOT cleaning.

http://store.carcareonline.com/onegrandblitzcarnaubawax-15ozcan.aspx

Balboarules found this mini-vac set for $2.83 shipped on ebay:

ebay.com link: itm

I ordered a few of them and they are really nice quality for the price.

Not flimsy at all, and the square shaped brush is perfect size for scrubbing inlanes.

Good stuff - highly recommended!

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It can still be clearcoated, it will just be a lot more work to do.

I've got a section coming up on filling in fisheyes on silicone contaminated playfields. Stay tuned.

I see people using it on outdoor bronze statues in my neighborhood, but I've never seen someone use it on a pin.

Does it smell strongly of solvent? Does it burn if you light it up?

Hey Vid: Won't Smoothie Fish Eye Eliminator prevent Fisheyes???

No.

Popular lore says that Smoothie will prevent Fisheyes in the clear. It works on clearing automobiles sometimes, but it is powerless against liquid silicones like Pledge or Millwax that have soaked into the pores and checks of the wood.

I've used both Smoothie and PPG Fisheye Eliminator and neither works all that well, you won't be impressed.

Worse yet, once you use it, every layer of clear applied afterwards will also require it. At least with straight clear, once you fix a few fisheyes, they don't ever return because the silicone is sealed under the first coat.

Also, once you contaminate your gun with all the silicones that Smoothie contains, you now have to always use it in that gun. The gun is "boogered".

Even the sanding dust from Smoothie clear can contaminate your shop with tiny molecules of silicone (that is why most high end auto refinishing joints won't let Smoothie in the door).

And it makes the clear coat a little less hard and take longer to cure.

Save your money.

85% of the time you will not get a single fisheye in your playfield (unless you have contaminated your gun and shop with silicone Smoothie), so why bother even getting started down that road?

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Like Fiberdude says, do as much as you comfortably can

If the game looks like it's never been cleaned, really dig in there.

If the game is pretty clean, then you can probably cheat and just do the easy stuff.

It can be very therapeutic to stip a 'new to you' game and learn it's assemblies as you clean.

While Naphtha evaporates leaving nothing behind, you do not want to work in an enclosed bedroom with any petro solvents.

Yes, open the garage door fully and breathe the summer air.

Lay your Naphtha rags out flat in the sun, the solvent will evaporate in a few minutes and they will be dry.

That's why you took all those pictures.....

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-quick-and-dirty-rotisserie-guide

This way you can sit down while you work.

You can wax in humidity, no problem.

The wax should not make too much mess (assuming it's good wax, and not the flaky white stuff).

That's a pretty nice looking playfield.

Those lines are normal ball swirl and cracks that have formed in the topcoat. Cleaning won't completely remove them (you would have to remove the topcoat to get rid of them).

If you are not ready to clearcoat yet, then use some Naphtha on a cotton cloth to de-wax and clean. Then wax.

Remember, don't use SimpleGreen on old, porous playfields, it will swell the wood!

If you see a bunch of ball swirl or "raw" edges around the inserts, stick with Naphtha.

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STEP BY STEP CLEANING AND WAXING A SS BALLY

=======================================

It's great to read a bunch of theory about cleaning and waxing, but having a real "case study" is probably even better (and probably easier to understand).

I got a call to fix the sound on probably the best TRUE Widebody pin ever made - Future Spa.

Future Spa has a fan layout with simply perfect shot geometry. You don't have to guess what the rules are. One of the best tournament games for testing pin-skill rather than knowledge of the rules.

This customer called me up that the sound was dead, rubbers were broken and "a bunch of lights are out". I had serviced this game for this customer a few years ago.

I saw wear in the typical spots on the game. That means bare wood exposed.

There was wear on the drop target penis, near the saucer and on the main chick.

The customer had pulled the Mylar off of the chick a few years ago.

You could still see the triangular indentation in the wood around where it used to be.

Needless to say, that was not the best idea considering that this was an old Bally.

Don't pull Mylar off unless you are going to clearcoat the playfield. It's there to protect the game.

Don't let people tell you "It's OK for home use to remove the Mylar", because that is often not true.

1. Remove all the plastics, and old crumbly rubber.

2. Since I was converting the GI over to LEDs (they will last WAY longer for this gentleman), I removed the lane dividers too.

3. Vacuum up all the dust and rubber bits.

4. Wipe the playfield down to remove the old wax and surface dirt. Since this game had a Ballswirled surface and bare wood exposed, we don't want to use any water based cleaners like Simple Green. I used Naphtha on a soft cloth, as it is safe for older or worn playfields.

5. The owner of this game is never going to pay $1000 to have the playfield restored (especially since he got the game for free). I touched up the bare wood with Createx paints as soon as the Naphtha had evaporated. I wanted the paint to have time to completely dry before waxing.

This was just a quick and dirty painting, because it's better than bare wood.

Here I touched up the main broad.

The Naphtha cleaned out a lot of the ballswirl cracks, but no non-destructive method is going to get it all out.

If I was going to truly restore this playfield, I'd remove the clear coat with Alcohol and Magic Eraser. Then spray on a new layer of clear to protect the now exposed paint.

But since this customer is happy with his game as is, I left the clear coat intact to protect the paint.

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As the touch-ups dried, I repaired the sound card.

6. I took a toothbrush and cleaned all the old wax from the plastic playfield posts from some past owner(s).

7. I put washers above and below the playfield to keep the Miniposts upright. They really take a beating in this game. There were already T-nuts on the plastic post behind them, so there was not room for any more.

8. I put a piece of Foam weather stripping behind the target. This will keep the bracket from bending backwards, and thus keep the airballs to a a minimum.

9. The owner likes his game with white rubbers. I showed him Red Silicone rubbers but he said "they look gay". I did convince him to allow me to put the Titan Silicone rubbers on the Miniposts because they last much longer than regular white rubber. (I even left him a few regular white minipost rubbers, just in case his masculinity was being threatened at some point in the future).

10. Next I applied a coat of Blitz Wax to the playfield. I made sure to carefully wax over my paint repairs.

11. I waxed everything the ball touches. The wire guides, the chrome guides, the apron, the spinners, everything.

12. I straightened the Spinners with a pair of pliers. Don't scratch up the spinner arm tips, they need to be smooth to spin well. I then used 1/100 of a drop of Zoom Spout Oil to lubricate them for maximum spinning power.

----- DO NOT USE TOO MUCH OIL!!!!! -------

(I don't even use the Zoom Spout Oil's spout. I use a "needle oiler" filled with Zoom)

Good spinners have crazy long spin times when adjusted properly.

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13. I used Novus2 to polished the tops of the plastics. I CAREFULLY polished the bottom side of the plastic that goes over the drop target penis. I did not want to polish off any of the ink, but the balls hopping off the drops always scratches this plastic up.

All the plastics got new white rubber barrel post caps. These help protect the plastics better than post nuts, by giving some relief to an airball strike.

14. Once the wax was dry, I used a soft cloth to polish off the wax film.

15. I vacuumed the playfield one last time. Blitz does not create all that flaky white wax dust that cheap waxes do, but it's just good practice.

16. I put Mylar over all of the playfield touch ups to protect them from further wear. Since the playfield was freshly waxed, the Mylar will be easily removed if the playfield ever gets restored.

17. I installed all new rubber and of course a new ball. New balls come with a film of oil from the factory. I cleaned the oil off with Brake Cleaner.