Quoted from practicalsteve:For us sad sacks in California where Naptha isn't sold is this a safe alternative?
If it removes paint I would say no.
Coleman fuel is 100% Naptha, but I don't know if that's still available in CA or not.
Quoted from vid1900:Not if it is a replacement for MEK !
Yikes.
Quoted from terryb:If it removes paint I would say no.
Coleman fuel is 100% Naptha, but I don't know if that's still available in CA or not.
http://zenstoves.net/MSDS/Coleman.htm
Pretty much figured, saw it at the hardware store and figured I would snap a pic and ask. I will order some Naptha online.
Quoted from flynnibus:The deep looking 'wetness' of a wax job comes for the layer of wax left behind... And not just in scratches. The filling of scratches helps hide them but doesn't account for the finish on the rest of the surface.
Simply waxing a car that has swirls will make it look better than before waxing, but the swirls will still be there. Swirls make light reflect from the surface at different angles, resulting in the paint finish not looking as deep as it should.
Polishing with a polish/compound to remove the swirls will result in the best wet look possible. Many pro detailers will tell you that adding a coat of wax after the final polishing step will actually very slightly *dull* the finished appearance (but nobody recommends that you don't wax your car).
Oh, and yes, I agree that wax certainly does bond to flat surfaces.
I'm not convinced the black grime on a playfield is coil dust either. I think it is rather ball vs steel dust, generated when the ball rolls against metal guides, wearing tiny bits of each one into black dust.
This stuff never vacs up...ever. It always requires some sort of agent to loosen it up.
Two MAJOR reasons to use wax:
1) Ball spin. A waxed field allows the ball to get spinning wickedly fast and exhibit crazy physical characteristics, like walking up a rubber against gravity. This leads to exciting ball action.
2)Subsequent cleaning. A nicely waxed playfield will collect grime ON TOP OF THE WAX, instead of stuck to the clearcoat. This makes cleaning as simple as a wipe instead of a scrub.
Quoted from RobT:Simply waxing a car that has swirls will make it look better than before waxing, but the swirls will still be there. Swirls make light reflect from the surface at different angles, resulting in the paint finish not looking as deep as it should.
Polishing with a polish/compound to remove the swirls will result in the best wet look possible. Many pro detailers will tell you that adding a coat of wax after the final polishing step will actually very slightly *dull* the finished appearance (but nobody recommends that you don't wax your car).
Oh, and yes, I agree that wax certainly does bond to flat surfaces.
Yes, totally aware that waxing doesn't change the scratches... It's all optics. We need polishing or compounding to actually remove scratches. The point here was to highlight a scenario most are familiar with... How a wax finish on a car doesn't just stay in isolated spots to give a reference to debunk that scratch only claim in a way most readers could agree with without blind faith 
Just like this thread.. Car detailing requires knowing the actual purpose of a product and using it in the right situation and not just universally
Luckily my play fields are way less worrisome for scratches vs my black cars
Just like a car.. Wax acts as a sacrificial layer that dirt and other comtaiments can work against instead of the prime surface underneath. It's also a slicker surface making cleaning up of dust and other settled comtaiments easily cleaned up.
And I've never had a ball trail vacuum up
I am calling bullshit on the alcohol/magic eraser removing topcoat claim...with the caveat that WMS World Cup has a topcoat this supposed to melt and get removed by cleaning with alcohol and ME.
I am using at least 90% alcohol and the original ME cut into smaller blocks for more efficient use.
Now at the bottom of the playfield, there are unpainted sections that are finished with top coat only. This is the left outlane between the green ink and the shoot again "when lit" yellow ink. I just did an experiment where I first cleaned the area with Mother's Mag Polish (abrasive polisher), then scrubbed, yes actually scrubbed with ME to *try* to remove the top coat, wiped with a rag moistened with alcohol, then polished it *again* with Mother's.
Result? The shiny top coat luster remains. It is so shiny the overhead light has some definition in the reflection.
You can see the piece of ME laying on the rag is all nasty looking, supposedly full of the top coat it just "removed". However, the top coat retains a high luster. So in fact, ME does not remove all top coat by any stretch of the imagination, and actually appears to remove very little if any, judging by the luster left behind after its use. Had the top coat been removed, the unfinished wood surface would have little or no reflective luster.
Incorrect?
Quoted from cody_chunn:I am calling bullshit on the alcohol/magic eraser removing topcoat claim
It depends on the machine and topcoat. On a test section of my BK2K with alcohol and ME, it easily removed the topcoat and got into the paint. Mind you, it didn't take much to get to the paint. So, this highlights the fact that YMMV.
how long we leaving the wax before buffing off?.. 20mins too short? a friend left it on overnight, he forgot about it, then buffed off the following day and wow.. turned out real nice... longer u leave it, the better ?
Quoted from ledge:how long we leaving the wax before buffing off?.. 20mins too short? a friend left it on overnight, he forgot about it, then buffed off the following day and wow.. turned out real nice... longer u leave it, the better ?
Absolutely no reason to leave it over night, no. It would have looked nice if he just buffed it after 20 minutes too. That's what a freshly waxed game looks like after it's gotten dirty.
Quoted from cody_chunn:I am calling bullshit on the alcohol/magic eraser removing topcoat claim
Quoted from cody_chunn:Now at the bottom of the playfield, there are unpainted sections that are finished with top coat only.
No such thing as topcoat only.
Wood sealer went down on the playfield first, then the spot colors (generally white first) and finally the topcoat.
You are never going to remove the wood sealer coating with alcohol.....that would be a playfield restorer's dream, lol.
Now these type of debates are what we should have at Pinball expo in Chicago. We have enough promoting of new games and not enough of how to do restoration work on our machines.
What better way to judge for ourselves the merits of both ways than to see them "in the Flesh".
Two quick questions:
1. Dealing with Naphtha are there any precautions to take with what type of rags/cloths to use and how to handle them after? As I've been reading it's not as reactive as say linseed oil where they can spontaneously combust.
2. Side question: what is used for the playfield sealer on SS/EM era games?
Quoted from ledge:how long we leaving the wax before buffing off?.. 20mins too short? a friend left it on overnight, he forgot about it, then buffed off the following day and wow.. turned out real nice... longer u leave it, the better ?
The waiting is for the wax to dry... Once it's dried... It's dried. Extra waiting doesn't help. The more dried it is, the harder it is to remove excess. People like to give it more time just so it's dried out completely vs just waiting 15-20 mins. In most cases I just go do something else for a short bit and then come back. So 15-30 mins tops.
Quoted from flynnibus:The waiting is for the wax to dry... Once it's dried... It's dried. Extra waiting doesn't help
Exactly.
Even a thick chunk of wax will dry in between the plastic post fins (the solvents will evaporate into the atmosphere), and then the wax just flakes off with a soft toothbrush.
If it was still wet with solvents, it would smear and stick rather than flake away.
So once the wax is not sticky, and the film just glides off under your finger pressure, you know it's dry and ready to be buffed off.
Quoted from ahanson:Dealing with Naphtha are there any precautions to take with what type of rags/cloths to use and how to handle them after?
Naphtha evaporates fast.
Lay the rags spread out for the Naphtha to evaporate.
A few minutes later they will stop stinking and be dry.
Do this outside, so you get the least amount of solvent vapors in your house or garage.
DOES DRIED WAX MELT OR CRACK PLASTIC POSTS?
=================================================
Here is a pic of a Xenon we unboxed and deployed ourselves, and latter sold to the bar owner when I sold off my route.
It is still at the same location.
I still occasionally service this game when the repair is outside of the abilities of the guy that services the CD Jukebox and pool tables at the pub.
You can tell that these plastic posts are the original, 35 year old posts, because they have faded to a magenta color - these posts were BLUE when new. Red posts do not fade to this strange color. Sorry about the crummy color of the pics, they were from a cellphone and the posts were not the reason I took them.
So we can see the usual crummy wax job that the owner does. Just slops on TurtleWax and does a half assed job wiping it off. It's all over the posts and inside the lane switches.
In this pic we see that the old post have chips in them when the slingshot rubber has broken and the ball has directly slammed into the plastic. In 35 years of use, we can imagine that is has happened more than once.
The top slingshot post and the bottom slingshot post of the 3 posts in the "pop pen" show a little chipping damage; up near the throat of the post.
Click the photo to see the damage:
"Wait Vid, if the extra wax is melting and weakening the plastic all these years, why is the the plastic chipping up at the top of the post, and not where all the wax is?" - Ah, I thought you would never ask.
The plastic cracks and chips only up at the top of the post, because that is where the ball hits the post whenever the slingshot rubber breaks.
The ball does not hit the bottom fins ever, unless the post comes loose.
Now here is the most important point of the whole segment.
Here on the backside of the slingshot pen, the 35 year old, slopped with wax, plastic post does not have any chips at all !
Why? Because the ball will never be able to slam into that post. It's not in the line of fire for a fast moving ball.
It will probably sit there in it's faded glory for another 35 years, untouched.
So I think that it is pretty safe to say that dried wax is not melting, cracking or damaging plastic posts by secretly sealing solvent under it's dried flakes.
But, it sure looks like high speed balls can damage the upper fins with repeated impacts.
If you are ever at a show or out on location and see broken rubber on a game, TURN IT OFF!
You will be doing the operator a nice favor.
Quoted from chuckwurt:That's crazy that the posts fade to that color.
Yeah, maybe a bad batch of dye or something.
I don't ever see same era games like Time Warp with magenta posts.
You often see restored Xenons with red posts, and when you inquire, the owner says he "wanted it all original" thinking that the magenta posts were originally red.
Just shopped out a Xenon.
Every one of the post were that horrible pink color.
Replaced with all new blue ones. Looks great now.
What makes me sad is when I buy a pin from someones home and they tell me about how they "loved" the pin by cleaning and waxing it regularly. You can tell they are telling the truth, the posts are white with old wax, the fins on those early Bally posts will just be packed with wax.
But for some reason the playfields often still look like shit. Guess what? The ball(s) are a mess!
The balls are scratched and/or pitted.
I know it has been said before, but I will say it again. Wax does not stand a chance when put up against a rough steel ball (even a slightly rough steel ball).
I wish owners would really, critically look at their pinballs. I have no where near the experience of many of the people posting on this topic, but given the choice I would much rather buy from an owner that keeps mirror bright pinball in their machine and never cleans it compared to an owner that loving cleans and waxes but never looks at their pinballs for minor damage.
I think the damaged caused by a even slightly scratched pinball (the kind of scratches that happen from average play) is much worse for the finish of a playfield compared to a dirty playfield with a mirror bright pinball being used.
One source of dirt I haven't seen mentioned is motor dust. It comes from the carbon brushes inside the motors. Have you ever noticed how dirty Addams gets? Thank Thing for that.
I agree with Cody about metal ball guides. I used to get RePlay magazine. They did an experiment with a pair of TZs, replacing the stainless steel return lane guides with custom Lexan ones on one of them. The difference was huge - the game with the plastic guides was much cleaner.
Excellent thread, carry on!
Quoted from mg81:I think the damaged caused by a even slightly scratched pinball (the kind of scratches that happen from average play) is much worse for the finish of a playfield compared to a dirty playfield with a mirror bright pinball being used.
I'll see that point and raise you one: often a filthy playfield is better protected from ratty balls than a clean playfield with ratty balls. I've pulled rust balls out of machines that were covered with black or white grime and the playfield cleans up well. Roll those monsters around a clean playfield, waxed or not, and your PF is toast.
Quoted from Arcade:Just shopped out a Xenon.
Every one of the post were that horrible pink color.
Replaced with all new blue ones. Looks great now.
Freaktastic! I thought they were supposed to red, should have looked at the flyer
Quoted from Aurich:Kids, if your balls are pitted, replace them!! No wax in the world is gonna save your game if you're flipping little rolling steel sandpaper weights around on it.
Sad Star Trek is sad.
Where is that located? 
Quoted from iron00monkey:Is that yours?
No, someone posted that to Facebook tagged to Steve Ritchie who I'm friends with so I saw it, I don't know the details. But yeesh. That's a relatively new game, imagine the f'd up neglect on the op's part that was required to make it look like that! The balls must look like the surface of the moon.
Quoted from dmbjunky:Is the type of rag important? Can I just use paper towel with Naptha? I realize paper towel is not very soft as I've been told to never use them on eye glasses.
Personally I'd just pick up a little pack of microfiber towels at Autozone or Harbor Freight etc. Cheap and easy. As as vid said, you just air them out and the solvents all evaporate. If you want to use disposable I'd stick with shop towels. They're softer, but also won't disintegrate on you and leave little paper pills all over the place.
Quoted from Aurich:No, someone posted that to Facebook tagged to Steve Ritchie who I'm friends with so I saw it, I don't know the details. But yeesh. That's a relatively new game, imagine the f'd up neglect on the op's part that was required to make it look like that! The balls must look like the surface of the moon.
I think I heard that stern sent them a new playfield too. That is some insane wear on a new game.
The wear on that playfield looks wrong for wear caused by a rough ball. I don't think you would see the random wear spots further up the playfield. If it was just the wear in front of the slings and flippers, yes, I would say a rough ball.
The random spots of worn through paint makes me thing the playfield was contaminated with something before painting or after painting, or the primer layer was not fully cured/dried.
Quoted from dmbjunky:Ah yes, shop towels. I can get them from the shop I work at. Good idea.
I would go with the microfiber towels, they're not that expensive and a much better choice. If you want to know why read the following:
Quoted from Darcy:That photo is Nuts! Something is not right, with that playfield.
I mean, who knows. But think about it. That wear didn't happen overnight. The OP basically doesn't give a shit to let it get like that. Anyone normal would notice a little wear and swap the balls at the very least.
I've done the hardcore routed restore game thing, you'd be surprised at the wear that can occur when the game op just doesn't give a crap. I put it squarely on them, not Stern.
Quoted from Aurich:you'd be surprised at the wear that can occur when the game op just doesn't give a crap. I put it squarely on them, not Stern.
Yes I agree. Last year I've seen a Pin-Bot and a Whirlwind that were still on route and worn to the wood. With large sections of missing art work, but this is a fairly new game.
OK children. You may have won the battle to continue to turn Pinside into a vast wasteland of off-topic posts, but I think the technical forum was excluded from that decree, wasn't it? If nothing else I would think you could show a little respect for Vid, who invests his personal time in helping out here, and also have a little empathy for the people new to pinball who are interested in learning how to properly clean their game w/o having to read 5 pages of Pinside crap in order to get 1 page worth of information.
Recently i have stopped waxing my pins and have been just giving them a clean with Novus 1 and a microfiber cloth ...
It is probably not the normal thing to do...
But after i do this they play really fast ...
As someone new to the hobby, I vastly appreciate everything that Clay and Vid put out. I go through it all and I have learned a lot.
Continuing on the microfiber towel thing, I have been using these for cars and around the house for a while now. I use them everywhere once I discovered you can get them for cheap, for example, 36 of them for $18, that's 50 cents apiece. You can wash them and reuse them, but not obsess if you have to throw one away.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000XECJES
I like to dedicate them to one use rather than mixing chemicals, so I write on the label with a sharpie - Novus 1, Novus 2, wax, alcohol, etc.
Vid, does anyone actually care if a twenty five cent plastic post cracks?
I just toss old ones in the trash if they even look slightly faded. Long before they have had enough impacts to crack.
Since the topic turned towards pitted balls and I'm finally getting around to working on it, here are a few ball swirl pix of a neglected Black Knight I bought.
004.JPG
005.JPG
006.JPG
The people that owned it lost the keys and kept playing it with rusty pitted balls until thankfully a power supply issue stopped the damage. My question to you all is how do I proceed? I know it'll never be a CQ game, but I would like it to look presentable next to my Black Knight 2000. What's the first step?
Thanks
Quoted from Steve-in-CT:What's the first step?
First step is to move that interesting request over to the playfield forum here:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-to-ultimate-playfield-restoration
-mof
Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.
Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!
This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/cleaning-and-waxing-pinball-machines-vids-guide/page/5 and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.
Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.
Banning, CA
Sana'a
Leduc, AB