Quoted from Vermont:So I have a new TMNT Premium and I am guessing I did not clean the balls well enough before firing everything up; I now have gray lines from (I'm assuming) the oil residue from the balls.
This seems the thread that would have the right info, but I'm not sure if the cleanup I need to do is different than general cleanup after months/years or use. Is it as simple as a damp cloth to get that stuff up?
Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you in advance, and apologies if I am in the wrong place on the forum.
I cleaned the balls well when I got my Jurassic Park and Avengers Infinity Quest and still had a lot of ball trails being left around the inlanes and outlanes. I think a lot of it comes from the stock flipper rubber. I put Titan silicone bands on the flippers when I first got my AIQ and didn't get ball trails. But I didn't like how they played (too bouncy for me) so I switched back to the regular rubber and immediately started getting a lot of ball trails.
Anyway, for cleaning ball trails and general wipe downs of the playfield I use Wizards Mist N Shine. Don't spray it directly onto the playfield. Spray it onto a microfiber or rag and then wipe the playfield down. That should take care of the basic maintenance for occasional wipe downs to keep the playfield clean. For tougher ball trails I've actually found that rubbing them with my thumb works pretty well. Beyond that, for cleaning tougher spots that still aren't coming out you can use something like Novus 2. There's debate about using it but it seems like for infrequent use on tougher areas it works well for me.
You'll probably want to also wipe down the rubbers on the slings, flippers, and posts each time you clean ball trails since those areas get pretty dirty with the same residue that leaves the ball trails. For those I use Wildcat RC-88 rubber cleaner. Just apply a very little spot of it on a rag and wipe the rubber directly with that spot of the rag, and try to not get any on the playfield. Works very well for me.