It's actually a girl if I'm not mistaken.

Hmmmm... just comes up "Ignored user comment" for me. Life is good.

Please let us know when we can welcome you to the club!

No way! They said this issue was fixed!!!!!!!

It was never fixed. They just made some temporary adjustments to stop it from happening until they figure it out and those adjustments definitely arent the answer either.

Do you have better pictures? Seems odd that the pooling is so far from the actual guide... never seen pooling like that before.

Well you're a noob to the hobby so maybe that's why you havent seen pooling like that.

At least I’m not a douchebag, or a bengals fan.

Hmmm...sounds like he knows what he's talking aboot to me.

No he actually doesn't have a clue. Just read some of his posts.

Let me take a look...ah I see...point taken.
A broken clock as they say

Big time. He became a Pinsider less 2 months ago and he already knows more than Vid900.

Are all Bengals fans douche bags or just me Chuck?

Just you. And most people that sit in the end zones or second deck of PBS.

At least his heart is red which is more than I can say for yours

The pins I’ve seen ( Wonka, April build, TMNT, June build, GOTG, June build) all have defects on pf’s. Pooling is rampant when looked for and one had art missing under a post (GOTG) on LH side.

If I’m buying a Jaws pin, I’m getting the fucking pf redone before game one. Wife said to me, do you really want that stess before you even play one game? I said not really.

I...may be passing on a Jaws title. Cannot believe I’m saying this. Yeah. I’m seriously considering not buying. Like, every game a friend shows me gets me 10% more no thanks.

One collector could care less. Other 4 I know? They’re done.

Just go Fuck yourself Stern for this if you won’t fix it.

A6D9ACD4-67A3-4571-AD46-4BDDC6A7C816.gif

Maybe there's a reason for that that's none of your business? I was a pinside plus member as you can see so that will cover your little 5 dollar heart donation for like 7-20 years.

The higher up you sit the bigger the bottom feeder that you are! Well except the luxury suites.

Just buy a nice HUO game....all u need is a little patience...no reason to roll the dice with Stern

Truth amigo.

That's what I did with Deadpool pro. Also got it with NIB playfield for $4700.00. I may do it again with a JP3 pro.

Well good for you but bitching about how short a time one has been on Pinside is just BS

he did the same with me. I whitelisted him back again and thought that he is actually not full of shit and he has some good posts, and now its the second person he is raging on- funny that he has fanboys upvoting those rude statements. there are other ways to communicate, no matter how many posts you made or how much money you spend- such statements are just making a fool out of yourself.

you should welcome new members and keep the hobby growing.

I don’t think it was that you were new here,it was the giant green nutsack that offended him!

Can we talk about something related to the game? Like did any ship today??

No.

Ok...what do we talk aboot now?

Oops, this was meant for the RM thread, sorry.

Babysitting a JP LE; first time to put some attention to it and noticed significant wood grain in the playfield. My other Sterns do not look like this ... Thoughts? For LE prices I would expect this PF to look like glass, not ass.

IMG_9070 (resized).jpg

This seems to be another new norm. My MET and MUNSTERS games have this. If i looked close i could probably find it in some of my other games i bet too. The only good thing about it is that its not usually real noticeable but i do agree that for the money that they are charging for these games they should look like a sheet of glass.

Apparently the new normal ! Stern Play fields are all over the map....

Thanks! Appreciate the feedback. So much for the new QC guy at Stern! Lol

I am not even sure how this happens as you would think the process of sanding, prep'ing, screen printing, clearcoating, sanding, second coat, and sanding and buffing would make it all but impoissible to have anything but an absolutely smooth surface. And I just can't believe that humidity even in an extreme case for a few weeks or months would be able to make the wood grain up like that. I am not sure how they could do that.... even IF THEY WANTED TOO!!!

8-(

I believe this started around SW? First time I noticed it with mine.

My 2003 TSPP had this as well. I wouldn't say it's a new thing.

That far back? Wow.

It was one of my first games and I didn't think anything of it as it didn't affect the game at all, so I didn't take any pictures to specifically show it. I did find a picture I had that shows a portion of it.
For reference:

IMG_3204 (2) (resized).JPG

Wow that's pretty bad!

That being said it didn't bother me. The playfield held together well for being a routed game for the majority of it's life to that point. Only the usual wear spots in the shooter lane and I&S hole.

Who says their vendors are even doing this?

You are right. Maybe they are just slapping paint on a piece of old barn siding....

LOL

Seriously. What if they are just doing one thin coat, sanding level, buffing, then done? I wouldn’t be surprised at all.

Its just so surprising to me. Finished woodworking has been around for 500 years and its quite common knowledge how to select wood for durability, how to finish it, etc. The only difference is they want a graphic to live on the surface. The rest of this process is 'not rocket science'. I get cost versus quality (manufacturer's point of view), but there is also cost versus lifespan (buyer's point of view).

Anyway, I would hope Stern is thinking about this as a strategic issue, and perhaps even peeking in to 125 pages of posts about this topic. In my mind, there is a team of people sitting in Elk Grove discussing this topic and giving findings and progress reports to the executive team weekly...

Leave out the sanding part and I think that is what is happening.

I have no idea what I am talking about but we had old games (LOTRLE & TSPP) that had it too. The new games just have it worse. My wife and I never noticed it on any game until we got on Pinside. It does not bother me too much but I feel it is a process error, a person not doing what they are supposed to. This is causing the ribbing. Some playfields have it to varying degrees and some do not.

They’ve made some changes (but probably cheap ones like removing the art under posts). But for the most part, a ton of these posts are from the same people. At the end of the day, most people don’t notice this stuff. Not that it makes it right, just the reality of the situation.

This is it right here. This site is such a tiny percentage of pinball buyers.

I think this thread goes in cycles. A new customer gets a game, discovers the shoddy quality, complains in here repeatedly for a while, gives up and moves on, likely not buying anything else from Stern and they get tired of complaining about it because it doesn't get anywhere. Then when a new batch of games goes out, more pissed off customers come in here and complain and start the cycle over. A few consistent voices may be heard throughout, but I bet there's a large number of people who've been in here complaining at one point or another. It just doesn't do any good.

Stern is fine addressing their biggest market with what they ship, but COULD they work differently? Sure...

I was a product manager for many years, so I am also looking at market requirements. Think of how bowling alleys are made. While the finish is important, they select the alley surface wood based on durability. They understand that a 14 pound ball it going to to dropped on it 250 times a day, 7 days a week, for 20+ years. Those surfaces are pretty resilient, intentionally because who would buy an alley that fractured or splintered after a few months? They have matched the product to the requirement. I am just saying that the task at hand COULD come with certain product requirements for different markets, but my guess is product sales for route operators is driving ALL product requirements and hence, quality. On routes, I don't think this playfield is an issue at all, so why spend the extra money? Maintenance cost and truck rolls is the big issue for route operators.

That said, perhaps they could acknowledge and embrace the two markets. Their PRO devices could be targetted at Route operators and include all of the cost reductions needed to meet their margin requirements, and then their PREMIUM & LE variants could be targetted at entusiasts to the point where perhaps 5% of the machine is built differently (e.g. the playfield material itself is different, the playfield toys are more detailed, etc) and the premium pricing would yield the same or better margins, increasing the total addressable market.

Two markets, two different sets of requirements. Today, those requirement docs are basically the same, minus a animated dinosaur head here and a vanity certificate there... The remaining 99% is the same.

But I am not running their business and revenue plans, and it seems to work for them.... (and I enjoy my JP-Premium as shipped)

My two games that have it dont bother me either really because you cant really see it if you arent looking for it. I do still think it is unacceptable though for such an expensive product. The chipping and pooling however is a different story, that bothers me a lot.

Both Stern (see DP/JP/TMNT) and JJP (see POTC/Wonka) have their share of quality issues in the last few years. When several distributors I trust shrugged with no long term answers (this goes for QC on those toppers too) my time was up.

These good distros do what they can post sale but are stuck in the middle coaching buyers on what is “acceptable for normal operations” on a new 6k+ tax + ship item.

Sorry Stern and JJP , find another huckleberry. Plenty of buyers here everyday picking up the slack!