Sorry if this has been asked previously, but does mirco's repro playfields have the pooling problem or is it just the new games? Are the repro playfields silk screened and the new ones digital printed? I don't know, but I am really starting to be a believer in the "its the printing thats going bad" vs a problem with the clear coat. If the printing isn't adhering properly, the clear won't stand a chance. Maybe the clear and the ink don't play nice together? I know this has been talked about, but I'm just saying its a good theory. Maybe all this bitching about the clear coat, and we should be bitching about the ink instead. I just want to know if the repro playfields are seeing the same problems or not.

My Mrs went to get her nails done last week.
The Vietnamese lady is an expert at doing nails. My Mrs asked for an extra clear coat topping to make it look nicer.
The expert just stared at her for a while then said "Are you crazy? It will never harden.....no, it doesn't work like that!"

Food for thought

Pollution is fine as long as it is always far away from me.

If it wasn't for all these damn tree huggers!

Bring back the chemicals and sort this mess out.

Some good holidays going just now also.....
Seal clubbing, two for the price of one

clubbing (resized).jpg

If those seals were ugly nobody would care.

Indeed, all problems of the world can be solved with modern chemistry. Oh wait, which „mess“ do you mean?

Get this lady making play fields

Somewhat on topic, can you ask her if Before the clear they used a UV light to Harden the color? Bet I know the answer..... And NO I don't get my nails done! lol

Or software.... Volkswagen TDI anyone??

It could also be a combination of issues, if you look at the pics the paint is coming off with the clear, which may indicate bad adhesion of paint to the wood but if the clear is pooling this could mean the clearcoat is not fully hardened yet. So it's a little confusing I know....but to address the pooling the clear needs to be reformulated or cured more. We don't know how long Mirco lets the pfs rest before shipping them out.....also how many times does he go over them. 2x or 4x? or does he do one heavy coat and one light coat....etc. Either way, he needs to investigate this and retool his process. This is something preventable and unlike dimpling we can all agree this is not normal.

I have an epoxy floor that can withstand jet fuel. Hilarious that people think water based coatings can’t be strong.

There’s several clear car paint coatings that are super hard and resistant to rock chips, perhaps they need to be explored.

Lol....she was gassing on the phone:-

Apart from the boring process which she tried to talk me through about sticking the fake nails on
The less painful bit goes like this:
1 x coat of nail polish (colour) UV light
2nd coat of nail polish (colour) UV light
Top coat of clear UV light
No more than 1 top coat of clear otherwise it clumps and doesn't set

You just said this has been going on over many releases, yet sales on successive releases aren't affected. So, why does JJP -need- to do anything?

JJP, or Stern for that matter, doesn't need to do anything until sales are affected. Should we really see these companies as anything other than capitalists? Jack may have had some altruism at some point, like during Hobbit development. But looks like the bean counters are firmly in charge now.

The -real- question is how many chances are buyers going to give JJP or Stern. At this point, the answer is self-evident: the average buyer doesn't see this as a significant enough issue.

Yup

Ergo, Capitalism sucks.

Only an idiot would not see this to be a problem. Either that or a fool with too much extra spending money.

But that’s not what they said. They said the average person doesn’t consider it to be enough of an issue to stop buying NIB. Of course it’s a problem.

You need to inform all NIB buyers how misguided they are.

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The average person is not very smart. Thats no secret there.

Thats what this thread is partially about.

You are 100% correct.

Most NIB buyers will never see this thread and a lot of them will have never even heard of pinside.

Unless you want to go harass people outside of a distributors showroom, I don't think there is much you can do to really raise the awareness in the non-enthusiast part of the hobby.

A lot of NIB buyers just want something to fill out their game room and are only going to play their game a couple hundred times in its life.

Im not the one who started this thread, im only participating in it. The goal of this thread is not to put JJP or Stern out of business, its to try and get these manufacturers to up their quality. Its also about letting people know how these companies are treating their customers and to let people know the playfield quality issues that are going on at any given time so people don't run out and buy a defective product that these companies wont stand behind. For the people that don't care, i would say this thread is not a thread that they should be concerned with. Its just pinheads looking out for each other. The internet is a great thing.

You're preaching to the choir here.

It's not that most people don't care; it's that most people don't know. And threads like this only do so much to spread the news because most people buying pins aren't here.

I think people care more and less based on levels of severity. If huge chunks of artwork was coming off the playfield vs a spec by the post that you need a to do a 10x zoom on a photo to see clearly are totally different things. Both suck, but far different levels of suck.

If it makes you all feel better, I have not bought any NIB pins since this thread got started. And this thread was partially responsible !

Nothing is "pooling." The end result looks like circular ripples, but the art and clear together are being pushed and pulled by the movement of the posts or rails and is lifting off the playfield, then bunching up around the object that pushed/pulled it.

This isn't much difference from the leg and decal issues on WPC games. A cabinet would be sitting raised on a pinball lifter. Legs were attached and legbolts tightened. When the cabinet was lowered, the legs would slide UP the cabinet, to the extent of the slop in the mounting holes. This would tear and bunch up the cabinet decals just above the legs.

In this case, the art and clear stick to the playfield posts and not to the wood. The post moves slightly as rubbers are installed and the game gets played, and the clear+art bunches up on the sides of the post, creating that ripple that looks like pooling.

For legs, the simple fix is to ram the leg to the top of the slop BEFORE tightening the bolts, but in this case the pressure only pushes up. With playfield posts, the posts can scoot all around if they're not tight enough, so make sure your posts are good and tight.

I think that's what's causing the issue though, time and pressure, not sliding or digging in as described with the leg example. Maybe to a slight extent with the "pooling" showing on the inner sling where the force is directed downward from the sling. I think it would be better to isolate the sling posts with more rigid plastics onthe top of the posts to prevent angling/towing in at the bases as the sling rubber pulls inward. But you can see perfect 360 circles on posts that have no rubbers and the washers or posts sink uniformly into the clear..I would actually say keep the posts as loose as possible, just hand tight as much as they won't move when the slings fire but not enough to cause any excess pressure, that in conjuction with reinforced plastic protectors for rigidity

Softer wood cheaper, digital printing cheaper, waterbase clearcoat cheaper.
And the whole process is faster and therefore more cheaper again.
Thats the only reason, not because they cant produce quality playfields.
So live with it or don't buy this crap quality.

Not happy with these issues but hearing that Stern have a backlog of 5000 games makes me think we are going to get more of the same going forward unfortunately.

That's an assumption.

I have never owned a NIB game, but I do know that every other game I've owned so far shows (at least light) playfield damage around posts, bolts, screws. Even in areas where the ball does not come, eg. a post which is not directly hit by a ball there's always slight lacquer/paint/imprint damage wherever something is bolted to the playfield.

Pinball machines are meant to be played. You're mashing a heavy ball bearing around a wooden playfield populated with plastics, posts etc. which will damage over time. When a pinball gets its intended use (which is hundreds/thousands of plays), a 1mm pooling circle which requires a magnifying glass to be seen will be the least of your worries in terms of wear & tear. For this reason I can understand that manufacturers do not have fixing of sporadic pooling damage during production on the top of their priority list.

Stern MAY have this almost under control
AIQ buyers issues (myself included) seem to be isolated to ballguides being torqued into the PF buy an air gun on a hexnut under the PF. A few of us loosed a couple areas of concern and lifted the guides using a small fiber washer.

Many of us agree the JP premiums/TMNT/AIQs playfields are off good quality so far. Dimples are extremely minor, if the wood was junk that may not be the case. Posts look fine.

So if you don’t have a chipped shooter lane, torqued guides, you should be good. There are signs Stern is trying to get this under control. Cabinets are more robust, coil stops seem to be improved-overall, including the playfield the games are evolving slightly (can’t say “improved” because some of the mechs are still faulty)

Op make a poll for gnr owners that have pooling and those without pooling. Let’s see what percentages we get.

I don't know why so many assume that waterbase clearcoats are worse and cheaper. There are some incredibly durable 2 part waterborne clearcoats out there but they are still very expensive and most importantly have a very short pot life after mixed (20 min or so). This last part would made it a big hassle in a high volume production environment.

Not sure if there’s an “almost” to this. It’s either fixed or not. Every new release there’s a group of people who say “problem solved because mine has no problems”. I don’t think it works that way, but I’m sincerely happy yours is good!

The problem with your argument is 100's of thousands of games before the last 5 years didn't have this issue let alone right out of the box. There's pictures of peoples play fields chipping around posts in reportedly 30 games. IF you're OK with that cool ..... I believe most people aren't. My .02
And the argument of metal against wood - get a Kruzman clear job and I assure you that argument is no longer valid. *shameless plug for Ron!*

Yeah, that must be what they are using on these playfields. The real expensive stuff.

Played today in a busy local location where the games get tons of play. I got a good look at all of the games, because it was an off hour on a Monday and not many people waiting to play. They have basically every new Stern, Rick and Morty along with GNR LE, WW and DI. All of the games had dimpling, with Rick and Morty having the least. GNR is the newest game, so the dimpling had not covered the whole playfield yet.

As for pooling and chipping:
An early run Iron Maiden was probably the worst because it had pooling along with art chipping around many posts.
Second worst was a gold Beatles with a ton of play that had pooling on a number of posts and very minor chipping on a couple.
Both Avengers IQ Premium and TMNT Pro had nice clear coats with no pooling.
Guns and Roses LE (October 2020 build date) had pooling on few posts. No chipping yet.
Early JP with tons of play minor pooling not bad at all though.
Stranger Things, Elvira 3, Deadpool, BKSoR and GOTG did not see any pooling or chipping.

A few side notes... I will say that my favorite game of the newest crop is a tie between Rick and Morty and the AIQ Premium. I love the theme on R&M, but the playfield and ramps on AIQ are a work of art. The shots on AIQ are like butter and innovative to say the least. I played a number of games and want one for home even though I am not a comic book guy. Another note was just how unimpressive GnR sounds when put next to even a Stern Pro. When JJP moved the boards from the cabinet to the back box for DI, they turned the mid range speakers facing up instead of towards the player as they were before. The result is tinny sound unless you shell out for the CE and get the sound bar up top. Not a GnR fan, but the game was fun to play and I liked the lighting strips on the sides of the playfield. On a whole, it was a less impressive than the fancy JJP promo videos and glamor shots from the release had me expecting. Not at all interested in owning one at this point.

Just that gets my applause. Other coast they won't even let us go bowling. And pinball ops are selling what they've got just to pay rent or eat.

30+ games. Temp check at the entrance. Must wear mask and there is plenty of hand sanitizer available.

What place is this? We go to Florida for vacation once a year and would love to check it out!

That would work here. The weather is so dry now, I can't imagine that virus would have much shelf life anyway.

We may be making progress though. I saw a school bus today.

I made no claim to knowledge about what products any manufactures are using nor their process; I also highly doubt that anyone here is privy to any of that information as well.

All I was saying is that having to use waterborne products is no excuse for the poor quality.

Hate to see this is still a problem, my 2 cents is,
My TNA, ALICE, and Rick & Mortey playfields are pristine.

OFF TOPIC. I'm getting my house tented for termites in two weeks.
I was planning on covering my pins with heavy plastic.
Any advice ? never had to tent before?

Thanks.

Message from the being eaten out of house and home Freeeek Kingdom.

It's true what John I said though. He is an honest voice of reason.

Yes, my Rick and Morty has dimples too. They are almost identical to the minute dimples on my old school No Fear. But shinier.

Not even worth looking for.

I think they use a gas rather than a liquid chemical or fog. There should be no residue. We have a lot of termites in Florida and services that put your items in a shed to be gassed for a weekend to kill anything in them. I've had some old games gassed and saw no residue or signs at all. I also saw a lot of nice furniture and antiques when loading my games into the gas shed.

Pinball Lounge in Oviedo Bowling Center. Full liquor bar and food menu at your fingertips along with the bowling.