Wow, you were not kidding about the warp.

I am keenly interested in your swap process! Have you documented it at all?

Took many pics. But just rocked it out. Playfield is compete, just gotta put it in. This warped turd is going straight into the trash.

No way, I'd put it on the wall like a trophy of your victory.

How many hours was the swap, and was anything particularly difficult or problematic?
Did you use a rotisserie or not?

I want to know everything!

In my experience plywood is very stable, so I am wondering what made it warp like that...
it looks like it got wet at one point and then it dried after the clear coat.

Wow....u should send that picture to Stern

I would be interested in buying it off you. I would like to make wall art with it.
I will pay for shipping of course. Please send me a PM.

Have you contacted Stern?

Well.... I got the playfield Friday. Came home from work at 7 and worked all night. I work the weekends (I manage a furniture store), so I worked on it Saturday night and Sunday night. Took me probably 18 hours total (keep in mind a removed a large amount if parts before even getting the replacement.... that took about 6 or 7 hours). Didn't use a rotisserie. Just learned it against a post on my basement as I put part after part on. Not much more to say!

orbiter 1 remake confirmed!

"obviously your table is warped or its a trick of the light" /s ;p

I'm really shocked tbh! Would love to see a straight edge right across it from edge to edge now its depopulated.
Fill in the holes and you have a boat hull!

That’s awesome. People act like the swap is this impossibility that only a handful of super talented people in the world can do. At the end of the day it’s screwing things into wood!

Well done. Looking forward to the final pics.

Are you shure your table isn't warpt, hahaha.

I've been having problems with my LZ pro .... but I can't seem to pinpoint the issue?
LZ_empty (resized).jpg

The tilt bob isn't centered.

If it's not so fucking hard then why aren't JJP and Stern replacing our fields for us?

If you spent as much time doing the swap as you do bitching on Pinside you'd have a perfect Wonka 10 times over.

A bandaid, not a solution. Hope some of you find this helpful. Big shout-out and thanks to Yellobird as this is his idea.

On cue. Not surprised at your response. This isn't a time issue. It's a skills issue. And furthermore, I'm not interested in donating my time for free to do something that JJP should have just handled to begin with.

Bitching about my situation, however, provides me with some satisfaction. And I KNOW that people at JJP are seeing what I say, even if they don't like it (or me for saying it). So I consider that time well spent. They (and you) can listen to me complain until I'm made whole.

Of course it's not impossible, but it does require a skill set that not everybody has. There is slightly more to it then screwing things into wood and a multitude of things can go wrong. Stern employees can't screw these things together correctly on my last 2 NIB's - what makes you think the avg. person can.

I appreciate your point of view and respect it.
I understand completely that these issues don't bother you as much as others and you continue to buy NIB and enjoy.
Nothing wrong at all with your point of view for yourself

but ...

to others, this is understandably a much bigger issue
I do not understand why you spend so much energy trying to convince them that they are wrong.
What's your angle? What do you have to gain by convincing them to change their mind?

A discount on the next machine or cash payout?

Lol, no. I don't have a dog in this hunt.

I guess I just see this as a fixable problem with a few options:

- Sell the machine and move on
- Do the swap

I don't see constantly reminding everyone how wronged he was helps anyone, including himself.

The same can be said for my own commentary on the issue of course, so whatever. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

All this noise, and by your own admission you don't even have an affected game. Typical.

To your suggestions:

And take a loss? Um, no.

I can't do it myself. And if I have to pay someone else to do it, well, see the above quote.

Again for you that seems like a reasonable solution I can't argue with.
But for others as said multiple times
- Sell the machine and move on is going result in the loss of hundreds of $$ vs a defect free
- Do the swap - not possible for a large majority of people

- 3rd option is manufacturers take responsibility (like in other industries) and send out populated PF's
and the only way this happens is if there is a significant enough impact on new sales due to concerns about quality which is achieved via consumer complaints and educating potential new buyers to what they may possibly expect.

Please tell me one other product as complicated as a PB machine where you would be sent out parts and basically have to tear the product down to the bare bones to do a replacement.

This is the same guy that was on a crusade to keep people from installing Cliffy protectors in POTC for some reason. All the while boasting about how trouble free his playfield was, even when there was blatant pooling that could be seen in photos. Then he oddly ended up with a replacement playfield... I guess just to use as wall art because these issues don't phase him. But then he also became a playfield swap expert overnight! Now I figure most people know better, but there are a lot of new people entering this hobby and it's worrying that some may take his 'insight' to heart. I don't usually mind his constant posting all over Pinside except for in this thread, where it doesn't serve any reasonable purpose. I can only guess he's one of those guys who likes reading his own posts a little too much.

Doubt this will help but an offer..... IF you have the replacement playfield And your not in an emergency timeframe I would be willing to help. I travel to MN often (St Paul) so I would be willing to pick it up on my way and do the swap for you and return it on my next journey north. Think Kingpin would vouch for me that I wouldn't steal it lol. Hate to see someone hate the hobby but respect not everyone has the ability to do some tasks. Let me know not a favor just an offer and no cost of coarse just helping the hobby. PM me if I can assist.

I installed Cliffys. Twice. I had pooling and went through various rounds of posts/washers to hide it. Twice.
I never said it was trouble free, I said it was liveable with the remediations.

The fact that POTC LE sells for 20k would seem to argue most people agree.

It's good to hear you ultimately came to your senses.

Man, I don't even know how I'd go about shipping this.

A generous offer, wow.

I sincerely appreciate it, I really do.

Give me a bit to mull it over.

You'd need to pack it very carefully. You wouldn't want it to get warped in shipping...

Honestly no trick. You just happen to be in my travel route direction and I honestly don't mind these challenges. Basically a jigsaw puzzle. A swap to me is Much less daunting then a restoration making every part new again. Reach out anytime. I am headed to my machine distributor in St Paul on March 2nd returning on the 5th. May even stop in to see how #LTG is doing while I'm up there.

There are some amazingly good people on Pinside. This place and the good will it contains never ceases to amaze me.

Bitching and complaining normally drives good people away.

Outstanding offer.

I appreciate everything you do for the hobby and the people in it.

Roll it into a shipping tube

I say this jokingly but its not like you could damage it more. Just slap a UPS label on the back of the board and let it fly! lol

well, with a bit of luck, if you could warped it the other way, you may finally get a perfect flat one !

Interesting turn of events here....if I read this correctly, NO ONE's getting a warranty replacement play field of ANY kind, ever again!

(at least not from JJP!)

what-the-hell (resized).png

Fn hilarious!

Not surprised. What is the cost of a replacement playfield? JJP would allow customers to buy one, no?

Until that is From JJP or its representatives I see little value in a third party assumption personally. Especially as nobody knows the details of the conversation. I have No buddy card special privileges with JJP and will say they have Always done the right thing for me and most anyone I know to help with an issue. Even when it was questionable.

Complete BS. We now seem to be in another period of calm in regards to good playfield quality from JJP. However, this same pattern has occurred before and I fear its only a matter of time before another issue affects a batch of playfields. When will that be is anyone's guess, just a risk customers of an $8k - $12.5k+ product unfortunately have to take if they want a game.

A replacement playfield is at the very minimum what JJP and Stern should offer if there's a playfield quality issue.

Some of you suggest that if enough Pinsiders stop buying NIB games completely until playfield issues are eliminated, then JJP and Stern will have to address the root cause of the problem to restore those lost sales.

Back in the '90s, when new games were sold mostly to operators, B/W would reduce pricing to close out small quantities of remaining NIB pins once they had moved the line on to the next new title. Operators caught on to this practice and quite a few started holding off buying new titles and waited for the close out pricing. As a result all of a sudden B/W had 1000 unsold NIB pins out of a run of 4000. Their answer was to reduce upcoming runs to 3000 and say "screw 'em" to ops that held off and missed out.

Although a much larger percentage of NIB pins are now sold to homeowners, Pinsiders are just a subset of that group. If a Pinside NIB boycott did affect sales to a noticeable amount, I suspect Stern would just compensate by reducing the inital run size of the next new titles. And if the smaller lot size cost them more for the parts, then Stern would just raise the list price of the games to cover the parts increases. And with fewer NIB sales there would be less used of those titles for sale HUO down the road.

That is very well said. Reality is most NIB buyers and not on Pinside and the ones complaining the most on Pinside are not NIB buyers either. The noise from Pinside is great as it informs Pinsiders of the problems and the shared info is fantastic for helping most people get their issues resolved. I am that confident that JJP and Mirco are past their issues we just ordered a GnRsLE.

I hear ya; however if enough home owners did this just for a few titles in a row that would catch Sterns eye....

Now back to reality.... must people say 1 thing and then when the next pinball title comes out they buy buy buy.

So I think we take the opposite approach. Encourage people to buy everything sight unseen. Drive Sterns numbers up and your odds of getting a good game increase. Well maybe?!

I'm not so sure. From what I see, I think the majority of people who say they're going to stop buying NIB, stop. There are just lots of buyers who don't care as much, are willing to roll the dice, or are unaware of the issues.

cpr9999 How about you start buying more NIB again and I'll cut back. That should even the universe out and then your basement might start looking more like mine and mine more like yours.

Or maybe you could buy a few games from me .... You need more games in your basement so you can host our friends when things improve out there. I should probably have a few less and and buy a couch to sit on downstairs. Or if you have too many couches I can buy one of those from you. Not sure about a NIB couch. But then again reluctant on HUO couches unless you know the seller or it's a relative.

You have a deal as long as you sell at ASOA prices!

But you actually have to give me the machines!!

Who knows?

But I'd have to think the POTC and Wonka replacements on that scale, were literally unprecedented.

I wouldn't be surprised if a customer here or there might receive a replacement, but a mass roll out like the one's that occurred? Seems doubtful.

I think it's more about culpability for him, and other's, as much as the feeling of being wronged/not made whole.

That "acceptable defect" letter placed on Wonka's back then, his Wonka, certainly didn't show consumers that JJP was moving forward on the issue in a way that presented accountability as well as customer value.

I have said this in the past, but everyone's perceived value of a defective product is different. For me to buy a newer game with damaged playfield it is going to have to be 40-50% off retail or I will just buy a new one with no issues.

amazing offer. I would take him up on it and throw him $1000 for his time.

Very kind but Sincerely no cost was expected so long as its not considered a Must Have in a few days. I travel that way every 2-3 weeks and estimate I could do this swap (have done many) with my wife in a day or so. Totally respect not Everyone likes, enjoys, or feels comfortable doing these type of tasks. Everyone has their level of comfort.