Love my ACNC. All reasons. Gameplay and craftsmanship.

Who else thinks a Used game with these problems is A playfield cost below a new game. You aren’t getting 95 percent resale back on something that will not be serviceable one-time before things start cracking...

Reasonable?

Yup... and there are additives that can be added to the mix to adjust how flexible the finish is, gloss level, leveling, how it interacts with the substrate, etc. Dozens and dozens of variations vendors can dial their product in with.

It's possible they went with a new formula to make the clear more pliable or less likely to crack.. and ended up with this byproduct of lack of resistance to compression.

It's unlikely we'll ever hear the real root cause... just some promise of 'its fixed'

Reminds me of when I didn’t mix epoxy correctly and it never set up. Learned the hard way to be careful with the ratio and fully mixing it. Otherwise it stays soft and tacky.

Are all games affected or are there still rolling some good ones of the line too? Lottery?

Was hoping someone else would do this. I'll take the heat for this one.

Please vote in the poll if you have a game in the current era of playfield issues. Damaged or Not

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/poll-willy-wonka-jurassic-park-current-issues

Anyone who says their game is okay is going to get shouted down, so don’t expect to hear from them much. I’m not going to say mine is “good” until I’ve played it for 3-6 months.

The resale hit is going to affect everyone. It’s going to be hard to persuade a buyer that your game was immune, if the Pinside consensus is that all games are affected. I’m planning to hold mine for at least a few years for that reason alone.

I already saw a CL ad for ST Pro that said “this game is from before all the clearcoat problems”. The torch is lit, and it’s going to take a solid response from Stern to put it out.

Not going to argue with you except to say you are wrong on all points. My points all came from the careful observation of the game sitting right in front of me.

I have yet to even get a second response from my distributor especially since I asked about trying to get a spare playfield.
I also emailed Stern last week and nothing from them either.
I don't want to get nasty with my distributor but I would at least like my issue reported and at least given the chance to buy the spare playfield with my issue documented but I'm not getting replies the normal ways so phone calls will start tomorrow.

While in Jacksonville this weekend we stopped at Keg N Coin and noticed the BLISTERING around the posts on there Willy Wonka SE and it just sucks I'm sure it will be worse the next time I stop in there. The right side posts was so deap in the clear it looked like a beed of hot glue was around it.

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I'd email JJP and not Stern.

Careful but still inaccurate.

And what does posting a copy of this 5 month old post in half a dozen threads have to do with the issue at hand?

Probably restating the obvious, but if I’m an operator who puts a first-run JP2 on location and I make $3000 in 3 months, I’m not going to quibble about some blistering. All you guys posting location pics of blistering are just yelling into the void. The ops that I’m friendly with care deeply about gameplay issues. They care about the players (the kids, the millennials who won’t be able to buy a new game for another 15-20 years).

We have to understand that this is a collector issue. Our issue. If I have blistering as a collector, and it can’t be fixed (or gets worse), damned straight I’ll be talking to my distributor. But as a collector and a pinball enthusiast for 40+ years, I also hope that in 5 years location pinball will be doing so well that we’ll be a minority again. Then it’ll be like the roaring 90’s again, and we’ll buy “old” games from ops that need new games, for pennies on the dollar. That’s the era I really miss.

Sorry that wasn't clear those pics are just a random game in the wild this past weekend I saw. My issue is with a Stern Star Trek Pro Vault from late January with Blistering and chipping issues

You Wonka owners stop complaining. You have the not so limited "ooey gooey" edition. lol

"Cleargate"

Since the artwork is obviously lifting off with the clearcoat, isn't this the likely culprit here? If the clearcoat were the main problem, wouldn't the artwork stay stuck in place even as the clearcoat rippled? Could it really be both an artwork adhesion issue and a clearcoat issue simultaneously?

Why on earth would artwork adhesion cause posts to sink into the clearcoat and form ripples around the post like that?

Seems pretty clear this is mostly or all a clearcoat issue. But that's just like my opinion man

explain why it doesn't do it on bare wood then?

only where art is

With a properly cured clearcoat, it will not happen in either scenario. The printed ink is just the weakest bond here, but the ink should never be forced to sheer from the wood in the first place if the clear was of proper hardness. They fact that the clear is bunching up is enough to tell you that the soft elasticity of the clear is causing the ink bond to sheer from the wood. Fix the clear and the problem goes away entirely.

Is there a post over bare wood on these impacted playfield s to compare to? If not... then you’re not comparing apples to apples

If I decide to cancel my preorder I have in with Cointaker, what is there cancellation policy?

This quality issue is concerning.

Yes there are on POTC

Munsters too. In this thread kiwipinhead showed rippling around posts in art areas, no rippling around sling posts where there's no art.

Curious myself with another distributor..... Understand if I change my mind but buying into something more then likely with a defect doesn't sound like what I signed on for? Waiting to see what they do in this case. Thinking used might be a better option till things cool off.

Link? I only see his posts with the wrinking around the metal posts.

Detective Flynn is on the case!

Why are you asking us? Contact Cointaker.

Sorry for those of you going through these issues. I went through it with GB, so I understand the concern.

Just as a reference, I took a pic of the JP floor model at my local distributor. No visible clearcoat issues that I could see. Larger factory washers installed.

Serial # 295429

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Because the clear coat has nothing to latch onto essentially. As other posters have said and Spooky has done on ACNC, no art, no problem. I don't see what changing the clearcoat mixture is gonna do if the art underneath won't stay stuck to the board. Could we see a "spooky treatment" revision coming from JJP & Stern?

Because the clearcoat is soft. Clearcoat should never be able to bunch in on the first place. It should be rock hard and not accept fingernail marking. The printing has absolutely nothing to do with this.

or maybe can it be a combination of both... ? The ink part being why the clear can be moved so easily... leading to the chipping.. after the soft clear has been shifted.

But yes, certainly to start with the clear shouldn't be displaced and pushed by simple compression from a post!

Ok but then why are the same machines not having issues where there is no ink? And why is the ink peeling off at all?

It just seems unlikely that both problems started happening at the same time. Not saying it isn't possible tho.

I assumed there's no pooling around the slings because he didn't have any photo evidence of it. kiwipinhead will need to weigh in to confirm.

Is anyone moving forward with their 8K-12K JJP purchase?

Does the financial hit that you are going to take should you decide to sell the game bother you much?

Moisture/humidity would be one condition that could contribute to both ink adhesion and clear issues, interfering with the cure. A reaction between the ink and the clear (incompatible chemicals) could be another. As flynnibus points out in the Wonka chipping thread, the side opposite of the high power ball strike may be the key due to tension or torque on the playfield surface. But this is all just speculation...

I have all three remakes. I have not had any playfield problems. Hope they get this fixed. I was going to get JP prem.

Ah good points. It seems like if there was a chemical incompatibility though that clear and the ink wouldnt be stuck together like it seems to be doing?

Not necessarily. As an example let's say the ink contained elevated levels of a contaminant like zinc, and a thick coat of epoxy is placed over this.The contaminant may or may not interfere with ink adhesion to the wood; it can also interfere with the hardener or the ability of the clear above it to cure. What happens when an epoxy doesn't cure? It gets sticky and tacky. So you've got a sticky, tacky interface between your clear and the ink that didn't adhere well to the wood, meaning that the ink will stick better to that tacky surface. Combine that with poor hardening on the top surface. Where the ball rolls over the surface, the playfield will be fine, but where the soft surface is contacted by posts that when hit, put horizontal stress on the clear, it chips the clear and eventually pulls up the ink with it.

To be clear, this is just a theoretical example. It's impossible to know what conditions exactly are contributing to this problem. I only provide it to give an example of how it might be possible.

Down the track how would one do a restoration on one of these playfields.
Wouldn't it be a tough job sanding down soft clear to restore.
Are these playfields repairable?

How about moving forward with a Stern JP or any Stern purchase as well for $6k - $9k? Stern games seems just as susceptible to this issue. A variety of Stern titles made over the past 2 years have had the issue as reported as well.

I'm keeping my JP Prem order, doesn't affect gameplay at all. Also I trust Stern to take care of any issues if they were to rise. JJP on the other hand...

Stern is not going to replace the hundreds of playfields out there with pooling, if they do it will amazing but what will most likely occur is that some level of pooling will be deemed acceptable. I can see Stern offering a replacement for severe playfield defects but it will be on a case by case basis with a multitude of claim denials along the way. A Stern purchase at this time is still playing the playfield quality lottery, just as it is with JJP.

I was actually considering selling a few games to look at getting into some of these new titles. Kinda glad I didn't just yet, so I have no skin in the game. What I don't understand is people getting so upset at those who are keeping these threads going. If I spent as much as you guys, and a pf had issues right out of the box, I would be sick to my stomach. I hope the mfgs do right by all those affected. I also find it hard to believe that it is not widespread considering the people who have multiple games, and all are having issues.

Agreed, but just "pooling" isn't an issue. Chipping yes.

Economically at scale? Unlikely. Just like building a house.. you need a steady base. If the base is easily compressed... the clear on top will fail when it can't keep up with the base moving.

So you'd try to remove as much of the factory clear as possible.. to make the 'mushy' layer as thin as possible.. thus reducing how much movement is possible. Getting that optimized is a finesse thing that is not perfect and is error prone depending on how aggressive you are. Pros like HEP do that when refinishing PFs, but it's alot of work and not perfect.

It's cheaper at scale to just make new ones and repopulate with the old hardware.

All of that is assuming the entire PF needs restoration. If we find out that only the contact spots are problematic... restoration could be to just fix the cosmetic issues that caused (repairing or replacing lost art/visuals) on a spot by spot basis and accepting the 'stabilized, better looking, but still flawed' PF.

For What It's Worth... I watched Todd N. Tuckeys latest video he posted a couple of days ago #1514.
In it he reviews two Stern Munster Color LE's he has for sale. At time mark 13:40 Todd states:

"We've had an awful lot of games pass through here at TNT. I've had ZERO playfield problems or complaints. We haven't experienced any, and
nobody has called us with a game they've gotten. And no electronic problems. We've had ZERO issues".

Now I know he's a distributor, and he is in the business of selling games, but I found his comment interesting and heartening as well.
You can catch it here:

Does he really sell many NIB games? His past NIB prices have had me not even consider him.

I can't really answer that. I see a few Stern's on his channel from time to time, but not Spooky's or JJP's. I mostly buy my games from Pinsiders on the Market Place. ; )