Yea most/all dead pools seem to be good

I agree 100%. Not only that, for machines with known high rates of defective clearcoat (Wonka and JP2 come to mind), I think both JJP and Stern will have to be clear that machine with serial number xx does not have the defective clearcoat -- and it should be clearly stated by the distributor that machine serial number xx does not have defective clearcoat. This will be a pain for distros, JJP and Stern but will HELP sales for those models -- which have been blackballed by this whole stupid mess.

Any comment from Keith Elwin on this? He must be gutted, knocks JP2 out of the park, looks to be even better than Maiden and then totally out of his control preorders get pulled left right and centre and Stern don't even address the issue.

I'm sure he's thrilled they've quickly pushed the official announcement of the highly anticipated Elvira to paint over the cracks.

Stern should recall and replace all affected tables, sure, shipping and man hours add up but surely this is a critical condition that can't be ignored at this stage?

I won’t even think the issue has been resolved until I see machines going out without those f****** washers on it. It is an admission of guilt having those washers under the posts.

I don't think they pushed it ahead. The game will probably be shown at expo. They're just building hype.

LE #20 shipped. No washers. No ink around posts. Compare to pro attached. From pre/le JP thread

551A5FB5-DA81-4607-B1E1-0BA635ACE997 (resized).png

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Al I see is pixilated Orange. Good charge on your battery though

It will never happen.
This is an industry of back alley handshakes, and clandestine winks and nods. Some folks on the manufacturing side are not what most people would consider honorable.

So it is bc of the art not adhering to the playfield well?

We can suppose that.

Visually I’m not a big fan of the how that looks on the LE but it’s better than pooling and cracking. It doesn’t seem like a great fix though, what about the rest of the playfield long term? I would be a lot more confident if the fixed why the art was lifting not just remove art in trouble spots.

This is what Spooky did with TNA to fix the issue too.

https://www.facebook.com/1526785630/videos/10220334608305117/

Yeah it's not adhered, defiantly a blister

So Jack reponds by sending out unpopulated playfields and Stern purposely leaks photos of Elvira to take the heat off of them. Well played by both to keep f...ing there customers.

fleecing their customers?

goldenfleece (resized).jpg

Jack's response sounds better then "hey we aren't going to admit there are playfield problems, send us $9k for our next LE" lol.

Can’t see what’s going on there. Any idea whether they’ve fixed the post in front of the upper flipper?

That sounds like an easy fix... only thing i would say is don’t expect the playfield to be bulletproof. CGC/Spooky used a higher quality wood and process than is too be expected of stern

It looks like theres now a small area without artwork around each star post that didn't exist on early pros?

So they re-printed the Playfields? Hopefully they also tweaked the clear mix.

Does CGC/Spooky really use better wood in their playfields? If so good for them. Competition is good for quality. Step it up Stern.

Cgc is also silk screened so thats y they haven't had this issue....

Where are the gameplay videos???

I thought Stern ordered cabinets and playfield a from Churchill, same place CGC did?

http://www.pinballnews.com/learn/churchill/index.html

Stern has addressed the issue ... all post areas now have no art and have a big circle around them.

IMG_04771 (resized).jpgIMG_04781 (resized).jpgIMG_04751 (resized).jpgIMG_04761 (resized).jpg

As I mentioned in the other thread, looking at that LE playfield up close makes me think that they may have resolved the bubbling issue at the posts. All the bubbling and pooling on Pros and other Stern pins shows the paint underneath adhering to the clearcoat as it bubbles up, making it look like an adherence issue between the artwork and the wood. By not having artwork there and only clearcoat it *may* resolve it, as they may have found that the printed artwork being the issue when stressed at a post.

You'd think Stern would publish something about the change in the design around posts, and possibly the clear coat itself, but they are apparently still being very careful not to say or do anything that could increase their liability. I hope they don't convince themselves that the damage to customer goodwill and NIB sales won't be too bad if they just fix the problem going forward without properly addressing defective playfields on the past several games. They've always done right by me, which is a big reason I was willing to buy NIB despite their ridiculously poor written warranty.

They did publish something. All of their flyers state "Game subject to change".

You pretty much answered yourself If you publicly state you made this change for that matter... you pretty much make it easier for others to come back and say you owe that fix to me too because the original was defective.

Wouldn't be the first time this design decision was made. My WPT has skinny posts but countersunk with no art and topside t-nuts.

image-19[1] (resized).jpg

Will be interesting to see if the next batch of Pro playfields has the blank rings around the posts.

Of jp2? They do

So is this "it"? Is this all it takes to remedy? I guess we have to wait 4-8 weeks and check in with the new owners.

My understanding is they used Churchhill in the past but haven't in recent years. Probably not a coincidence that all these playfield issues started once they decided to cut costs (or whatever fall out happened with CGC/Churchhill) and started using other PF suppliers.

If I was Chicago Gaming, I would look at all these problems at Stern as a golden opportunity to recruit away some of their designers and start making non-remake pins as well.

CGC's quality on remakes has been clearly the best in the industry in recent years and owning Churchill gives them a big competitive advantage given all the problems at Stern & JJP right now.

dont be surprised if JJP employs the same 'no art around posts' fix on their replacement POTC and newer wonka playfields.

I'm calling it the COMA fix. Circle Of Missing Artwork.

It was said long ago part of the problem is ink adhesion issues. If they've stopped using ink around posts imagine what VUK holes and kick out holes will have to look like. Imagine the artist designs the playfield artwork and then goes over all impact areas and erases the artwork. YIKES! I believe this is going to become the new norm.

This tells us clearly one thing (no pun intended) - the paint did not adhere to the wood, that was the cause for Stern's problems.
Leaving out the paint allows the clear itself to stick to the wood and at least in Stern's case that seems to be problem solved.

Now remember that Spooky are VERY vocal about having "solved it" during and after TNA...and guess what, same deal on Alice Cooper, go figure. No secret sauce, no harder or softer clear, no proprietary solution to keep a secret. They simply threw their hands up in the air, said f it, pulled back the art from the posts and allowed for the clear itself to grab. And I don't care a bit, I think it looks cool.

But now I feel less confident in JJP being able to stand behind the playfields they sold to POTC owners (and later refunded them for), those things will have to be timebombs. And unless they prove me otherwise, how am I going to accept a replacement playfield from JJP for my cracked and chipped POTC CE going forward?

https://i1.wp.com/geekdad.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/03/AliceCooper_Playfield.jpg?resize=1376%2C1032&ssl=1

Further proof: TNA before fix:

https://www.thisweekinpinball.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/TNA-entire-playfield.jpg

After "fix":

https://www.pinballlife.com/mm5/graphics/00000001/TNA%20Playfield.jpg

and dont lose sight of the artwork that you cant even see [pun intended]. this pic of an unpopulated ACNC playfield better illustrates all the areas where art has been cut back, but also shows an entire snake skeleton inhabiting the orbit that is obscured in the actual game.

acncunpoppf (resized).jpg

That playfield is gorgeous

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A true world under glass.

Made in China?

Made in Wisconsin.

The box is something else.

rd

Art around the posts was only part of the solution. Spooky also does their own playfields including clear.

Very cheap fix .....

what will happen to the playfields over time if the paint isnt fixed to the surface and the clear is soft?

This is just a detour and not a fix.

Seems strange to me that this can be an issue at all. Hockeysticks takes ten times the beating of a pinball playfield but no clear chipping and underlaying decor is not moving one bit, them sticks are also flexible as hell, so what is the problem with pinball playfields?

I wonder if any of the players check their hockeysticks for dimples.

Whatever the problem, my guess is that Mirco at least believes he can fix it. Why would JJP provide new playfields from a new batch in their replacement program otherwise? They know that new playfields will receive strong scrutiny. It will be interesting to see if some of the art is gone from under the slings in addition to extra effort on the hardening.

It would be interesting to examine some of the affected playfields every five years or so to see if there are differences long term.