But but but.. original b/w playfields don't dimple.... lol... everything does ..some just worse than others . Its really no big deal to me..however the pooling and chipping is not cool at all.

Umm......what a minute. I thought people were saying that TSPP didnt dimple?? Hmm.....

Much more than HUO no doubt, but Ghostbusters is an absolute mess compared to it.

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nobody said every single tspp ever made doesn't dimple, also is this original pf? i would classify this amount of dimpling as normal. very small and at the right angle/lighting.

ghostbusters however, is a mess.

Can you pull the Mylar off the insert and then post a picture.?

That looks like a fine Stern Prime playfield, lots of marbling!

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You cant tell me this wouldn't effect ball travel

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It doesn't. My GB looks like that if you hold a light to it at just the right angle. I'm sure the camera was zoomed in also and that makes the dimples look even worse. When I'm playing or just looking at my game thats not what I see. I see a playfield that has beautiful artwork on it.

My belief is ...and I may be wrong, customers were wanting the thick clearcoat and that may have led to the newer games dimpling more and of course maybe even cheaper wood as well. I also think that new EPA rules forced them to start using a different clearcoat and it's just good for pinball machines. What do I know though, I'm definitely no pinball playfield expert that's for sure.

typically manufactureres will have engineering specifications defining the required or minimum properties on parts and materials. These specifications will call out test norms to define these properties. These specs and norms are key in achieving “quality”. One would like to believe each manufacturer has such a specification for painted playfields with tests for things like “surface hardness”, “force deflection”, “paint adhesion”, etc. At the playfield manufacturer there would be specifications defining requirements on input materials such as plywood, clearcoat, etc. Perhaps the pinball manufacterer (and customer of the playfield manufacturer) would have requirements on plywood, paints, etc.

So maybe such specifications do not exist at some or all of the pinball manufacturers - might explain the seeming variability in product quality. Or maybe requirements have been reduced - to save money.

I do not believe that environmental regulations or a general diminishing of material quality explain what is being observed in the playfields of pinball machines. Requirements are requirements. If they are not being fulfilled then there will be irritation between customer and supplier - and consequences.

We as end customer also have our requirements - perhaps each of us has our own requirements for “resistance to dimpling”, or “resistance to cratering”. And if the requirement is not met, then the product is rejected - no purchase is made.

Not sure if Spooky is represented much in this thread, but I just saw this Rob Zombie for sale on facebook marketplace. Owner claims low-play HUO. Pretty significant dimpling...

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Interesting thread. I have seen old games with dimpling, but yes my TSPP when I owned it showed no signs of dimpling, and I am certain it was on route for a good amount of time before I got it.

The only relevant parts of either of our pictures are limited to where the light is hitting at the correct angle. You don't think the rest of the playfield of the pic I posted outside that clearly reflected area is completely dimple free do you? Likewise, your picture of inserts in the "dark" isn't saying anything.

My point is really more that there has to be something explaining the variability. If you claim it's just the wood, and the wood is consistent, what explains the variability? I think it's likely numerous factors, including inconsistencies in wood and clear.

Stern is using multiple clearcoating subcontractors. Start there.

Right, there's many factors. That's why it would be more telling to see a picture of a reflected area showing dimples on either side of an insert but not on the insert itself. It seems those should not be difficult to find.

Great now I'm hungry @panzerfreak

Wood is *not* consistent. It's an organic product. That' why I got lucky and was able to return a NIB CV twenty two years ago that had soft wood and was cratering like a lot of these newer PF's. Then I got another CV that was typical of the harder wood that was the majority of PF's produced up until recently.

Despite certain people claiming the "wood hasn't changed" it certainly has. Not just that old growth is gone or too expensive to use but also because companies can pick all kinds of types and grades of wood for PF's to save money. Go to any major plywood supplier and you'll see dozens of variations in grades and types of wood offered.

And please... let's quit thinking that a millimeter of ANY type of clear over a soft surface will magically stop a heavy ball from leaving impressions. Not only is that thought ridiculous but CC is *supposed* to flex with the underlying surface. That's why your car's plastic bumper can take a big hit and pop back to life with the CC intact (though you may find spidering and cracks later on).

If you CC a soft object it will flex to a certain degree as intended for protection. If the surface is hard it doesn't have to.

The newer shinier CC does indeed show off the deeper impressions of the softer wood on *some* (now most?) of these new PF's but are not the cause of the imprints or ALL of us would have dimples evenly across ALL of our inserts. Which certainly isn't the case.

That's my 2 cents worth from someone who has been too OCD about PF's for 20+ years. Refunds available

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They had digital cameras back then, pics or it didn't happen.

Unlike nowadays you didn't take pictures of every item in your home, etc. Heck I didn't start to take pictures much at all until my kids came a couple years later and had to buy a decent camera

You CAN however find old posts on RPG with people refusing to believe I actually got a refund for the machine. I was a novice dealing with dist's so I now know how lucky I got. I liked the guy that ran the place... "no problem returning the machine... I hadn't gotten around to running your CC yet". Remember the paper slips they had to submit? I think that's what really saved me.

Of course it was a week later so that guy was apparently super relaxed. He did say he was retiring soon lol.

Low plays, or anything similar is a terrible stat to include in a for sale ad.
Number of plays is totally unconfirmable and should be ignored when shopping for a machine.
Assuming a game is test played at the factory before being boxed, the only machines that qualify for the label "low plays" are NIB.

The distributer was probably happy to just be able to get rid of one of those turds nobody seemed to want.

Not no mo.

RGP! Get it right old man. Unfortunately the pictures I took two decades ago were linked to pages that are long gone...

Yeah at full price I dodged a bullet. But then they blew them out at $1700 so I couldn't resist. Still hated the code but then Cameron Silvers came out with a decent update with some wizard modes that gave it some legs. Still hate seeing Pop-a-douche on the backglass though.

lol Damn B you are always happy to let me know how old I'm getting. RPG would actually fit better with the acrimony back in the day. No moderators!

Probably not because I'm old either... maybe just dumb. I think I used to screw up the acronym even back then.

Its just you. Metal vs wood, what wins long term?

Apparently wood. Metal balls get rusty, scratched, and pitted, and need to be replaced way more often.

Found what might have been the original ball in an older game, and although the playfield was still perfectly smooth, the ball looked like hell.

Issue all games playfields as production whitewoods. No art, no clear.

Maybe send a pack of magic markers along so folks can put their own art on the playfield if they like. Markers could come with a Premium model .

Pics or it didnt happen!

Cool idea. Just need to make sure those markets are glow in dark!

Pro
Premium glow lite
Premium
Limited Edition

I don't save shit, especially pictures of rusty old balls. But I still have many older playfields smooth as silk.

Must have been those rusty old balls constantly pounding on them that gives them that glassy look.

That's because with those slow EM's you like to play the ball never gets any air. Just rolls around

.

Even the oldest ones I have play fast and get airballs.

I'll drop a bucket of rusty balls on any of them and they will still look better than that piece of shit BM66 did after 50 plays.

My No Fear plays faster than any of that new garbage and gets plenty of airballs because unfortunately even someone with my superior skills and reflexes, I do occasionally miss. It's playfield is also smooth as glass.

A lot of it is due to the lighting and angle. I've owned my BK2K for five years I think, and never noticed a dimple until last year when I was waxing the playfield in different lighting.

If I had a high-gloss shine on the playfield, the second picture would look no different than the worst pictures posted here of new games.

Same goes for my AFMr. With the lights off, the playfield looks smooth as glass; even in certain lighting it looks smooth. But turn the lights up and it looks like the moon (mostly in front of the spaceship).
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50 plays. Like new.

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Holy crap. Was that routed?

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Nope. From the Marketplace.

ST seems to have more air balls than most. Rejected shots to the demogorgon go all over the place, and fairly hard.

Even Danny Trejo's face is looking smoother than that.

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Lmao. Good one.

I'm just hoping after I'm long gone people will remember that o-din had no filter and no muzzle.

Laughing !!

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My hobbit playfield and potc looks great. Pirates has about 300 plays on it and you have to look closely to see any dimples. They are there but not many

Now my GB after 50 plays looked like a war zone even my wife noticed it which she doesn’t actively look for those kind of things

That's pretty funny!

You are joking right? Hard to tell sometimes on the Internet.

That looks just like the one they had at my local distributor yesterday. Looks like a golf ball.

Dang, still issues?

Pinball is so weird!

It seems like the last 6 new games were released with incomplete code & unresolved PF/QC issues.

Damn. I visit here less & less lately too. Not because of y'all but because it's hard to get excited about shitty service & flawed products.

I dont need trouble & lately pinball is trouble. I'm a married man. If I want trouble I will go ask my wife "what's the matter".

My 3 month wonka has more dimpling than my 15 yr old TSPP

I'm shopping my Judge Dredd right now.

It amazes me how after all the dimpling and smoothing out from 25 years of play how the slight vertical grain of the clearcoat is still intact.