The fascinating thing about these issues is their widespread inconsistency, affecting all manufacturers across a wide sampling of games over a long period of time. It almost seems random.

But the most frustrating thing is, it's happening on playfields made by "the professionals", right?

To wit, over my 5 years in the hobby I've restored a few basket cases, learning and trying new methods as I go. My first pin was a Space Shuttle that I partially (hand) repainted then cleared with Varathane 5 years ago. My next was a destroyed Firepower where I had to replace nearly all the inserts (even had to route the arrow holes biger since the new ones would not fit for some reason) and I used Spraymax 2PAC for that. My Bad Cats was a full hand-repaint and DiamondFinish Clear. And I just finished a barn-find rat's nest El Dorado with the DFC again.

I'll never say any of those games will pass the full "NIB / tightass collector sniff test" - my foibles, mistakes, and learning tells are still there; OTOH whatever defects there are, I know *exactly* what I did wrong to cause. AND YET, I've taken the first three games to shows, each has well over 1000 plays, some over 2,000.... And they are flat, smooth, and mostly wear-defect free. My Firepower inserts haven't popped or ghosted. I *don't* have any post rippling. Dimples? NONE! No clear chipping, planking, or abnormal wear with the sole exception of the impact zone from Space Shuttle's ramp air drop, as you might expect after thousands of plays over *years*.

Unlike Stern, JJP, Spooky, CPR, et al I'm just a newbie idiot learning as he goes, doing this stuff in suboptimal conditions with amateur equipment - yet my results seem to be pretty damn durable. So just WTF is going on in the professional realm? It has to be rushed schedules... that's the only thing in my favor, just plodding along letting things cure as I take my time. But even then, the "cure" was generally only a few weeks as opposed to months - surely any manufacturer could do the same.

The other thing is my older games were obviously well seasoned with older settled wood and legacy playfield inks. But my restores have all been acrylic paints and homemade decals with no apparent issues with the various clears I used. You'd expect the pro manufacturers to use better stuff and/or know what they're doing, so again, what gives?

Kinda sad when a newbie experimenter idiot can make a more durable result for a couple hundred bucks, than pros charging $6-7-8-9-10+K for NIB...

Clearly it is. At least he took care of them, I honestly had not heard of that. I don't believe we've seen any problems out of the ones Bader is doing for A.P., though I have wondered if they use those more opaque inserts to prevent any minor ghosting from being visible should it occur.

Maybe new games don't have this problem but they haven't fixed the chipped playfields.

Heck, I'm not positive that these PF's we are talking about are "ink printed"? The way that I've seen JP's printed area coming up around the posts makes it look like the PF's have a WaterSlide 4-color Decal laid down and then they are clearcoated? Very well could be wrong.... but that's what the JP looked like to me. Everything was coming up together.

Well it finally happened. I was hoping the "pooling" wouldn't progress to the chip phase but it has. My NIB Iron Maiden has less than 600 plays. It has chipping around the starpost and has pooling around most of the other posts. I'm sure it's just a matter of time until those chip too. This has progressed much faster than I had expected and I have very little confidence this playfield is going to last very long. I've contacted my distributor so I will find out what Stern has to say soon hopefully.

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This is from a brand new Munsters Pro, not played once and delivered just a week after revealing. No puddling or chipping but this crackling behind many inserts (more than in the pictures) was of course not acceptable and Stern sent me a new PF immediately.

Very happy with that service from Stern, but the recent problems with the clear coat has made me want to wait before I order my next NIB from any manufacturer.

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I wonder if they wish they could go back in time and stay in business with Churchill.

Ouch. Man that really sucks. But I guess since it took the art with it we can assume the ink-to-clear bond is good.

Has it been determined if the art "ripples" along with the clear? Or is the clear rippling above flat art? If the art ripples, it would seem to indicate an issue with adhesion to the wood. But most posts don't seem to have much line art around them to conclusively tell.

The chips I have seen have taken the art with them. The posts that don't have art around them seem to be holding up better. So it very well could be an adhesion issue but I don't think anyone knows with certainty right now unfortunately.

Yes, that's how it worked in the blistering on my Luci VE. The art sticks to the clear, not the wood. It seems that with every playfield you see with this blisterinig issue, the chip of clear and art comes up bonded together and you have nice pristine wood underneath there that's so clean you couldn't tell it ever had art applied to it.

Stern - We are not aware of any PF clear issues... Now if you'll excuse us, before we put our heads in the sand, we have to go do a bunch of marketing blitzes, including uploading a SW The Pin video to Youtube which certainly shows the outstanding quality of our clear coat. Just please don't hit pause.

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Oops.

Stern response: "It's not a wide spread problem".

out of curiosity what does the actual substrate look like under these affected areas? Is the wood playfield compressed and pressed down from the washer or post contact?

Hello to all

This is Leon and Peter from Buthamburg.
We are chimming in here because we were mentioned in a post a page back.

Yes, we have had a ghosting problem with 8 Terminator 2 Playfields.
The paint shop got mixed up while applying primer. 8 boards were missed.
On these 8 boards the clear coat could not hold to the plastic inserts.

Because of this playfield clear coating problem going arround we have decided to test
our clear coat and paints to an extreme. 1 Small stripe of blue art didnt hold up, but
under these extreme cercumstances its nothing. The parts flying arround while hammering,
that is hardend glue sticking to the hammer, not clear coat.

Here we are showing an extreme Test. We are fastening a Star Post way over its limit, so tight that it compressis the first wood funier. No chipping on clear coat. We have decided to show how strong a clear coat can be. Enjoy the distruction.....
https://www.facebook.com/buthamburg.de/videos/2830057340466872/

That was not enough yet, lets cut up the clear coat and give it a good pull.
Then I think we should try and hammer the hell out of it, let see what happens. We are going to clean our hammer, its full of glue from gluing inserts. I guess we are going to see dimpling now.
https://www.facebook.com/buthamburg.de/videos/369100100673747/

The pictures below are showing what is the left over of the Star Post. The second picture is showing the insert and the clear coat after the hammer attack. No sign of Ghosting, the insert is cracked in serveral places. Bad Hammer dimplings in the wood, no clear coat chipping.

Regards from Hamburg
Leon and Peter

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Im curious if in colder climates its risky to move/transport these games with pf issues? Could moving the game in 10 degree or worse cold make things worse?

Impressive, who’s gonna try this with a new Jjp or Stern playfield ?

You have pieces of the playfield coming right of in less then two weeks of play.
What Do you mean by worse?
Exploding playfields?

Wish you guys made Sterns playfields..

You have industrial sites carrying heavy machinery on clearcoat holding up perfectly fine for tens of years.
You have people installing 3d epoxy floors in their homes, with little issues.
Apparently this is something anyone can Do including their grandma, except thoose working with coating pinball playfields.
For theese rocketscientist it's obviously a task Well beyond their ability.

Pictures only tell a part of the story. Not all.

Dito + jjp

Houston, ...

My final guess why this is happening. Both Stern and JJP tried to get playfield costs lower and one way of doing so is to save money on the clear process. Mirco, or whoever doesn't just suddenly lose the ability to make quality playfields after doing so without issue for years. This cost savings theory was introduced on the TWIP podcast and honestly it doesn't surprise me one bit.

If true both manufacturers have some nerve to charge record high NIB prices and then cut playfield quality of all things. Based on the TWIP discussion it sounds like the playfield creation process (the wood, applying artwork / clear, prep, etc) is the most costly item in a pinball machine so it's a decent guess to think companies would try to lower costs in that area. As a pinball company you just don't pull something like that as it would be a pure greed move on top of regularly raising prices.

Hope I'm wrong.

But JJP spends so much on Toys, Keefer's awesome code, quality control etc......

I've played an early JP today (no washers under the posts) and the playfield was in perfect shape.

This is just speculation. I think it's an automation problem.
They are spraying on the playfields and need the solution sprayable thru nozzles. Hence they want a thinner fluid.
It's like concrete, the more water you mix in, the easier distribution, however it will not be strong enough.

I sure hope they don't think the washers are the permanent fix. They are hiddeous

It could be that too. This problem has been occurring for over a year based on build dates being reported. This is just a guess but I would think Mirco or other playfield manufacturers would have corrected the problem long ago if it was a spray issue. Stern and JJP wanting to lower playfield costs is a possibility as the problem hasn't been fixed which would make sense if they haven't told their playfield manufacturers to go back to the more expensive method of clearing a playfield.

This issue reminds me of the Stern cabinet separating debacle from a couple years back. All of a sudden out of nowhere there were reports of Stern cabinets separating. I doubt the cabinet makers suddenly lost the ability to make a quality cabinet. It's entirely possible Stern wanted cabinets made cheaper by using a cheaper material or cheaper bonding agent. If they did it backfired and quietly went back to the old method.

I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that huge dollars where spent on new tech and equipment for a new way to clear PFs. So much money that it would be hard to admit it doesn’t work and walk away. This is the type of situation in business when you might keep putting defective product out the door. All the while knowing it is not working. Pinball R&D certainly has gone backwards in recent years.

You usually are FWIW

What's your problem? One day you are nice and the next day you are insulting someone and acting like a troll. Everyone is just speculating and guessing here. I see you still have some beef from our debate about the state of Ghostbusters code after waiting nearly 3 years. The wait sucks, the code isn't complete, time to move on

I disagree - I don't think it was an attempt to lower costs - if you have any evidence I will revoke my comments
I think it has something to do with the EPA forcing companies to stop using proven products they have for years
and the new products are either inferior and/or not being used/mixed/cured correctly

What if....!(total speculation on my part)!......

1......the clear and ink are affecting one another, Ink isn't fully cured or incompatible with the clear and retards it from curing.
2......once cured the clear is too brittle and creates cavities under it as it recovers from compression, causing the clear and ink to separate from the substrate.

I feel like we keep looking at the clear as the culprit, but it may not be that simple. I keep going back to the fact the ink is coming up with the clear under post, the ink has obviously melded with clear, almost melted into into it.

On the TWIP podcast one of the guys was talking about how some of the new clear products, including water based products, are just as durable compared to products used in the past. They were guessing it could be an issue with the clear mixture, or the playfields purposely being made cheaper.

Yeah good points, it's likely only the playfield manufacturers know. Something changed with the playfield creation process and I bet they know what that change was and when it occurred.

Correct me if I'm misremembering but at some point didn't Mirco (and CPR) both announce they were buying equipment that allowed them to print playfields at anytime thus eliminating the need for quantity runs?
Is that time frame relevant to what we've seen over the last couple of years? Is that the reason Mirco says he's intentionally using soft clear. Is that because the manufacturer of the "printer" is directing him to do so? Apparently Mirco doesn't do stuff for Stern so what if Sterns supplier has the same printer?
I belong to the #neveragainNIB club.

I'm so glad my next NIB game will be my fully restored F14 with one of these playfields

I'm focusing on restores of my current games. My Comet Won Best in Show with a Hardtop, our Totan was just finished with a CPR Gold Playfield heck I'm doing a playfield swap on a Shaq Attaq right now. No more NIB for me but I will keep supporting pinball in the wild on location but this is not the stuff I want at home sorry. If I open a arcade I might deal with it but can't see spending money on these type of clear issues.

F$ck nib games right now. I work too much to lose it on a luxury item that falls apart. These games are expensive and I know other people feel the same, it takes me months to save up for a game.

My 2 cents based on the new Stern games I've run over the last few years: This is simply due to assembly too soon.

I have two games on location right now that have wrinkling around posts, GotG Pro and BKSoR Pro. GotG only has wrinkling at several posts, no chipping. BKSoR has wrinkling at several posts and chipping at the lower sling posts. Everything else about the playfields is fine.

I have had two other recent Sterns that have no issues at all, Deadpool Premium and Munsters Premium. No wrinkling, no issues at all with the clear.

So what's the difference between the two games with issues and the two without? The two with issues are Pros that were assembled early in the game's run. The premiums were assembled later since they are produced after Pros. It is likely that their playfields were produced around the same time as the pros, but they sat and had more time to cure. By the time they reach assembly they had hardened and didn't wrinkle when posts were tightened.

I think if this was an adhesion issue, clearcoat issue itself, or issue with the underlying artwork, I'd be seeing other problems and problems showing up after several months. I'm not. It is simply due to posts being tightened down when the cure is still soft. It later chips after the cure hardens because it is thick and can't flex enough. The vibration from the slings and flippers makes this especially evident and is why we see chipping so soon at those posts.

I agree with this statement. Simple explanation. The other simple explanation I can come up with is the playfields have not had enough time to cure, as stangbat has explained above.

I can understand the playfield companies doing their best to stop the barrage of complaints about playfield chipping. To help stop the complaints, they have tried making their clearcoats a bit softer.

I am not sure what the solution is. I do know that stirring up a shit storm for the manufacturers forces them to go in to protection mode and could stop genuine warranty claims.

Folks, I have been asked in numerous PM's sent to me... "What is the washer part number for the Slingshot Post Mod you used"?
Scott at Magical Productions, who produced the POTC kit with 6 Marco Star Posts and 6 washers was kind enough to reply back to me with where he obtained
the excellent Rubberized Post Washer. I believe these help to also minimize ball impacts better than hard teflon, as they are better shock absorbing. FWIW. - Murphy

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L1IZL4A/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title

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EDIT: Just having some fun here folks

Well done! Even if manufacturer response count is too high

I would have put it at 0

The problem is waterbase clear.
To avoid sinking post is to make new updated playfield protectors 0,75 mm polycarbonate with out cut outs under the post that covers more playfield than it does now. Or live with it (with i can't).

From recollection, you guys leave 3-4 weeks between clear layers, I think?

There's absolutely no way Stern's suppliers or Mirco (for JJP) are doing that. Maybe Mirco does that for his repros, which sell for vastly more than the pfs supplied to manufacturers, and which there have been far fewer incidents with.

Or just return the faulty product.

I'm always nice. And I wasn't serious. I was on my phone and posted quickly without the requisite emojis

Also there was no beef. You were not arguing in good faith in that thread and made it clear you were just grandstanding this issue to bash Dwight and Stern. I'm still not sure you have actually played GB since you didn't seem to know the rules or how the modes worked lol.

Kidding! <3 <3

Pinside 2021 sneak peek IMO

To be clear (lel), I expect no resolution from my case with Stern since my damage is not extensive enough yet and none of this is under warranty. So, for the clearcoat chipping I do have, automotive kit is the best way to stop it spreading?

Yikes. The washer / post combination on the new machines is effin' ugly. This is the Jurassic Park they just got at the local bar. I checked their GoTG, which was fine, however, BM66 and Black Knight Premium were not and showed chipping at the sling posts.

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