I've got an ACNC coming and after that I'll look at MBSE instead of Elvira 3. NIB is okay you just have to pick your spots.

"Cleargate"

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

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.

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...

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.

I agree, cleaning all the dirty parts, reflowing solder joints and soldering in new switches and coils is what takes me the longest. A new game would be a breeze by comparison.

Nah, people can play it on location for $1, so they're not missing out on anything. Much cheaper than owning a $6-7k machine and can walk away from any clearcoat issues on the location machine without any heartache.

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

You could be right. It is most definitely faster to apply fewer coats...

I work in quality in a manufacturing plant. The ability to stop the line to contain a defect and fix it is not suicide, it's incredibly important. You only have to look at the success of Toyota over the past 40 years to understand the significance. Sending out crap product, pissing off your customer base and losing their trust - now *that* is suicide in the manufacturing business.

You've been making a good argument up to this point but I'll have to call BS on this one. First, you or I have no idea whether environmental issues have contributed to the root cause of the problem.

Second, if Spooky, CGC and American Pinball can make a playfield without pooling and chipping, then Stern and JJP should be able to do it too.

First of all, you don't single source something as important as a playfield, warranty or not. I believe I read (don't know if it's true) that at one time Stern had 3 playfield suppliers. With Churchill dropping out, that leaves two. It's pretty much impossible to have two suppliers have the exact same problem at the exact same time, so you can survive by switching to a known good supplier.

If Stern is making clear in house themselves, then they sure as hell better have good internal systems in place to quickly respond to and correct problems. If you had a known good process, then something in your process changes, you contain the problem, apply some root cause analysis, and return the process to the last known good. These are not new concepts, they've been around in manufacturing for 70+ years. I referenced Toyota because when they were a crappy manufacturer in the late 60s and early 70s they fully embraced these concepts to become what they are today.

Bought a Creature repro playfield from Mirco earlier this year. Started a playfield swap a few months ago. A few weeks ago I installed the star posts, then decided to change the post color at the slings. Here's what the playfield looks like when I removed the post. Looks a lot like pooling on these other playfields. The post appears to have sunk down into the clear. My old playfield doesn't look this bad and that's with 84,000+ plays on it. Keep in mind that the new playfield hasn't even been played yet.

sling post (resized).JPG

Purchased in June and arrived quickly, started the playfield swap in September but just put the posts on a few weeks ago...so I'd say about 4 months.

I ordered my ACNC at beginning of August and got it last week. That's 5 months. Early adopters are going to have a longer wait. And I love it just as much as Munsters. With the way the code is progressing, maybe a little more...

If I could wave a wand it would be to instantly improve their quality, not shut their line down. But if shutting the line down is the only option, you do it. I wouldn't be hurting the hobby I love, Stern would hurting the hobby I love.

I'm a quality supervisor and at my factory I will shut the line down in a heartbeat if there is even a small chance that it will negatively impact the customer. You'd be amazed how quickly and creatively problems can be solved when quality is prioritized over production.

I work for a semiconductor manufacturer, and yes it is very competitive. I have over 27 years in, all in Quality. Management is very supportive now but even in the dark days just 6-8 years ago when they pressured me to release questionable material, I stood my ground. I always felt that my job was to protect the customer when everyone else was focused on cost and keeping production running. We haven't had a customer return/field failure in the last 18 months.

jfh is right in that quality will not cause Stern to fail under the current system, because people are taking the risk and buying machines or remain blissfully unaware. The only way things will change is if *distributors* band together to demand accountability, better quality and threaten to quit taking orders to protect their customers.

Maybe not *more* profits, but it is important to maintain margins. When costs go up (and that includes hirings and mfg costs), you have to cut something else to maintain the same level of profitability. If you're hiring it's not going to come from labor, and it's not going to come from fixed costs. There's only 2 places it can come from: material costs or production improvements. If quality is not important, both of these factors can impact quality negatively.

And sorry but Lincoln/Cadillac higher costs are due to luxury features, which isn't the same as quality. Even Motor Trends 3 months ago wrote "both are far back in the luxury-car sales race". Toyota is the better comparison...they were the first car company to really emphasize and pioneer quality, which actually led to *lower* costs, and they are no more a luxury brand than Ford or Chevy. Any one who knows quality would point to Toyota long before Lincoln or Cadillac.

Yes, I shouldn't have been baited by analogies, because they aren't really applicable here. I don't read Motor Trend and just pulled that off of an internet search along with 4 other articles said the same thing. My grandmother owns a Cadillac. The service is good but costly. And it's in the shop a lot. My Dodge truck is built like a tank but has all sorts of problems. My Ford is not built as well and has even more problems. Best truck I owned was my Ranger before production was moved to Mexico (talk about cost cutting moves).

I'd rather the focus be on the first part of my post, let's leave the analogies behind.

Me too. My '96 Ranger went 260,000 miles on the original manual clutch before needing to be replaced. And that was the only non-routine maintenance required up to that point. It's a shame they allowed the brand to decline and then die, especially when they were selling over 300,000/yr in the 90s. Curious to see how the new reboot will turn out.

Sorry, back to pinball problems...

Fuc(k)=m*e

The harder you make the playfield, the harder it will be to cut and drill. Add extra costs for all those drill and router bits that would get dull pretty quickly.

Bamboo seems ideal from a durability standpoint, too bad it grows long enough but isn't wide enough to cover a playfield.

What a bunch of dicks in this thread. You realize the top surface of the plywood that the ball contacts is a veneer, peeled as a single sheet?