I'm really starting to think this is a heat and humidity issue during manufacturing. The Stern factory is likely not air conditioned, and we know these JP games were built in the last week or two, when we have had some very hot weather. Does the new water borne clear suck humidity back no into it if applied in a heavy layer? Does the heavy layer not fully cure under the current curing conditions at the playfield factory? Is the water based clear sucking humidity back into itself again after the normal curing process at the factory?

Is the clear trapping the humidity in the wood and causing a delamination of the printing and softer clear coat? I had a gottlieb machine once that spent time outdoors under roof on a golf course in Maryland humidity. When I went to mask the playfield for touch-up, the playfield artwork came up in sheets and completely delaminated from the wood when I removed the mask. I believe the humidity wicked into the wood and caused the ink and clear coat to release itself. Could this be happening with the new clear coat?

Where's #1 JJP fan Dr. Freightener at during all this? Strangely quiet lately...

I think the problem here isn't cure time...its probably an issue with humidity or improper mixing of the two parts of the clear coat before application. If the mix is off, the clear will never cure.

I don't totally buy this...the clear is not hard enough, and the ink adhesion does not have any effect on that. When your fingernail can still mark the playfield after 6 months, you have a problem in the clear itself.

The clear may be bonding to the printed artwork better than the wood- think of it as a tug of war. Something has to break loose. The ink layers themselves, the printed ink to wood bond, or the ink to clear coat bond. The weakest connection will be the first point of failure. We also may be seeing more than one problem at work here. It could be plausible that the water based clear causing the ink to lift easier on top of also being a bad application of the clear product. My money is on the notion that the ink adhesion is fine, the clear is not hard and the movement of the clear is causing the ink to sheer off its bond with the wood. Correct the clearcoat issue, and the ink delamination issue isn't actually an issue.

I always keep my loose balls away from the washer...that's some nightmare fuel there.

This isn't possible...their games are already built to last, its right on their web site!!

pasted_image (resized).png

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.

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.

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

Let's dial it back a notch. You really have to go nutty to get a thread locked on here, and I'm okay with that. If the mods have an issue, the appropriate users will be moderated.

Just played an early JP...no major pooling that I could see.

20190913_173242 (resized).jpg

20190913_173259 (resized).jpg

My December 2017 GOTG has no issues.

Buddy got a new JP...2 bad coil stops and an insert sunk in about 1/16", which effects gameplay. Hopefully Stern takes care of his PF for him.

20191027_185742 (resized).jpg

Shame on people for accepting an unpopulated playfield as an acceptable remedy. Stern sold a defective product, end of story. Their options are to come pick their machine up and send a new one, or send someone out to swap in a populated playfield. Anything less is enabling Stern to produce even crappier products because they know they can get away with it.

Automated up in Connecticut takes plastic for payment.

Care to back up your $1500 claim with some non-anecdotal proof?

I believe they are making Stranger things already...hence the "backorder".

Stern is still doing full populated playfield swaps, but the bar is really high....like 5 levels of approval to get one approved.

I think folks need to start naming distributors who are not doing their jobs as distributors. I think you will find some pretty popular ones that seem to "lose" emails about customer service problems, yet respond in 5 minutes to a sales inquiry.

Guys, you need to CALL Stern, not email them. They always answer the phone during business hours. Emails are mostly blown off. The threshold for getting a new populated playfield is very high, needing the approval of all 5 people in the chain to agree it is bad enough before the new populated playfield will be agreed upon. One "no" vote and you're SOL. The process is slow, because these people only get together once a week. Call them, and keep calling them until you have answers.

Don't get in too big of a hurry...I know people who had their populated playfield swap approved months ago and nothing is happening.

Chaz is who you will wind up talking to.

I have no dimples in playfields I've sprayed with DuPont Chroma.

Local JP pro here on location appears to have peeling clearcoat in places now. Born in August 2019.

20191231_143146 (resized).jpg

20191231_144151 (resized).jpg

Not unless the whole upper playfield comes from the factory that way.

I'd be curious to see if some of these super dimpled Stern playfields accidentally got cut on the bad side instead of the good side. Hey Gary, why not raise the price from $5,899 to $5911 and stop giving us a shit playfield surface?

I can drop a hammer off a ladder onto my solid bamboo floor and not dent it. 5000 on Janka scale.

Also, Phenolic sheet will not ever dent. Doesnt warp in the heat, either.

Screenshot_20200105-165437_Chrome (resized).jpg

Stern is using multiple clearcoating subcontractors. Start there.

Maybe if they could come up with a way to do a tamper proof RFID tag on both sides of the glass so the tag would have to be within a certain proximity of the sensor, but won't work with the glass off the machine.

It is still possible to get a complete playfield swap if the damage is bad enough with Stern. 5 key people at Stern have to okay it, and you may have to wait a few months, but at least it is an option in some cases. Offering a bare playfield that people haven't received in half a year on a premium game from a company that bills themselves as such is more than a bit of a failure, IMO. Clearcoat falling off a month or two old game is not a customer problem, it is a JJP problem. The customer shouldn't be made to feel like shit for asking that they get what they paid a premium for in a timely manner.

This is a tough one...I don't really blame Goetz for trying to get a suitable remedy for being sold very expensive lemon. But I also respect Joe for coming on here and addressing the facts he has on his side and staying professional about it. Not many distributors out there will even answer the phone (per se) after the sale. At the end of the day, I think both parties want the same thing...and Jack is screwing his distributor AND his end customer.

I hope you have paid Joe's kindness forward to others. Unfortunately, you were a jackass to me on Facebook when I offered help in a thread you posted in one of the groups. We don't need that crap in this hobby.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/is-the-distributorship-model-for-pinball-outdated

Absolutely not true.

I think the best bet for people who have been burned by a pinball manufacturer is to file a complaint with their state attorney general/consumer protection agency/lemon law program. I don't see any other way you have any teeth in this situation. What is going on is wrong, and the manufacturers need to be placed back into reality.

Every builder I know of in my area has foreman. None are union. The only difference between today and 25 years ago is there use to be one on each crew. The foreman usually is skilled in multiple facets of the job, not just framing or trim. The foreman would get a small bump in pay to run the site, and fill in where needed. Now a foreman runs multiple jobs and spends a good chunk of time driving between them and putting the fires out.

As for quality...you better be on site every day making sure your house is being built correctly, because quality is secondary any more.

Nice! Keep an eye on the post in front of the upper flipper. If yours has not been modified, you may want to loctite it. My neighbors would not stay tight at all, and it wound up stripping out entirely. He is also waiting on a populated swap to be delivered (due to other defects).

Newer build dates will have the artwork pulled back from the sling posts...you will see bare wood in the circles printed on the PF instead of art all the way through. The washers were applied to games the first couple weeks they made them, when the pooling was first reported on the first released games.

Depends on how bad it is. They will probably do nothing for pooling alone. Once the clear cracks, you may be able to get a new bare playfield. If the damage is extensive, you may be able to get a full PF swap if you meet their criteria, while standing on one foot, with your left eye closed, and flossing your teeth with the other foot. That is about how simple the latter process is It has been several months of waiting so far since the initial commitment from Stern.

You can't measure the divots with a standard micrometer unless you use a ball positioned over a divot and depth mic off two gauge blocks. I think you'll find the depth of the divot much smaller than you realize.

However, you could use a caliper to measure the diameter of the divot and calculate it's depth since we know the diameter of a pinball. Much easier.

e44e016e1e7a8528bac018ec951a67da (resized).jpg

I guess when the majority of your machines have clearcoat defects, the defective ones become the norm, and perfect ones are abnormal. Congrats on your abnormal machine!

Playfield protectors just don't work for me. They play different, take the ball noise away, and get dirty too fast.

I have had great experiences with modern 2 part auto clear coat finishes that I apply myself. And I'm not talking the rattle can stuff. I use $130/quart DuPont Chroma clear. Nice and hard in a couple days, doesn't chip, and plays to my liking.

So I have an old Gottlieb Victory with a similar playfield surface...kind of like a hardtop, but a bit thinner. The playfield has held up well the last 30 years, but I have not figured out how to polish the ball trails out of it. You can get the dirt off, but the surface isn't as shiny as where they balls travel (think lanes that are only as wide as the ball. I have used Novus 1, 2 and 3, and none of those seem to make any improvement on shine. I guess I will have to strip the whole thing down and try the "mylar reconditioning" method. On clearcoated playfields, the shine comes right back after a good cleaning. Even on a game that had the crap routed out of it (like early 2000's Sterns).

I could try it sometime in a hidden area just to see. If I really really cared, it's like the cheapest playfield out there to buy NOS. But it would be good to figure out a way to deal with this issue now that hardtops are starting to become more popular.

Don't worry...Iron Maiden was the second coming of Christ, until Duggie sold it.

They need to make a new 1-piece post that has an integrated flange on the bottom to distribute the force of the ball across a wider area on the playfield. Then attach it through the playfield with a nut and large diameter hardened washer on the bottom of the playfield. According to the quick sketch I made, you could do a 1/16"x 7/8" integrated base flange and still not hit the ball. The current washer looks to be about a 1/2" diameter? That would be about 70% more surface area to dissipate the force.

pasted_image (resized).png

Protects the upper flipper from very hard ball hits. The flipper would most likely break in short order if it took direct hits to the tip.

Stern has been screwing my friend around for 5 months now after committing to a populated playfield. They won't even give an idea of a date for when he may get his. Current excuse is "machines we are building right now are already sold". Well, TMNT is probably going to be on the line shortly, so that will lead to more excuses. Talking to a lawyer now to go over options.

Pat stopped returning this persons emails and phone calls, which is part of the reason for the escalation.

I love how everyone thinks the Haggis solution is some pinball altering invention already. Not one of their machines is out in the real world getting beat on day in and day out. A lot of time needs to pass to see how well those machines hold up before we decide that the Haggis playfield is the benchmark of quality. The plastic is held on by tape at the moment, for crying out loud. Just because it does not dimple does not mean the finish is going to stay bright and shiny. One operator who leaves a ball in too long is going to scratch the hell out of that plastic permanently. Plastic is much softer than clear coat, and you are going to play hell buffing out ball tracks from orbits and whatnot.

My Victory is Vitrograph, which is basically the same thing. I haven't been able to make the high ball travel portion like the left orbit as shiny as the surrounding area yet. Acrylic or PETG, either way...once the dirt is embedded in it, you are going to play hell getting it out. Automotive clear is much harder and more resistant to the same thing.

Raised inserts and graining effect remind me a lot of a humidity issue. Wood shrinking would do both. Is the wood not dry enough at the time of processing?

A friend of mine received his populated JP playfield this week after nagging them since last October. I guess miracles can still happen? His original had an insert sunken in far enough to effect gameplay.

And what are they going to do if you don't send it back? Send Jared out to scowl at you until you set aside a week of your own time to do the swap? I would tell them to pound sand.

In the case of populated playfields being sent- once yours is ready to be shipped, they send you a box to pack your old one in. Once you send it back, they send you the new one.

While it sounds cool, it doesn't make sense to sell something like a populated playfield that would in turn dilute their NIB sales. Sold out $600 crappy toppers have proven to them that pinheads will just buy the whole game if they want it. Given Stern's price structure, the populated PF would probably run $4000 or $4500 alone. Might as well just wait a few months to buy a routed game and get the whole thing.

I've never been sick from Chipotle because I never get any produce on my burrito. Just the heart clogging crap.

Wood probably isn't as dry as it should be and is shrinking at some point after having the inserts installed and drum sanded flush. Would also explain some of the planking effect going on as well.

And I thought I read somewhere that the splitting cabinet issue precipitated Stern going to another manufacturer.

They are not longer putting a thick, glossy layer of clear on. The clear is noticeably thinner now.

It rained here today, so it rained everywhere in the world. Right?

Should flatten out!

Screenshot_20200720-104803_Facebook (resized).jpg

As I posted in the Turtles thread...

I've said it before and ill say it again. The exact same thing happened during the heat waves last year. JP2 games built in June, July and August during the heat waves were the worst. The heat and high humidity on the factory floor is not allowing the clearcoat to fully cure before the playfields are populated. Stern needs to invest in climate control and a proper curing process that can be carried out consistently during all four seasons. Remember how the playfields all seemed to get better in the fall/winter. Yup. I am convinced.

JP2's with bad playfields are going for $4900-$5200 from what I have seen. JP2's with good playfields are going for $4900-$5200 from what I have seen.

pasted_image (resized).png

Don't make him any more mad!

Where else are you going to hear the truth about the actual quality of these games? It definitely isn't going to be brought up on 95% of the podcasts out there. No need to announce your departure...just drain and move on.

Then put a bag of sand in the machine then. The transformer being removed from the cabinet is most of the weight loss between older machines and new ones.

Stern has a months long order backlog if the rumors can be believed. They really have no motivation to change, as what they are doing is working very well for their bottom line. Pinheads are still going to buy their games, flaws and all. Once another competitor pulls enough market share from Stern to cause Stern to have to consider cutting down their production quantities and staff head counts, you MIGHT see a new focus on quality. Until then, expect more of the same.

I am not sure what you were smoking when you wrote this post, but please feel free to send some of it my way if you have any extra.

Came across this interesting post in the comments on the Stern FB page last week. I wonder if the "spraying" area was for playfields, cabinets or both. Didn't these pooling issues start about 2 years ago? I still maintain they are battling environmental issues and mixing formula issues in their clearcoating process during the hot and humid months.

Screenshot_20200912-162753_Facebook (resized).jpg

It looks like the playfields are cleared after the inserts are done, then they go out for printing, and another layer of clear over that. Not sure who does the final coat of clear. Knowing this information, the adhesion problems to the wood lay squarely on Stern.

Nobody really cares about play count. Play your machine and don't worry about it.

Sprayed one coat of Cromax 2 part auto clear on this Motordome playfield on Saturday, and its passing the hammer test on Tuesday already. You be the judge.

20201020_154012 (resized).jpg

20201020_154236 (resized).jpg

I was one of the ones who believed they switched to water based clears. After doing some research, it seems the auto repair industry only does the base coats in water based now. There is no effective water based clear coat out there being used at this time. I believe they are either not mixing the stuff right, or using something with an extended pot life, which is not ever getting hard. When you are doing one playfield, you can use the super fast stuff that is dry to the touch in 15-20 minutes. This isn't as advantageous when you are spraying for an entire 8 hour shift. Thats a lot of stopping, swapping and cleaning. Not very efficient.

Looking to buy a JP pro right now, but I am weighing waiting for a used one or going NIB. The prices are not that far apart between the two right now, and at least with one...you know what you are getting. But of course, when I am ready to buy...none are listed locally.

Took delivery of a JP pro today...born on August 25 of this year. No playfield issues that I can see so far. Did have a node 1 issue out of the box, wound up finding a pin just barely out of socket on one plug on the MPU. Easy fix.

The key to having Stern approve a populated PF swap is the ball and gameplay must be affected by the flaw. A sunken insert or a warped PF seems to be a shoe-in for this. Cosmetic issues alone seem to be a tougher road to take.

People need to know who these distributors are. There are some distributors out there who have little legions of fans that will smack people down for bringing their poor service to light. I don't get it. They are always fast to answer the phone/email for a sales call, but miraculously the warranty emails seem to get "lost".

Meanwhile, OP of this thread is looking at buying a Mando according to the Mando thread. Manufacturers really have little incentive to do a better job when sales are as good as they are. JJP and Stern both seem to have figured this out.

The part of the Gomez interview that stuck out to me was about reworking bad playfields. He mentions $200 playfield blanks having a flaw found somewhere in the process, and they sand them down again to try to save them.

The top and bottom layer of veneer on the plywood is the hardest layer, and then softer layers are used in the middle for filler. If the top layer starts out at .060"-.080" thick, that is one thing. But if they have to sand half of that or more, now your harder layer is not as strong due to thickness degradation and having a softer layer backing it up. This could be why some playfields dimple far more than others. I'd be curious if someone with a heavily dimpled playfield would be able to eyeball the first layer thickness looking at the edge of the playfield with a set of calipers, and then compare it to machines without major dimpling issues.

This isn't conjecture, George confirmed they rework and sand them down thinner on occasion to save a $200 playfield blank.

I 100% agree with him that playfield protectors are atrocious.

Ever own any modern Taurus firearms?

Stern Playfields from the Roller Coaster Tycoon and Ripley's eras had excellent durability.

This isn't true. I can buy numerous clear coats loaded with methylethylbadshit from my local auto paint supply place all day every day.