Hm, perhaps I will drop my earth shaker preorder and just wait for a bronze...

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I wouldn't cancel your Earthshaker preorder ... There's a good chance they'll dry up as fast as Taxi, High Speed, and first run Whirlwinds. It took me forever to find a Taxi in decent shape for a reasonable price .

Having said that, if you do want to risk it, you'll more than likely be happy with a bronze. My High Speed was a bronze ... Outside of the insert crazing which looks fine when lit, it looks as good as any cpr high speed pf I've seen!

I have several CPR playfields and here is my experience.
First off, none of these were bought straight from CPR. I bought them well after the production run was over. I think that is important as in all cases the clear had ample time to cure.
1. Silverball mania. This playfield was hideous. It was most likely sold as a second and not intended for resale. The clear looked like that FT shown in this post but much worse. I leveled it and polished it out to look like glass. All good for a couple weeks and then it all came back! Not nearly as bad as before but no longer smooth as glass. Im guessing an issue with the clearcoat application. Possibly bad ratio on the activator?
2. Xenon. I bought this as a gold however there are no markings to indicate grade. May have been before they started marking them. Anyways, it looked great other than some minor shrinking of the clear coat which is to be expected once the clear cures. A few hours of sanding and buffing and it looks awesome.
3. Bad Cats. Absolutely perfect in every way right out of the box. Ready to install in my opinion.
4. Black Knight. Same as Bad Cats

Basically if you install a freshly cleared playfield its a crap shoot. More than likely you will see some sort of shrinkage or worse. One way to minimize this is more thinner coats vs a couple heavy ones. The proper way would be to clear it and let it cure then sand and spray a final coat of clear. Hmmm, this is pretty much what kruzman does. Not cost effective in a production environment...unless you want these things to cost over a grand each. Sure CPR could offer a premium service like this but why since Kruzman already does?

I just want to clairfy that I go thru an enormus amount of pf's here. I collect them, I buy almost every one for sale for my clients, I have a large pin collection, and I have 25 to 40 customers pf's in here at any time. If anyone has been here, as many have, they can tell you there are pf's, Literaly, everywhere. Every room in my house, sans the bathrooms, has pf's stored. This was the reason I fely qualitfied to answer the posters question. Obviously I dont work for cpr, but the first week the FT were produced, 4 or 5 customers had them shipped here. I say that without looking at the books, so if this post is going to be picked a part sentence by sentence and add all kinds of conjecture and assumptions, I guess start there.
I have had a problem with all of them doing the same thing (this is only on ft) which is why I contacted Kevin personaly. In his long winded way, (I dont know how to add a little smileface here so I can be passive agressive about being long winded) he listed a bunch of ways that it was my fault. I spent a month thinking about it before beinging it up, and for many off the reasons I listed, like being stored in diffrent places, along with hundreds of other pf's. My biggest mistake was I forgot about the last time I mentioned cpr quality. A customer wrote a post about how happy he was with a cpr pf that I cleared and painted the inserts that were off. I comented that " it was no big deal, just the usual cpr issues" and for that Kevin posted another 2 page manifesto, that I couldnt make it past the second paragraph, because it was so full of bs.
Getting back to it, I contacted cpr with the intent, as I told kev, "if there is a problem with this run you can get on the front side." That was my mistake. Like a dog I felt a sense of fraternal comrodirary with another pf man. My life is busy and I forgot that the last time I talked to him was his post about me that I mantioned above. I dont havbe the time or heart to hold grudges. This just came to mind, but I think of pf's like cpr pf's as their own beings, not the person who sold them. every time I see a nice or crappy cpr pf, I dont think of kevin. Its not about him.
This brings me to why I write. sorry for the length, But I remember this time I have to be careful. Many of you will write that your bad cats looks perfect, or your playboy look like crap. and this thread can have hundreds of posts like that. The reason I expressed my feelings about my FT is I see hunderds of pf's a year, from a lot of sources. Not just see them, but handle them, sand them, sometimes work on them. Well I am having a problem with the ft pf's. I have been waiting to finish the ones shipped directly here from cpr that are owned by customers. (I wouldnt doubt it if that becomes a new policy, but at this point I dont really care, this is not about my business) I dont want to finish them and ship and they keep getting worse. I have sanded the original clear as low as possible and it seems like they are not getting worse in th elast 10 days.
I was contacting kevin because I was thinking about the people who have allready installed them. Since my post 2 others besides the ones who have posted that their pf's look like mine, have contacted me to say they see the same, but are afraid cpr wont sell them pf's in the future. Kevin can say I am doing this to make money, and I can write another long winded post proving that is not true, but yes I sell and clear and fix pf's but I call my self a pf advocate also. I dont charge to give my well informed opinion, on quality, price, sellers, how pf's behave, if it is worth it to do a swap. Heck I wont restore a customers pf, I actually make them or me find a core to restore so they can do a swap. I know as a fact that if you try to do a pf reinstall after in being gone for 5 months, its almost impossible for a first timer to acomplish.
I honestly got involved with this post twice, the first time when I told the person to just hold the pf and see what happens. The second time when I listed my monthly pf's available and I pulled my FT gold and saw how bad it looked, after a customer was interested. I can say from experience of being on the other side that some people would have sold the pf and if the buyer was upset, I could have said call kevin, he made it. I have a stack of pf's that cant be fixed that I wont sell. I hope I can fix this one, but I want to watch it longer.
No good deed goes unpunished. I was not trying to sell a service when I wrote "the good news is it can be fixed" I wrote that because I didnt want to sound like I was making a mountain of a molehill. I was not attacking cpr, I was frusterated with kevins replies when I tried to help him with what I thought was going to be a recall. Now my name and motivation are being brought in to question. Thats total bs.
Where was kevin when the thread was started asking advice about CPR pf's. I didnt try to sell anything. People had allready said "send it to Kruzman" and I wrote, let it sit. If it looks bad, I will be happy to fix it. I suppose the people who have written me to tell me their pf is the same are smart not to post. I didnt ask for a refund, honestly not to be a little bitch. That was a mistake, I forgot who I was dealing with. Like I said he did this exact same thing to me once before. Now I am done with the subject since I have answered the posters questions.
Thank you for your support. Back to the coal mine

I want to say, I am not a computer person, otherwise I would have put a happy face every time I mentioned kevin so I can say we all love kev. I dont know if this old computer does it, but I think it is passive agressive crap anyway.

Just for the sake of public interest, I have been contacted by 4 people who have the same issues on their pf's (besides who posted). all got theirs early in the run, 2 were silver. I think every pf reported to have the issues is from the early run. 3 of the 4 actually mentioned fear of posting because they were afraid of getting flamed, or that cpr wont sell them pf;s any more. On the second issue, I told them that no one knows their real names and I seriously doubt it would be any reason not to accept your money, but this whole thing is goofy.
Its now just my personal interest. I would get more of an idea if I made a thread titleed of this subject, but I am not going to. Hopefully that will avoid any mud slinging. I am interested in hearing if any more people have the same issue.
I am a pf man. its the biggest part of my life. I have compiled data on prices, availablity, quality, all kinds of stuff in the years I have been focusing on it. I share this info with people who ask, no problem. Mine is an opinion just like everyones, except I really focus on pf,s. new, nos, repro's from all makers (some are friends, even in cpr) pf's are my career, but also my passion.
Thanks to all of my supporters, and cheers. kruzman

lastly. I have not been contacted by anyone who allready installed their pf, thank god! So you all may want to consitter my suggertion about letting your pf;s sit a while before you make any decisions. I think in the eary post of this thread, I said 6 months. The reason I said that was just to make sure it is totally stable. It was before the situation that came up about the FT. That will show in 3-4 months. If it hasnt shown by then, I think you are all good in the hood.

After reading all of these posts I had to unbox my gold pf to check and to my surprise it looks great. Thank you CPR.

I'm just glad Ron has my FT playfield and I didn't install it. It literally could not be in better hands to remedy this situation.

I just pulled out my Gold FT playfield and it's perfect. It's been in my basement for several months, but I'm in a desert. I wonder if people with problems are in more humid locales?

It is more humid here, but my house is conditioned so should not be an issue.

I could always stay on the list then order a bronze and then flip the original for 2x the cost. I mean screwing the next guy. That is what the hobby is all about right?

If you were going to screw someone, you would sell the one with issues and not mention them. That the biggest problem in buying pf's. I understand you are kidding.

I wasn't suggesting that you screw anyone over . I was mainly looking out for you .

Those System 11 playfields dry up ridiculously fast and they don't seem to be candidates for re-runs (though Whirlwind is slated for a re-run). If you have an Earthshaker with a trashed PF, you should stay on the list. If a bronze comes up, you can buy that one and sell your gold one. I'm simply suggesting that you shouldn't assume you'll be able to easily land a bronze one ... that's all .

I hesitated joining the Taxi list thinking that I'd always be able to find a least a bronze one ... I didn't have the game at the time. I landed one with a trashed playfield earlier this year and couldn't find a CPR one at a 'normal', non-ludicrous price until a couple of months ago. I lucked out big time . I was *this* close to going the overlay route (not a big fan of those outside of the Phoenix Arcade silkscreened Funhouse ones).

Sorry if I came off as a "2x the cost of a CPR Gold for a CPR bronze" kind of person . I am not like that.

Hey vid, I don't have any spare rails from other pins... any suggestions on what I can use to keep the playfield from bowing as it cures?

Thanks for any advice!

Take two pieces of heavy gauge string, make bowline loops, tie them through the mounting holes at the top of bottom of the playfield, hang from the ceiling, rafter, or garage mount.
You can even use a couple 100 lb picture hooks to ad hoc a hang mount clip on a rafter or other surface.
Alternatively you can go to Home Depot and get some corner braces and make a mount.
Place a piece of wadding or small strip of felt under each string/brace to prevent against gouges or scratches.
Total cost is less than $0.20, and are fully vertical and secure, just hang them high enough and in a location people are not going to walk into the playfield.
Complete airflow on all sides.

Thanks for the tip on hanging the playfield and exposing all sides to airflow.

Any suggestions on what to use to brace the playfield in lieu of rails? I suppose cutting a temporary set of strips of wood would work, but I was also wondering about angle iron.

Thoughts?

Just make a simple frame.
You can go to a hardware store and getting wooden edge molding, put it together with corner braces.
Just make sure you drill first, so you don't split the wood.

Take some good quality plywood scrap (like 3/4" Baltic Birch), rip some 1.5" wide lengths.

If you know anyone who claims to be a "woodworker", they will have a ton of thin scrap saved for moments like these.

Oh that was not a dig at you, just a dig at how most of the hobby seems to be functioning at the moment...

Noted. I am thinking 2-3.5x the gold price for a bronze would be the perfect markup now.

Has anyone put Mylar on the shooter lane before installing, to prevent excess wear? Anyone sell pre-cut pcs?

I always do.

You don't need pre-cut, just look at the path the ball takes when it enters the lane.

I installed my CPR gold FT playfield back at the end of May. I'll take a look tonight and see if I notice anything.

So... what's the verdict?

My playfield looks fine at least at quick glance.

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