I wish they had cut the openings in the white layer much more relaxed. OR made the hand-sketched keylines around the windows thicker. Either way, I see that similar tiny peekaboos were present on the originals as well (top photo provided above by ForceFlow):

- under the dot of the question mark
- to the left of G in THING
- to the left of DEAD
- above E in EXTRA
- to the left of COUSIN
- to the left of MAMUSHKA

Beyond that, I can't wait for people to see the original Williams colors on the repro's. These two photos show how faded and shifted so many of the colors are today. I mean, the main grey is an off-white in both photos! The top pic... where did the purple go? (it turned grey?) The orange had lost it's flouresence (by the look of it, although hard to get on a camera). The red is heading to an orange.

Anyway, carry on.

I am not complaining, just to be clear.

The colors look great and I am stoked to have this. Just wanted to know if mine was standard expectation of gold.

cheers

Mine is the same. Seems to look worse in pics. Overall, very happy though. The colors are so much more vivd than my original.

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Yes, those tiny peekaboos on a few inserts (being present from layering of original films, not error, and as proven by ForceFlow's photo showing them on an HSA factory original sample) ... with all else being fabulous, it is a gold grade for sure.

http://www.classicplayfields.com/standards.html

Gold grade = "Score: "On a scale of 100" 97/100 to 99/100"

ie. there is no such thing as 100.00%

I know you're not complaining Hilton. It's all good. You see something, and you're wondering.

cheers.

colors look amazing in person abd even some sparkle in spots!

You have a VERY VERY sharp eye

I assume you are referring to the gold leaf around the main logo. If so, you are correct. I don't know what else would "sparkle" otherwise.

As a little treat for the early birds, for the first 100 playfields (my first silkscreen batch of TAFs printed) I added a wee 5% of metallic gold powder to the "mustard" ink for the outlines/leafing of the main logo. Just an extremely subtle effect, but there. If that is what you spotted... SURPRISE.

Those little peekaboos as Kevin calls them do not bother me at all. Nice job.

yup, that is what I spotted right away. Very nice touch!

first 100 are the Gold "sparkle" edition

Pics please?

Here are two of my three with an original in between - love the florescent color match on the new ones. Sorry for the bad lighting...

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BIG color difference on the green. Neat, though!

I was thinking the same thing. I'm wondering how that will look when it's installed in a game.

the green is actually very close to what they looked like NOS. I had a NOS to compare to my current pf about 5 years ago and original uninstalled NOS was much brighter green than my nice example which had been in the game for 25 years. I assume some dulling/darkening due to just ball dirt in top coat over time. I also assume that the NOS was darker than back in 92 just due to aging process.

If I remember correctly, the original TAFs came with the darker green, but then the 'Gold' PFs had that lighter green. I had purchased an NOS Gold PF way back when, and it looked like that, when compared the the original TAF I had out at a few locations.

It's not a BAD thing, mind you - I like them both.

Looks great. The quality looks much better than the Whirlwind playfields.

Here is a TAFG I shopped a few years ago...

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I'm very appreciative of this run of PFs because as a previous poster put it "you could send me plywood covered in feces and it would be an improvement", but the green does look really weird to me. I've had 3 TAFs side-by-side in my garage doing repairs for people, and you could play the game "find the 6 differences between these two playfields" and eventually spot the subtle color differences between Sun, LencSmith, etc. -- namely the blue vs. purple hues in the mansion/trough area, the deeper red around the GREED book, markings in the trees/grass in the pops, etc. However, the green was always dark (and to me preferred) because the mansion and scenery is not bright/green/cheery -- that's not who the Addams Family characters are. This color does not darken with age (the opposite of B/W red cabinet fade? LOL), and has always been that way. I'm wondering if the pantone colors were grabbed from the later TAFG run (although even it wasn't THAT much brighter). I dunno. Every other color looks like an age corrected color (i.e. what they looked like NOS), but that green just doesn't sit well with me.

I think the work so far is AMAZING!
I so look forward to getting my playfields.
My original has those slivers showing in the mansion, so I always figured it was just another Williams f#ck-up.
Now its verified, thanks.

However since you are in current production
Maybe shim the playfields 1/64" to 1/32"to the left to correct this?

I believe, based on what Kevin said above, is that if they do this, the hairline white would then appear on the other side of the insert. (Right side, instead of the left.) Because they were so tight like that.

I get it.
Hopefully most of them will be pretty close.

They do however look better than my original imho...

Thanks for the explanation Kevin! Nice to learn some facts about these machines.

Or just had horrible pressmen and/or prepress technicians. I, up until a few weeks ago, worked in the flexographic printing industry for many years and it's amazing how a pressman who doesn't properly mix the specified PMS colors on the artwork proof page can really screw up how the finished product looks. It really doesn't take much of a variance in the ink ingredients(seen to the right of the Pantone number on that swatch page) and the finished product will look so off from what you originally designed, it's sad.

Also, as for the exposed white in the inserts, I can confirm it's not just a CPR thing, it's a factory artwork trapping flaw. Here are a few pics of my factory mylared playfield showing that the white wasn't trapped properly behind the black inner window lines of the inserts.

CPR got it right, folks. I know the tendency is to see what's different from what you've got, thinking yours is the standard by which all others are measured. But what most people don't realize is that what they've got might actually be 10-15% off from what the original designer had intended. Because they made so many of these machines, so fast, it's hard to nail down what the standard was if your sample is just what was produced. We all knew before CPR started this journey that there were three different versions of the playfield. It's well documented here and other places online. CPR's ability to rectify the past's sacrifices of of speed over quality presents the perfect opportunity to do right by the original artists and make our games as they were meant to be.

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Thanks for the explanation, Kevin! However, they DID change the colors: the Book is 'gold' instead of red, and they added some gold to the logo, like you did in the first run here.

So is it possible that the original films were modified (instead of making a new set) for TAFG, and the original green is gone?

I LIKE the brighter colors, yeah - however, when operating back in the 90's, I had 5 TAFs out on routes and in arcades, purchased at different times, and all had a darker green color in them. I remember seeing the first TAFG, and was impressed by how much 'better' it looked.

This green looks WAY better IMO

The orange used on these new playfields is truly awesome. I know you guys went the extra mile and got the legit phosphorus paint and it shows. Photos don't do it any justice.

Oh man, I'd LOVE to see what one of those films looks like. I'm also quite curious as to the other PMS colors used on the other 10 films(or however many it was!). I've got my swatch book ready to compare how close or far off mine is(Feb. 6th, 1992, CGC) to those B/W originally dictated. I already checked the 348 for the graveyard and mine is a bit past 349, and by looking at the tine of it, it appears as though they added too much Process Blue in the mix. It's not as dark as some others posted here, but it's definitely not 348.

Kevin,

Thank you for this very detailed explanation. For the sake of my eyes, having just painted our entire great room/kitchen a green/grey and finding an AMAZING difference in how much the "color" changes depending on what light hits it.... would you be so kind as to take a photo with your pantone 348C swatch next to one of the new PFs? Even WeirPinball's images above (1x1 vs. the 3 panel) look different depending on the photographed angle.

Anyways, can't wait for my payment email so I can get this magnet burned out PF onto the wall where it belongs.

Thanks Kevin -
Again, not complaining, just curious to learn. (And, I love the details behind printing processes and layout stuff..!)

This is all fascinating.. were ALL colors on the field a Pantone color, or were there some CYMK areas mixed in? (I *believe* the former, but.. figure it couldn't hurt to ask..)

Stop being a baby about it and make it into gobble hole as nick suggested

Looks like the "other manufacturer" announced their run of playfields today.

After years of waiting, it looks like we're going to be up to our ears in TAF playfields all at once

who is the "other" one? feel free to PM if you want it kept out of this thread.

done

mirco

My question is why did two manufacturers get the rights to reproduce this....

Who said anything about getting the rights?

Now that would be interesting...

Now if Mirco is paying no royalty fees,I would think his price should be considerably lower. But I doubt it will be.

It isn't. CPR's is more affordable.

the films aren't really going to show you anything. each film is simply a sheet of plastic that has black indicating where the color (specific to that film) should pass through the screen onto the playfield

in a nutshell:
each film layer is "exposed" onto a emulsifier covered silkscreen. the screen is then rinsed and the emulsifier remains on the unexposed areas of the silkscreen (the films act as a negative)

the colors are usually screened [one at a time] onto the playfield in reverse order from the lightest colors (starting with white) down to the darker colors and finally black last, with each color being allowed to cure a set number of days before the next color is screened. once all of the colored have been applied to the playfield, it is then clear coated

here's a pretty good video on the entire process (used for t-shirts)

So, I've been reading up on Pantone colors a bit more, and from what I've been reading, it sounds like there are sometimes color changes or variances between each set of Pantone books when they were released every few years.

So if you use a color code from one year (ie, 1992) and then pull the book off the shelf from this year (2017), the colors may have been altered between the books as new colors were added or removed, or new batches of color mixed--even though (in theory) a color number code is supposed to remain fixed and always correspond to a specific color.

On top of that, the colors in the books fade over time, so you can't really go back and pull a 1992 book off the self and try to color match from that.

I'm not sure how accurate this is or if it affects the particular green we've all been looking at here (if it even affects it at all), but it seemed like an interesting tidbit of information that might also be a factor in explaining the color difference between a new color and an older one we are accustomed to (although errors in mixing are probably the more likely explanation).

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I heard the other "one" can do like 10 pfs a day
How is that possible !?

Automation. There is a big robot that does all the work.

This isn't meant as a slight or anything, but unlike 99.9% of other folks here on Pinside, I actually know what I'm looking for, and at, when it comes to printing films, plates, screens, impressions, etc. I used to work in the flexographic printing business as a graphic artist and I also made the printing plates. I know what color separations are, I know what Pantone books are(I've got multiple sets). If you read my other recent posts here, you would have seen that.

Aha ok so you dont need to wait between all
the screen print layers !?

I have not seen that process in action, so I couldn't say. I imagine a run of playfields are done in batches layer by layer to allow them time to cure in between.

bingo

I've updated my post above, and the photos I promised are now included. Scroll up a bit. Thx.

My first NIB arrived today!

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