Pics don't do it justice, but I tried.

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CPR has intentionally kept their business small to keep it managable for the principles. They don't have the space/tooling to scale up more. Screening more PFs means more space for the PFs to sit inbetween colors. The paints can be UV cured to speed drying.

Ah that's a great pic.
You can really see the gold flec.

Looks so nice. Cannot wait to get the email!!!

I was just wondering , I get my pfs today so...

I salute cpr for all there work they have put in to these pfs.

Thanks PinZig thats a nice touch.

then why did you ask to see the films? films in and of themselves are actually quite boring to look at (and you should know that, given your background

Personally, I think the films are pretty interesting, to notice where the colors go that you may not have realized before, and to just understand the process more as a whole.

I just watched "Modern Times" for the 5th time. I loved it!

I'm not sure some you guys **get** how the inks/films/screening actually works.

No one is using a Pantone swatch and comparing it to a NOS playfield, nor are we worried about variations between 30 year old Pantone books.

The film specifies, right on it, what Pantone color to screen it with.

That number is what the artist choose 30 years ago, that number is what color ink was mixed up.

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Here the ORIGINAL FILM says to use Panatone 348C (that's the color John Youssi had chosen). There is nothing to match, no need to look at a NOS playfield, we have the proper color GIVEN to us by the artist 30 years ago.

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Here, you can see that Pantone gives the exact formula to mix up 348C. Nothing to match or compare, just measure the listed pigments, mix, and you get 348C:

974f78ffb29b48a5e4104bcae881d34c6e799e7b (resized).jpg

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Finally, the amount of playfields you can **make** in a day would depend on how many colors need to be laid down.

If you only made 10 a day, and figuring the 4 day German workweek (yeah, people in Europe only work 34 hours in a week - they think that Americans who brag about their 50 hour workweeks are insane) that means you could only make ~2000 playfields a year?

Here you can see a great video of how the playfields are screened:

ok i am on the list for one of these babies, does anyone know where there is a video on the ins and outs of doing this swap, i am particularly concerned about how to install the wire ball guide rails. Also do these boards need to be waxed or prepped in anyway before installing?

I too am in the camp if finding the films facinating.

There are probably lots of things I find interesting that others would not.

Use a BRAND NEW Brad Point bit, turned by hand, and just shave through the clear coat. This way the wire guides won't touch the clear during installation.

Wax the entire board before you start installing. It's your only chance to wax the whole thing you'll ever have.

Yesterday I got these beuties ✌
Very fast shipping indeed

Big thanks to all at Cpr Team.

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I said I know what I'm looking at, meaning I know how to interpret what I'm seeing, NOT I know what they look like. HUGE difference.

The films are used to make the printing screens. Because B/W used all Pantone spot colors on TAF(and most everything else), I was curious about the half-toning gradients and, more importantly, where all the 348 was supposed to be used. I was particularly curious about the latter because the green in my graveyard area is a bit darker than the green "behind the fence" around the flippers. So, after viewing the original film for 348, I now know that those colors are supposed to be identical. Mine are not. I could look at that film for a solid ten minutes and find cool little tidbits and details all over the place, especially when comparing it to a final product. For someone like me who's been making four color process and Pantone spot color printing plates for the last 6 years, these things are fun to see in other industries. Especially if it involves a hobby I love.

agreed.

lots of details to be had if you [have] to look at them. when jim smith and I did the joust playfield plastics project, I thought it was really interesting [and fun] to look at each film to try and find any inconsistencies or errors prior to going to print.

you really do get an appreciation for someone that can lay down a halftone pattern that changes density and direction multiple times (jim did an amazing job with all of the halftones on both the joust plastics and playfield art and I ought to know considering how critical I was

(now, if I could only get kevin to start running those playfields!!

Anyone else have these types of artifacts? They're all under the clear. The one up near the top can be seen from 10 feet away. Note the thin black line through the top of MECHANIX: KRUTSCH. This is a CPR Gold.

Granted, most of this will be covered once installed but come on, how does this not get set aside as a silver or bronze?

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TAF Credits (resized).jpg

Yikes, agreed that this looks more like a bronze than a gold. Have you contacted CPR?

I do all the grading. Some will not agree with my scoring.

The blobby thing you circled at the top of the photo is a droplet of ink that got chopped off with the sander during levelling, during clearcoat building. Thus exposing it's white belly. I remember seeing it. It's only on one playfield. I didn't grant much credence to it's "blem significance" because as we all know, that spot is visually irrelevant in the game.

So with golds being a score of 97, 98, 99 out of 100 ... yeah, that blem might have popped a couple points off... but the rest of the layout was so nice, it didn't degrade further than that.

As for those other circled things - those are dimples, dude

They're everywhere, with their visibility depending on how many layers of ink may or may not have closed them over visually (or physically)...and clearcoat too. But they'll all be used and relevant (and found) during your swap.

KEVIN
Classic Playfield Reproductions
http://www.classicplayfields.com

Definitely not gold, bronze perhaps.
Still it will be a nice playfield once assembled.

Some of those(in the blue) are dimples.That white on the gray is an imperfection.

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General Pinball 045 (resized).jpg

do you know what size, and do you happen to know a link of a video doing this? do you drill all the way through the playfield, what holds the metal rails in?

you are just removing the clear.

so there are predrilled holes for the metal posts?

Use a small NEW Brad Point, maybe an 1/8" size

Don't drill all the way through the playfield, just TWIST BY HAND to cut the clear away from the top of the hole.

That way the wire guide won't touch and crack the clear when you tap it in.

Tap the guides in deep enough so the center of the ball hits the center of the wire.

Yes.

Awesome, thanks for the info, If I hadnt asked this, I would have screwed it up for sure, anything else you can think of I need to be careful of?

Put the wiring harness in the dishwasher before you dirty up your new game:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/cleaning-playfield-harnesses-vids-guide

ok great, last few questions...

should i be able to use the existing metal rails, do i just use a punch to punch them out from underneath the board? or should i buy new rails?

what about playfield protectors? yes or no?

http://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/03-7960-20017

Just reuse your old ones.

No.

Just Mylar under drops and other high wear areas.

where do you get mylar just for the drops and high wear areas? all the mylar protectos seem to be for the whole playfield?

You can get a roll of mylar and cut your own. Use rounded curves for everything when cutting, not sharp corners. Corners will eventually start to lift and peel up.

Personally, I would put some protectors down for the playfield holes/ejects, and switch slots (if the ball drops on them from a ramp) since those are all high wear areas, then mylar for anywhere else. Looking at a worn playfield should tell you what areas need some protection.

do you wax then put down the mylar or vice versa? Thanks for all the great info. This will be my first playfield swap, as you can tell, I am a little nervous.....

I wax then install mylar. Easier to remove if you ever need to.

Wish cpr would send me my payment request. I was in on the morning it was announced.

I use "removable" mylar. Not had any issues with it yet. Really just Avery self laminating sheets.

Don't forget to ck your junk email. I almost missed the notice.

Ended up working out, I changed my email address and got bumped down the line.

I got the email, sent the dinero. Does CPR provide tracking numbers? Cause I don't have any evidence they've shipped them yet.

Yes, you'll get an email from CPR w/ your UPS tracking number.

I paid for mine on 9/24 and have not received any tracking info either. I assume they ship first come first serve. Hopefully I'll get the email soon.

Got the email this morning. Sent payment. Patiently waiting for my new playfield. Hell, I've waited this long (2014) I can wait a little longer.

curious, what grade are they on now? gold, silver, or bronze?

They were still gold on Saturday..

Still Gold as of this morning.

Gold is like 85% of the run, right? So you'd imagine they'll only run into the silver and bronze the last few days (or weeks, I guess, depending on how quickly they turn these out) of shipping.

How long does it normally take for a shipping email from cpr. Going on a week and a half now and would have thought I would have heard something by now.

10 days for mine

General response to everybody wondering this:

We've always done weekly waves of Instructions Emails, about 40 a week, until everybody is contacted, paid up, and shipped in orderly fashion. In 13 years doing playfield run releases, we've never just done a mass-mailout and taken a surge of hundreds of payments all at once. It's just too ridiculous to manage, and we can't tell who's abandoning slots clearly, etc. It would just be bedlam if we did that.

Remaining instructions emails will be going out over the next 8 weeks, until everybody is finished up. The position one sits is exactly based on date and time their original TAF email landed in the TAF inbox. We go in chronological order, like a natural queue. Note we included the following in everybody's pre-launch teaser email that gave the final details about the finished run:

"INSTRUCTIONS EMAILS BEGIN THIS WEEK
THEY WILL CONTINUE FOR 3 MONTHS UNTIL ALL SLOTS ARE SERVED.
PLEASE BE PATIENT, YOU WILL GET AN EMAIL. PREPARE YOUR FINANCES."

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If you're wondering about shipping turnaround AFTER you've paid... that is anywhere from next-day departure, to 2 weeks max... it will vary depending on how fast this huge run emerges from clearcoat. That too is done in big waves (~100 at a time), and we can pack and ship faster than they emerge. So sometimes there will be stretches where we're out of cleared playfields, waiting for the next batch to come from the booth. Sometimes they're right there the day one paid. Either way, everybody gets two automatic dispatch emails: one from PayPal, one from UPS
.

KEVIN
Classic Playfield Reproductions
http://www.classicplayfields.com

Thanks, Kev.