My Dialed In LE has developed a groove in the clearcoat down to the plywood without me realizing it, and now that I've seen it, I'm trying to figure out what I can do without replacing the whole playfield. I'm unsure of the cause, although it's obviously related to the VUK/phone scoop (maybe the angle/speed, or maybe the ball was damaged). There's a long oval where the clearcoat has been grooved around the bare plywood which isn't clear in the photos.

I will definitely add a strip of mylar to cover the whole length of the ball path from the phone, but I can't do that without filling in the groove somehow. I was thinking I could use something like model paint to gently fill in the missing blue spot, and then try to find some clear varnish to level the groove (then buff it down), but I can't risk making things worse. I'm totally new to playfield repair, so any beginner's advice would be appreciated. I've got nothing on hand to start this process, so I'll need to buy everything -- any online stores/links would be very helpful since I'm located in Hong Kong and will almost certainly have to order from abroad and ship things here first (although I could get model paint locally).

And as an aside, have any other owners had this problem with the phone scoop?

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I've got 2150 games played (6696 balls), and I've changed the whole set of balls once. I attached a few more photos showing some of the marks on the playfield below the groove, and another suspicious area above the flippers.

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No, not at all. I bought NIB direct from JJP's assigned agent, Bandai Namco (delivered to me in late 2019), and have regularly cleaned the playfield up until I discovered the wear. It was in my office for about a year with about 5 people playing regularly at lunchtime. I haven't cleaned the playfield since I discovered the damage (pending advice from this forum), and I guess it was maybe 2 months since the last time I had cleaned it. There's relatively low humidity in my office (central aircon), and all my other games are holding up very well by comparison. I have Pirates of the Caribbean (LE) ordered at the same time which still looks great (aside from the unfortunate bubbling defects around posts).

I haven't contacted JJP about it, but I don't have very high hopes for any support since I'm in Hong Kong and the delivery here was a special arrangement. I expect I'm on my own taking care of this unfortunately.

I'm also wondering how to prevent this damage from recurring after I repair it. I have the phone power at the default level (mid-range), and I can't see how the power setting would cause the damage (if the power is too low, the ball will not eject from the phone properly, and if it's too high it will go down the drain or bounce off the slings like crazy). If the angle of scoop itself needs to be adjusted, would it be better to have a smaller or larger radius for the arc?

Instead of Novus 1?