Than why does your profile say <1 year?

The average age of your games is 30+ years. Of course you’ve never had the issue.

I bought a barely used SW Pro last month. Played it a ton, and it dimpled like crazy. Have played it a ton more, and the dimples are far less noticeable, because they are evening out. Yes, I still see dimples, but in a few years, at current rate of play, the playfield will not look dimpled.

Also, on any game, dimpled are less noticeable on darker playfield. LOTR is on the dark side, so fewer dimples stand out. Avengers is way dark, same with Tron, and you may not notice any dimpling, but it’s there...and depending on how many plays, there might be a lot that you’ve never seen!

But carry on. You’re probably right.

So your HUO games. You bought them? Because if you didn’t, you have no freaking clue how many plays they’ve had.

It was the "sentence enhancer" that made me upvote this post.

Just like the other dude, your games, on average, are over 30+ years old. They’ve been hammered flat! Most of them don’t even have ramps!

Maybe your new clear should be dimpling, but maybe not. Your playfields have had 10,000+ plays. No comparison to new, HUO games, many that rarely even get played.

SMH dude, there’s dimples all over the playfield in your video.

Most HUO games will NEVER even get 10,000 plays, let alone the zillions of plays it takes to smooth them out.

I service people's games all the time and I always laugh how few plays they have on them.

One customer, who is the nicest guy in the world, only has a TRON and a TFLE, both that "he plays all the time" and last time I checked he had 500 plays on one of them and 350 on the other.

He has every available mod installed on both games, but he must spend more time decorating them than playing them.

Both his playfields will be cratered like the moon for his entire life.

I never said I was right. I was trying to understand why the justifications for it because the explanations and comparisons didn't match up with what was being shown. I was also pretty put off by the general dismissive and 'get over it' attitude by many people. I take a pretty hard stance of if you think you are too good to discuss it, there's 100's of other threads people can contribute their elitism to rather than thread crap. If you think someone's post is a troll, guess what, you don't have to acknowledge it, it's more likely to go away.

Draining..... now..... Useless post and thread.

You sir did not read the intial post. We are talking about ones that I have cleared myself. And I was asking if this something I will see in the future or not. Not even taking a side on this one and I get jumped on. Sensitive issue I see.

Where? I guess they're under the posts and plastics? Look CLOSE. If it was hammered flat why is there no line between hammered and not hammered around posts. How do you explain CPR's then. No dimples on my CPR black knight or firepower either.

On this take off firepower you can clearly see where the ball was able to roll and not roll. If it had a million 2mm dimples and it was smashed flat, there would be a 2mm difference between where the ball could roll and where it couldn't. In person you can tell its completely the same. No height difference at all.

This is just one subject that if a playfield has craters it's "normal" and just hasn't had enough plays. If yours looks great, it's had enough plays to "even out" no matter the number of games played.

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It's just like on the guitar forums, newbies will post that "stainless steel frets rob the tone from your guitar" constantly.

The long time luithers have proven (using audio analysis computer programs) that in no measurable way do stainless frets change the timbre, sustain, res, anything.

So the luithers get tired of the same nonsense being posted every week.

At one guitar show, they had a neck with 3 stainless steel frets installed randomly. You could put on headphones and try to REALLY listen to find them (the newbies say "you can't miss it, it's night and day!!!!!!!). No one has EVER been able to pick out the stainless, because it's bullshlt.

"I service people's games all the time and I always laugh how few plays they have on them..So the luithers get tired of the same nonsense being posted every week." I guess you could include your number of plays conclusion that the guy is a pinball poser in the same category when everyone knows the number of plays can be easily reset. Maybe he does play the pins all the time and just recently reset the settings.

Highly unlikely if he’s paying someone to service his games..

"I service people's games all the time and I always laugh how few plays they have on them". Well if the guy reads Pinside he's probably laughing back, knowing that he reset the number of plays to fool with you.

this again? zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I certainly believe that dimples are normal, and I believe in the infinite dimples=smooth playfield concept. However, I had one game that I think was an exception. Amazing condition. I wish I had more definitive pictures... I heard it was something about the way Sonic coated their play fields. Apparently they used some toxic chemicals that are no longer allowed. Can anyone confirm?

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I am not an expert but my NBAFB is not dimpled like Stern machines are. I think that stern is using more clear coat and it is dimpling differently, but that's just a guess on my part. Interesting subject, well covered already though in the forums.

The guy HATES Pinside.

He says it's just people arguing about nothing.

Your premise is that every game dimples the same & smooths the same over time. This is not true.

-My local barcade had a lineup of a bunch of new-ish Sterns. Their TWD was BEYOND lumpy...the other games looked great. That was just the nature of THAT particular playfield. Not normal. I've seen other TWDs that look fine.

-My friend and I both got new STLE's around the same time. His looked like the lumpy TWD after about 100 plays. It was clearly a poor defective playfield. It would never smooth out. Mine got a few dimples, but generally looked smooth and glassy after the same amount of plays.

Not every playfield is equal. Sometimes dimples are "normal", sometimes they're not. I've seen games that flat out don't dimple (I had a beautiful WOF that looked like a sheet of glass). PF quality can be a crapshoot...if someone gets unlucky, let's not shame them as being newbs or complaining without merit.

No! Quit making up nonsense.

Williams used Imron truck clear, and called it DiamondPlate

I restored a playfield for a guy who works at Dupont and he sent me 5 gals of the "secret formula", lol.

Cloudy and crappy, but the guy wanted a "perfect" restoration.
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Sorry, it's all the same; except for a few playfields that are made of softer Birch plywood.

Hard Maple is very consistent in it's density, that's why it's used for bowling ally, guitar necks, pinball playfields - cheap and hard, just like my old boyfriend.

Imron 2 component hardcoat- Diamondplate

http://www.flippers.be/pinball_playfields.html

First of all the quality of the wood sheets varies as it is a plant so if you take one type of tree it is possible the Wood from one behaves different than the other resulting in one pf looking more lumpy faster than another.

Second if you want to be completely spared of dimpling clearcoat the hell out of your new pf Before considering playing a Ball on it.

Its as already mentioned Steel vs Wood one has got to loose

BK and Firepower are non airball games. of course you will not get dimples if the ball never gets dropped on the playfield. EM's don't get dimples either. Any game where the glass is so close to the playfield, you don't have enough space to get an airball with any force. Dimples only happen on every game that can have airballs.

Sorry, my real world experience is proof that it's not all the same. I know the difference between a lumpy cheese playfield and a glassy smooth playfield, and playfields that are somewhere in the middle.

Houdini has acne!

Interesting article. Pat Lawlor first pursued automotive clear as a playfield coat and afterward felt it was a mistake because pins were not as disposable and replaceable by operators because the playfields lasted a long time, hurting sales at Williams (and Gottlieb too), and ultimately contributing to the demise of pinball in the late '90s.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/62638-13-when-williams-start-clearcoat

Nice!

This is actually somewhat common in many manufacturing companies although most won't admit it. Maytag (the washing machine company) was known for their machines lasting 20-30 years without issue. At some point in the 90's they made a point to redesign to more or less fail in 7 years to keep sales up because stock holders only care about market share and growth, not reliability. I know about this because I was somewhat involved in the whole fiasco (they really don't exist now so no big deal talking about it).

My neighbor has one of these old mars treks, I was shocked how nice the playfield still is... I figured it was just oil based lacquer

It's not a hard line because the ball is round and usually there is something along the border with some give to it.

Pop skirts flex, rubber rings bounce, metal guides flex.

You can physically measure how even tiny dimples add up and compress the wood after many years:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/playfield-dimple-reality-check/page/6#post-4639657

I don’t think wolfmarsh has a problem with the dimples - I believe it was you that started the thread ‘crying’ ‘bout the dimples. It doesn’t take many plays on most new games to get dimpled up. Show us a pic of an uninstalled Deadpool pf with dimpling and I’d 100% agree with you that it’s orange peel. Otherwise not so Much.

Regardless, can we put this to bed for now until someone comes up with concrete irrefutable evidence that it’s the new clear or wood causing this or it’s been normal forever and no one realized The last number of years?? Deadpool pf isn’t any different than the rest of the new sterns that I can see.

Agree.

I agree dimpling is totally 100% normal.

But, there are huge variations.

My Maiden pro after 300 plays, still hardly has a dimple anywhere. It wouldn't bother me if it did, as I expect dimples.

But, no way are all playfields the same.
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Ur not a complete but about half a dick. If this fella made a thread "Is this normal for a new pinball" then everyone would have been helpful. He choose to make it out like Stern uses cheap parts and this is an outrage when its normal so what we have is one Half Dick and one Complete Dick. Also with some simple searching on this site you could see the already multiple threads on this topic. Its like the vs threads, stupid.

LOL I bought a ten yr old TSPP with less than 400 plays I will never understand that shit.

What the hell do you think you are talking about no light at an angle to show dimples magic they disappear

I don't even understand what you are saying here, lol.

Seriously?

Yeah, I guess I don't get the joke?

English is my 3rd language, but I did not get it either.

Qu'est-ce que tu racontes? Je ne comprends pas? Croyez-moi, je n'ai pas de fossettes. LOL.

At least when Shapeshifter makes a post, I know what he's talking about, and I can totally believe he has no dimples.

Ok so this is a good example about the difference in dimples. When it’s really bad, you don’t need special light or angles. You just see it because it’s mega lumpy. For example, most of my games look glassy smooth in most situations - but with a bright light and certain angle, you can see the dimples. This is totally acceptable. However, when a game looks wavy and lumpy under any light or angle - that’s a different situation, not normal, and will not get better.

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...and here’s an example of a bad lumpy playfield. This isn’t normal and will never smooth out:

17F3CA9A-97F1-423D-A409-EC34AD37C3DF (resized).jpeg

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I compared my GOTG LE with about 500 plays and it has dimples that are hard to see because of the colors. If I take a light and put it at an angle you can see them. Now my DPLE with about 25 plays has dimples as well but is a bit easier to see because of the brightness of the colors. But still doesn’t bother me because I still have to get close and at angle to see them which I’m not doing because I’m playing the machine. But I agree that steel versus wood will always creates dimples.