Does anyone here work for a logging company or such? I have to believe there is an insider afoot working to make inroads with the pinball companies.

Brad

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You'd have to work for a maple syrup farm, that's where the Hard Maple is harvested from.

As soon a Maple tree gets 80 to 100 years old and it's sap production slows down, it gets sent to the lumber mill

Think of it more of a crop, than a forest.

Acres and acres of plastic tubing, sucking the sap out and onto my waffles.
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Brand new, never used....

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Golf balls are an excellent example.

The more you play them, the smoother they become

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Yes some dimples, your right. But not 100 moon craters after 1 day play.
I cant live with this cheap quality.
Maybe with a macrolon mylar instaled.
But for now i'am out.

Damn straight man, but that's still not enough because steel always wins, even when it doesn't...now be obedient and repeat it.

Just for the record. the amount of airballs a game has, greatly impacts how many and how fast a playfield dimples. Games like Hobbit, don't dimple because you hardly have any airballs. but games like TWD and GB will dimple like living shit, because they are airball goldmines. None of my early SS and EM's don't have any dimples in them (the ones that are clearcoated). Why? because no airballs.

My AC/DC Luci and I suspect every other AC/DC with that cannon shooting balls all over, also fits into this camp.

agreed.

What code rev? Unless it still had the shipped code it probably had more plays.

Fast and furious games with heavy MB action are going to dimple more and faster than slower, single ball games. SW has a 6ball MB, and you’re in MB fairly often, which explains the the early dimpling as well as the quicker flattening out.

My bsd has alot of airballs and no dimples.
Explain that.
Stern SW 10.000 dimples (mooncreaters)after 1 day play at the dpo expo 2017.
Chunks of clear fly's of 5 times faster then in the 90.
Its no collection quality anymore.
We have to live with it i think and put a plastic sheat on it to keep all the clear on it.

Said it before...not all dimpling is equal. Williams dimpling is different than the way some modern games crater.

Play fields today are not made of the same wood as the old days, it’s softer, non marine grade, less plys and has a softer hardwood veneer that is mostly sanded away by over zealous workers trying to get them smooth quick. I watched them set up the DP pro that was next to the tournament area at Expo this year. It was smooth as glass when unboxed, but looked exactly like the OP pic after 2 days of play. My Family Guy didn’t look that bad after it was used for 2008 Flip out tournament at the ‘08 Expo (I bought it Sunday after the tournament ended) so there is either a plethora of air balls in DP or they are using cheaper wood, or both. Yea, anything eventually can be pounded flat but this looks like it is going to pound concave, not flat.

Go back a few pages and look at the pics I posted. There's normal dimples and crater dimples. Crater dimples will never smooth out.

My Tron....here are some shots of the pf around the upper flipper. Have a look at the front and behind the flipper....still smooth, almost no dimples after 5 years.

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It got cratered and then smoothed out before you noticed lol

It's hard to tell people...don't trust your eyes stupid.

My TWD premium, has dimples all over but not pronounced as some of the other pfs posted here. So there is absolutely differences in the variety of wood and pfs....it's just logical to assume that. If they can ship games with cracking clearcoat, wrong decals, wrong siderails and ghosted inserts what exactly makes you all so sure they got an inspector checking to make sure the pf's wood quality is same as it's always been?

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I remember a small arcade in the 90s. They had T2 and TAF when they were brand new.
Those machines got a ton of play. Not ever have I witnessed playfield cratering of the likes we are talking about nowadays on any of them.

Playfield dimpling and orange peel are not identical, not caused by the same reasons, and terms should not be used interchangeablely.

This causes further confusion regarding the topic.

LOL

This thread is funny. Orange peel? Come on man. Hey Tron guy, let’s see photos of the playfield with a florencent light straight above the three bank in front of the disc...

Orange peel occurs when the coating is applied and doesn't dry completely smooth. It's called orange peel because it resembles the peel of an orange. Many automobiles have some orange peel but you don't notice it unless the light hits the finish just right.

Dimpling is caused from the ball impacting the surface and putting a small indentation in the surface.

Deadpeel?
Sooo do you have an issue with the game eeeeer just dimpling?

Starpeel, The Walkingpeel, Ghostpeel - Big Juicey Mellonpeel woulda worked better...

Yeah ..... and the inserts sinks in the playfield with te dimples.
And under places the bal does not roll the playfield is higher.
Small dimples yes a phew.
But not what you see on let say stern SW.
Your brainwashed by stern.

Hey Kermit dude....that was taken with a Fluorescent LED light above the pf.

False. In this thread I've posted pictures from an AFMr on location, an IPDB photo of RZ, and a HUO Houdini. All three show signs of dimpling, but the real kicker is that the AFMr is absolutely as bad as your pic of the DP in the first post.

Seriously, go look at those AFMr photos on the first page of this thread and tell me that this is exclusively a "Stern thing". You won't because you can't.

huh?

Ok don't freak, cool white led light....how's that?

I’ll play. Here’s my Tron. I’d call this “normal dimpling” as you don’t see it unless you’re really looking for it. Again I’ll post a picture of a cratered TWD. This is a different type of dimpling & should not be considered acceptable.

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i've had to restore at least 15-20 BSD fields over the years for people, and every one of them were littered with dimples. But pounded to shit to the point where it was almost flat again, But you can still see a slight wave in the clear if you look at it right.

Maybe those with so many dimples have their flipper strength way too high. Before I got my replacement AFMr SOL chip I had to keep the flippers at the default setting, and they were incredibly strong - enough to keep throwing the ball into the shooter lane and make it fly off ramps; hitting the drop targets always caused the ball to bounce around and create dimples.

I've since been able to adjust my flipper strength down quite a bit and the ball is much more tame, but I still get some airballs.

I'll try to take some pictures tonight.

And there is a Tron with dimpling. When people say there are no dimples like kvan99 I call them out. All pinball machines dimple. Of course wood will vary across playfields because wood is a natural product that varies. I also think some design choices cause more dumpling than others. You put a huge bash toy a few inches from the flippers and you will get more also. Not saying the wood isn’t softer or harder - which is very well may be also.

The way a playfield is photographed can also have a dramatic effect on how it looks. I can make pretty much any playfield look crappy with the right lighting.

You're missing my point though.

There's Team "All Dimples are Normal", and they want to tell anyone who complains about crater dimples to stuff it.

There's reality: There are different types of dimpling, some is acceptable and some isn't. Some will smooth out over time, some won't.

Mine doesn't.

Show us all a game with dimples that WON'T smooth out after a million plays.

Show all the playfield restorers actual PROOF.
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Someone saying that they remember a game in an arcade 3 decades ago, not proof.

Someone saying that there is a mystery "cheap" Hard Maple, not proof.

Someone saying there is an "orange peel" dimple and a "dimple" dimple, not proof.

Someone showing a picture of a dimpled or un-dimpled playfield, is not proof of anything.

-

If you want anyone to take you seriously, you have to provide some actual proof.

I've seen and touched the lumpy games. There's NO WAY they will smooth out, EVER. You can't smooth out a playfield with a clay-like lump texture. Again LOOK at that TWD picture I posted...it's VASTLY different than other "normal dimple" games. It's on location surrounded by other games getting equal play. NONE of them look like that. Why can't you accept that SOME playfields are lemons?! Stop trying to gaslight people!!!

But again where is your PROOF that it will never smooth out?

You have none.

Thoughts in your head are not proof for everyone who restores pinball machines everyday.

Thoughts in your head are not proof to anyone who has routed games for 3 decades.

Certainly there ARE playfields that are lemons.

This looks lemony to anyone with experience:

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You have none that it will!!! Gaslighter!

Giant deep craters WILL NOT SMOOTH OUT. These types of defects are a RECENT phenomenon. Old games didn't have these types of deep cratering.

If I'm wrong, go find a lumpy clay cratered playfield, and make it smooth.

This one literally had craters and look how smooth it is now. It could use a wipe-down, but it almost looks like a layer of plexi now.

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What is most likely at play here is possibly more variables than a single reason, so it may be a combination of soft wood, over sanding, and/or faulty clear coats, plus in DP the flipper strength is up due to that “S” cross table up the ramp lock shot that is problematic if not set up right. Cratered playfields are pretty common these days, and I am thinking about NOT playing my MBrLE when it comes in because I know the clearcoat will be green and will need some time to really firm up. Has anyone seen a difference between a freshly NIB machine placed on route and the same title NIB but has sat for several weeks before putting it on site? I’m wondering if the playfields have had enough time to cure completely?

The whole argument is about deep dimpling vs normal. For some reason, the other side can't even acknowledge that there maybe abnormal dimpling on some pfs. Of course there is no proof, we just have pictures of jacked up pfs vs smooth ones. One more thing, how is the entire pf going to get pounded flat evenly if there are different dimple depths? Are all the balls going to hit with the same intensity all over? After all of this, I know that both sides have supporters and detractors, I don't think either side will ever give in. I'm Ok with that, as long as Stern doesn't push the Steel vs wood false narrative in my face.

Let’s look at it from a different perspective... was there this kind of dimpling on old flat wood tables? Not really, the ball wasn’t going airborne and the glass kept the height the ball could get off the table low so the dimpling was not nearly as bad. Mylar was the first attempt at reducing dimpling and wear and hard clear coats were the next attempt. They didn’t see this kind of wear until glass heights started growing and that started around the time of Black Knight. As a matter of fact, even the dimpling on BK wasn’t nearly this bad, due to the grade of plywood they used back then. My Family Guy has a lot of dimpling around the Fart drop targets due to bank resets sending the ball into the glass and back down on the PF. The rest of the playfield is pretty dimple free, so the amount of air balls in a game is a significant factor. If you want to reduce air balls, you need to adjust your kickers and scoops so that balls don’t catch air when they are returned to the table. Any “hop” a ball has coming from a scoop or kicker doesn’t do the damage, it’s the trajectory the ball takes when it is struck while “hopping” during multiball play that creates the screaming pinball from hell that now careens off bling, plastics and playfield that does all the harm.

code was 2003 still has it OMG Nooooo