(Topic ID: 227365)

Deadpeel

By wolfemaaan

5 years ago


Topic Heartbeat

Topic Stats

  • 357 posts
  • 101 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 5 years ago by king-pin
  • Topic is favorited by 5 Pinsiders

You

Linked Games

No games have been linked to this topic.

    Topic Gallery

    View topic image gallery

    03212017heavensgatebody01 (resized).jpg
    IMG_20180806_134152639_HDR (resized).jpg
    adm (resized).jpg
    9a2c458cd575462ce25f07ab26f5b0a0bd9d4c48 (resized).jpg
    ef01dcef26394898df3c577424ea257f6239c6d0 (resized).jpg
    11f396c4f32ccc1d72fa2a8546d76fca428841c5 (resized).jpg
    87770978_XS (resized).jpg
    12233207-corn-field-corn-on-the-cob (resized).jpg
    fathom_close1 (resized).jpg
    TEtmVwp (resized).jpg
    fathom1 (resized).jpg
    1110182140b (resized).jpg
    1110182141a (resized).jpg
    pasted_image (resized).png
    xenon-dimples (resized).jpg
    orbitor1.jpg

    You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider bublehead.
    Click here to go back to viewing the entire thread.

    -1
    #217 5 years ago

    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.

    #247 5 years ago

    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?

    #249 5 years ago

    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.

    #253 5 years ago

    @vid, wood is a fickle thing. Ask a luthier. Talk about people who know something about wood wear and dimples and topcoats. If you sand away too much of the hardwood while finishing the pf, you don’t have to go all the way through the hardwood to make it more susceptible to dimples. The thicker the hard layer, the less the depth of the dimples, simple physics. And a coating, even very thin, can have a major affect on surface hardness. Especially when the coating binds to the substrate. Car manufacturers use hard clear topcoats to limit paint dings from rocks... you going to tell me they go to all that expense because they just like the shiny surface? And they are just as thin as our playfield clear coats. Not picking a side here, just saying that dimpling seems to be an industry wide problem that we either accept or do something about. Not sure what it is we all want except perfect playfields that never get worn out.

    #257 5 years ago

    @vid, no evidence, but it could be a factor. I think we need to put all our collective heads together and solve the issue. My memory and recollection is that dimpling, though a mild problem in the past, is a major problem now. That shot of AFM and Deadpool are what I would consider manufacturing fails. I have seen lost wood AFM’s that had flatter surfaces than that. I’m not here to argue if it is or is not a problem, it is a verifiable fact the playfields look like this after only 2-3 days of play on site. The Deadpool Pro next to the tournament area at Expo looked exactly like that picture and it was smooth as glass on the day it was unboxed. I know because I helped pop it’s cherry playing the 3rd player on it’s maiden game Wednesday and it was the last machine left playable Saturday night by the public when I put 6 bucks in it and played my last game of the Expo. All desire to own a Deadpool pretty much went out the window when I saw the surface of the playfield. Stern and all the other manufacturers should take note. We want stronger and more durable playfields. That’s all.

    #263 5 years ago

    @vid1900, good that it was played? Yes! That is a good thing. That it looks that rough in 3 days? Not good. My Family Guy was NIB and used in the flip out tournament in Chicago and was played hard for 3 days straight. It is a standard Stern playfield and it didn’t look like moonbase alpha afterwards. Nor did the POTC or Spider-Man machines that were also used that year. My experience differs so I’m not going to argue. The OP picture is a playfield fail... IMHO

    2 weeks later
    #302 5 years ago

    This is a pretty subjective topic... one mans dipples is another man craters and vice versa... I don’t see anyone convincing anyone that old is better than new or new is as good as old or better, or new is better than old ever was, or there is no difference between new or old.

    And I think there is something to be said about quality of designs and the attention to detail that has been lost from the designers of old to the designers of new. I dont think cratering in playfields was a big deal until they took the ball into the third dimension with ramps and multiple levels (thanks Black Knight) and that up until this point the only thing they worried about was that everything was 0.53125” off the table surface or slightly higher so it reduced airballs. This was just the normal mindset, the designers just had a feel for reducing wear and tear from all their experience.

    Now the ball is traveling in ways the old designers (of flatwoods) never envisioned because they realized the destructive force of a 3 once chunk of steel traveling at flipper bat speeds could destroy the guts of a playfield if the energy wasn't handled correctly. I dont see a lot of “designed to take the heat” thinkology behind the latest modern pins and I think it shows up in all the airball damage we now see as dimples or craters. So maybe all those flatwoods and single level machines didnt have all the cottage cheese (like we remember) and its only after 30 years of recent cratered history we are coming around to accepting dimples or craters as part of modern pinball.

    How is TNA or WN:BJM holding up? Any craters on those playfields?

    #306 5 years ago

    @vid1900, I get you, yeah, they do things to help prevent noticable damage, and they do things to limit actual damage, and then they don’t do things because the cost is more than the trouble is worth. Providing Cliffies, ramp guards, and any other condom you might like to place on the playfield have only been incorporated due to the HUO and collectors crying their exspensive toys were getting chipped and their value reduced... how many ops out there are now looking at their routed machines as a source of income post use? There was a day when the fate of poor cast off carcasses of machines which had been routed to death was the dumpster, not Craigslist. And us players were happy to find those carcases and breath a little life back into them and get them running again and then if we sold them, maybe get $300 bucks, tops.

    Now people look at dimples and craters and go “My god, there has got to be something wrong with this!, I put this machine on site 3 days and nobody is going to think its worth the $6000 I paid for it NIB once they see these craters!”

    If the craters bother you too much, do what I did 20 years ago. Get a NOS playfield and put it in your pinball closet... play the phuck out of your machine. If you ever decide to get rid of it, sell the whole thing to some nube, telling him a playfield swap is nothing, You‘ve done plenty and anyone could do it.

    #309 5 years ago

    @vid1900, lol, truth.

    #314 5 years ago

    But how many ops are begging for a replacement pf because the dipples are so really bad? I dont remember hearing an op replaced a pf due to a few dimples. Usually by the time an op replaces a pf, the dimples are gone because so is the wood!
    But I think most pf swaps in the hobby (note the word hobby) are due to cosmetics more these days than how it plays. Most pf swaps for ops were (historically) due to the artwork is missing, the inserts are falling out, or are so heat warped and shrunk the ball does a St. Vitus’s Dance every time it rolls over one. Now catch me if I am wrong here, but that carny twist the ball takes and rolls SDTM has been known to be the cause of someone throwing their beer through the backglass, and one real good reason a good op will swap out pf’s when they are shot. Else thats when they hit the dumpster or go up on craigslist, usually AFTER the beer has gone through the backglass or a pitcher of beer went through the playfield glass. Seen too many pins end up at the auctions missing the BG or full of tiny squares of tempered glass all over the playfield, in the cabinet, and in the coin box, which still had the smell of stale beer wafting from it. Was it the carny twist or just a bar room fight? Who can say for any particular machine, but I have personally witnessed both.

    #318 5 years ago

    @vid1900, So I guess all those blank NOS playfields I saw the operators buying at the operators auctions and trading amounst themselves were merely for looks, huh? Wall art?, or are there any other memories you are going to tell me I don’t have, because, I have quite a few. By the way they bid on those things, hell you would swear they were made out of someth8ng other than wood. This was back in the 90’s and I saw all kinds of NOS stuff roll through there then, and yep, a lot of small ops did playfield swaps. More often big ops pulled the whole playfields and put them in a better cabinet, or canibalize it for parts and just junk the whole thing, yeah, big ops did that. In Ohio, Ky, Indiana area, small ops made their machines last as long as possible... doing pf swaps, cabinet swaps, I saw all kinds of wrong parts, wrong flippers, wrong backglasses, wrong playfields in wrong cabinets, all of it to keep them out making money. You can have your own opinion, but you can’t change the truth of my memories by just saying “never happened” because, that would be a bold faced lie.

    #322 5 years ago

    I went to Expo this year hoping to bring a Stern DP Pro home... I watched a DP Pro go from smooth as glass till it looked like god damn moon base Alpha in three days, the CGC MBrLE’s did not.

    I came home with a MBrLE on order, not a DP Pro. That’s all Stern needs to know.

    #338 5 years ago

    @vid1900, thanks for the post. I enjoyed it. At the USA Auctions, they were “open to the public” due to them being held on state lands and fairgrounds. Now, if there are some old farts on here that may remember the USA auctions, ops from all over, all sizes, bar owners, juke box ops, coin op amusement ops in general from the tristate area. The ops had no say on who could or could not buy anything. They would however jack up a bid when they didn't recognize the face on the bidder. And, unlike other auctions, there were no reserves, but the owner can bid against you, basically letting the owner jack the price then let you take the bid. I knew a lot of the regulars and a lot of these ops were friends. Yes, it is a close knit group, and yeah, when you show up and they dont know you, you will not get a good deal. But you make some friends, you shake some hands, and you join the club. When you talk the talk and walk the walk, which means you have played a fuck ton of pinball and you have been pouring quarters into their machines for years, they warm up real quick.

    #346 5 years ago
    Quoted from vid1900:

    You would see commoners stand 2 games up in the back of a pickup truck, then have them dump as soon as they turned out of the lot. It was like a video game graveyard.
    Good times!

    I have saved more pinball machines lives at the end of a USA auction by casually throwing the nubes a wrench.

    But you are correct, saw a lot of death at those things... that first dumb mistake is a $$$ killer.

    #353 5 years ago

    vid1900 and @kvan99, I would say get a room, but I think you two just might take me up on that...

    #355 5 years ago

    Pinball love is still love right?!?

    You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider bublehead.
    Click here to go back to viewing the entire thread.

    Reply

    Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.

    Hey there! Welcome to Pinside!

    Donate to Pinside

    Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!


    This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/deadpeel?tu=bublehead and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.

    Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.