The problem is people pick the argument they want to make vs addressing the points made.

It's not 'no dimples vs dimples'. Wood dents.. everyone knows this. Yes, the more dents you have, the less obvious one dent is. So the point of 'all playfields dimple' is true.. but irrelevant to the points raised.

The point of concern is when you see the SEVERITY of these dents and their rate of appearance. When a game 2 weeks old looks like it has more ball play than games 4-5 years old.. that is not the same as things have been.

But no amount of 'leveling out' from more hits will bring height BACK up. So when you have crater impacts (not simple dents).. that spot will be lower.. period. We aren't looking at 20 year old games that have had their PF surface smashed down uniformly to these degrees.

the point is, they all did it and did the same thing when they were new. Most of these guys were not around when B/W were new. it was the same shit. Except then. nobody gave a shit because you realized it was the nature of the beast. Just like paint chips out of the front of your car. It's unavoidable. if you want to own a car, you deal with it. otherwise ride a bike. Same applies here. There isn't shit you can do about it anyway, and nobody really cares.

Nubie, obviously.

nudie? Get your pants back on!

Here would be the best example in the world.

A Steel magnet core (you know, made of solid steel) is covered in dimples from the hardened steel ball.

Now tell me of ANY wood that is harder than solid steel?

Take your time, I'll wait.....

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That's why when i get a new game I pay a pro hundreds of dollars to clearcoat my magnet cores (top and bottom).

magnets show that anything can be dented.. but are a poor analog to what to expect with the PF as a whole. Magnets have always worn worse than the rest of the PF because they throw and slam the ball into itself.

But people were complaining in the BM66 that the dimpling on the magnet core was something new (and shocking)!

LOL, I guess all of those people never owned a brand new game with an exposed magnet core.

They dimple instantly, until they have so many dimples that it looks like an even surface.

The nubies would have died if they would have bought a brand new The Shadow (The wood, it's..it's....OMG, it's dimpling right at the Sanctum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 )

Sanctum wear....sorry $500 off.

because they must have just got in the hobby when BM66 was released, otherwise they would know better. Newbs.

Dimples + BM66LE & SLE prices = furious customers demanding playfield replacements for any sign of wear.

THIS is what Stern decided to buy with their outrageous price hikes. Welcome to the new class of pinball owners Stern, hope you gave Patrick & Chas nice raises.

Aren't the "nubies" why Dr. Dude costs 2k now?

Neither....Hi is God!!!

Compare the other photo.
Potential owners need to be concerned with real problems.

This particular game has been on location for LESS than three weeks.

Dimples on magnet core and wood, but dimples don't cause the PF damage, in this short amount of time unless there are imperfections.

Operator is not happy at his $10K "investment", but it is not due to dimpling.
Certain problems are not resolved, as this is not only game I have seen similiar issues, but three.

Are owners overjoyed at the spent $10-15K?
Is this what was expected?
Did people really believe the problem was "resolved"?
Do they understand the reasons why?
Would you accept this outcome for a similiar commercial product in less than 3 weeks?

Owners make their own choices, or ask for assistance when needed from those that have experience, and most that are willing to help.

Don't just throw down the gauntlet.

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My erection

They way that pic is chipping around the magnet pole indicates that the ball is rolling from the top down. That tells me that it is slightly too low and hitting the edge of the PF. It should be adjusted so its slightly higher just by a c@#t hair. That way it NEVER touch's the edge. I adjust this on every game before a ball rolls over it. I also only use premium ball which are NOT shipped with by Stern

OMG, those dimples are awesome.

exactly this. Just like the spinning discs in whirlwind, TAF bookcase and what not. If you don't have it adjusted correctly. You will have playfield wear in about 3000 plays.

First off, with that pic if you are worried about the dimples, I would be doing something to address the obvious air-balls. A rolling ball won't dimple, and steel will dimple wood on impact. Some dense foam behind a target will stop a lot of bounce. I had a WOZ that was giving terrible airballs from one target and I got that calmed down to almost nothing just by adding a bit of dense foam.

Second, I would much rather the magnet and metal around the magnet dimple than not. If they are as hard or harder than the ball striking it, you would damage the ball, which would tear up the playfield fast.

Stop the impacts and you will stop the dimples. Outside of that, the dimples are part of pinball.

Closest I can come is Jatoba Wood......I made a cabinet out of that stuff and it about killed me. The blade on my table saw was throwing sparks! You have to work hard to damage it. The cool thing about it is how the wood oxidizes. I only used tongue oil on it (No stain) and over the past few years it has developed a really deep rich color. Beautiful wood, but hard as hell.....yes, my wood is Jatoba.

Purple heart is pretty damn hard. Expensive too!

She's got dimples on her butt.....She's pretty

you sure can, then put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye.

Maybe if your average ball time was about 2 hours (and your machine is set on 5-ball play)!

I decided to put this to the test. I removed the apron from my BSD that has a very smooth playfeld and proceeded to drop balls in that virgin area and sure enough, dimples just like on my new Batman playfield. Nothing to worry about as long as the clearcoat stays put.

Yes, but some people still will not believe you, or ask the same exact question again in less than 6 months.

This is despite reading this for the first time on a bulletin board newsgroup before the birth of RGP using a dail up modem in 1992, or actually doing any small bit of research.

I didn't believe it myself until I ran the test, and I still have a cleared NOS Skateball with no dimples at all, but on BSD there they were.

I have some antique games that I was going to test it on, but they used much better wood back then, so that might not be a fair test.

Any chance that you took pictures?

No, but I can tell you it's more obvious on the Batman probably because it is such a shiny new clearcoat and the lighting is much brighter. Like I said, I'm not going to worry about it.

If the clear starts peeling off I may join the bitching and moaning club, but so far it's holding up just fine. Aint gonna play it again until they drop some new code either as what it shipped with and what they updated it with should be a total embarrassment to them. What a joke that is. But playfield's solid.

All Maple wood is the same.

It's not like Monsanto suddenly introduced a new fraken-maple into the syrup industry.

Maple trees die young. There are no 2000 year old, "old growth" maple groves along the Pacific coast.

You grow them for 80 years, cut them down as the syrup declines, then replant them.

Old EM playfields may seem **better** because they are super low gloss and the balls travel at a much slower velocity than modern games.

I clear coated a NOS Fireball EM playfield for a guy and swapped it into his game.

It has plenty of dimples now and looks/plays better than it ever did new.

I'll drop some balls under the apron of one of my plastikoted/ hardcoated Williams 60s playfields and report back when I get around to it.

Anyone want to try this with a Zaccaria game? Whatever they used in Italy in the 70's would survive a nuclear war.

The only thing that matters for this is how far the ball drops. You can say faster games = more airballs.. but now you are back to comparing 80s and 90s games to the current games. Or maybe Stern's mechanical designs are leading to more airballs, even at a hop scale instead of glass-smashers... but certainly something has changed.

I am with you on something has changed....all of these ghosting, clearcoat chipping problems leads me to believe that something with the clearcoat has changed versus the wood. The application of the clear or the clear itself has to have changed.

Well, dimples don't seem to both the professor.

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In my grandma's basement is a pitch and bat that has been down there since the mid 60s, and the game is dimpled just like any other. Next time I am there I will grab some pics.

That's fd up. Is Williams standing behind their product? Or are they giving you the runaround?

Sure.

Those old EMs are are generally slower, have less airballs, seldom have ramps, seldom have multi-ball; but they still get dimples because Maple is softer than a hardened steel ball bearing.

That guy's old. He is probably on the list for his own pinball machine.

He should be.

No help at all. Considering a change.org petition to get my new pf.

I'm surprised the BSD dimpled, because that wood is just older and dried out, as would the Zaccaria games would be. The only fair test, imo, is to test playfields from different manufacturers today, where the wood is around the same age.

I was doing a flow test the other day. I rolled some pinballs down the street outside my house.

Lots of fast flow down the street. There weren't any dimples in the concrete as far as I could tell as they hopped down

The balls were all scuffed up. I'm gonna test those out now on my GBLE and see what kind of action I get

That reminds me, it might be time to get those factory Stern balls out of my machine.

C'mon Vid. 20 layers of Clear coat would have stopped that happening

You laugh, but I bet 200 Pinsiders are nodding their heads right now......

Dimples within normal depth aren't a cause for concern. It's the deep pits that are concerning. Dimples are normal and the ball travels too quickly to be thrown off by a few (or even a few hundred) dimples, so you'll never notice them affecting play. There have been some pics of really deep pits that go beyond pitting, but I'm willing to bet that those are extreme edge cases.

All that said, something has changed. A game with the same design (Spider-Man) as another (SMVE) has definitely shown to show a big difference in the number and depth of dimples. SMVE definitely sports a lesser-quality playfield, but it's within the window of when things were going wrong in Stern's production. Maybe that's been cleaned up by now.

Seriously though, don't let dimples bother you much. Do keep an eye on big pits in the playfield. If that happens, something is wrong.

I really wonder if modern games have just been sped up too much. I turned my coil strength down on Ghostbusters LE and I'm still making my ramp shots easily (even backhanding the left ramp). If dimples do bother you a lot, slow down your game a bit. In the end, the dimpling is unavoidable, but you can slow down the process to some degree. But as long as the dimpling is within normal range, might as well let it happen until things even out.

No.

This has not been shown at all.