SMVEs definitely have more wear showing on them than the SM playfields have. Heck, my SM looks better than any of the SMVEs I've seen. Softer wood, thicker clear, whatever it is. There is a difference. They are not the same. I got my SM with under 200 plays on it, and there are two Black LEs here locally. All of them wore significantly better than the SMVEs have.

SM isn't really an airball game though. I don't really understand it. Of course, I have not seen any recent run SMVEs, every one I've played is from earlier in their production schedule.

WHAT!!!!? you are saying that everyone that has been doing this for 20 some years, might actually know what they are talking about? IT'S a MIRACLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stop saying "softer wood".

It's the same Maple wood that has been used for 70 years.

No one has gone back in time and planted some new species of Maple that has just hit the market in the last 2 years.

I'm not claiming it's that. I'm saying whatever anybody wants to call it, something is different. There's a big difference between playfields from today and playfields from a few years ago. Stern or their supplier knows. Whatever we call it doesn't change what the difference is, but there IS a difference.

And for the record, there are different types of maple used for wood. http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/differences-between-hard-maple-and-soft-maple/

I'm sure one could examine the wood and know what what used and put the difference in wood question to bed. It's probably a clear coat difference, but we just don't know.

That is crazy I just googled that about maple and was going to post it here....to funny

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There are well over 100 species of Maple tree, but playfields are made from "sugar maple" AKA "hard maple".

It's grown for syurp production, then cut down for guitar necks, playfields and flooring.

A few European made playfields were made from Birch (and you can always tell those by the shooter lane).

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Yeah ..... but what about those extra hard maple's that produce thick syrup, not that Aunt Jemima crap.

I'm no expert, but the syrup farms by my place say that **real** maple syrup is thinner than commercial HFCS fake maple you buy at the grocery store.

The really dark, thick stuff is sold as "grade B" by them.

Something about the latter in the season it's harvested, the darker the resulting syrup is (although it all has the same sugar content).

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Birch syrup is better, but it's harder to harvest. They sell it up in Alaska and I always pick some up.

Sweeter, thicker, more flavorful....?

That's what she said.

Not sweeter, but it could be if they dissolved a pound of sugar into a bottle. It's definitely thicker and more flavorful. It has a bit more of a woody flavor than maple. It's really quite good stuff. It's way more expensive though.

1. Steel is harder than wood.
2. Wood hardness is variable. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janka_hardness_test)
3. F=ma.

So unless all wooden playfields ever made came from the same tree, AND the ball hits the playfield at exactly the same velocity and direction every time, it stands to reason that some playfields will dimple more than others.

There is only a 7% variation in hardness in Hard Maple, AND the pinball industry only uses it as plywood (plywood is made from many different trees with every layer bonded with the grain running in the opposite direction) , thus averaging out any real differences.

ALL playfields dimple the same.

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this is true in every aspect. Most of you guys are too new to realize this is normal thing. Plus, years ago, nobody gave a shit if it dimpled or not, and still shouldn't. You guys worry about crap you can't do anything about. years from now, if you still care and your playfield is worn. Get it restored. If you are playing enough to put 5000+ plays on your machines, then you are hardcore and probably want some older games that are going to need some restoring anyway.

Stop right there. Thats all you need to know.

I don't think that the question is about the dimpling anymore. It's pretty clear that every game dimples. I think the question is more about the overall rate of playfield wear on new games. HUO games are wearing alarmingly fast compared to how they were wearing not all that long ago. My Tron, SM, LOTR, TSPP, AC/DC, and IM have all worn significantly less than GBLE has, and GBLE still has a very long way to go in order to catch up to the others in overall plays. Even games I've taken off route have fared better.

Maybe we need to stop chasing the glassy surface on playfield clearcoats. The oohs and ahhs aren't worth the slip in durability. If the wood is the same, it has to be the clearcoat itself or the clearing process, right? There must be a change in clearcoat hardness, flexibility, or adhesion.

Edit: And saying that people are noticing these things because they're new in pinball doesn't really add up. We didn't have these issues with NIB games like this back in the RGP days. Sure, there were fewer NIB sales and people posting, but we just weren't seeing it like this in proportion.

You want dimples? Here are some dimples. Twenty two year old GNR. The first three pics were taken to highlight the dimples. The last pic is pretty much how the playfield looks when you're playing it. It's beautiful.

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Williams quality has totally gone to shit.

It's like every game I see lately has ghosting, when just a few years ago I never saw it.

I wrote Neil a letter, and not even the courtesy of a response.

No more Williams for me; I hope they go out of business.

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Darn, and I was hoping we might get that IJ VE before the end of the next decade.

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I find the debate interesting, because the worst stern pf's I can think of were on rbions back in what 03 or 04? Not all of them mind you, but more than any stern it seemed like some of them were susceptible to quickly blowing our around the scoop and magnet. Of the ones I have had neither the scoop or magnet (after filling and reshaping) could be covered by a cliffy.

I really don't care either way, the whole debate is silly. But I will end by saying Isaac Newton and Montgomery Scott would have to disagree. All things being equal (which is impossible), a faster ball will cause a bigger dimple than a slower ball.

I know what these newbs should do. If you don't like ghosting, and you dont' like dimples. Buy only flipperless games. Guaranteed you will not get either. There you go. I have solved your butthurt problems.

Dimples, sure, but the other issues aren't the same. I never had a NIB game with all the chipping, ghosting, and cracking. This is a different beast entirely.

I think many already may know this answer, or at least what happens to most in the long term. People that restore games, do not ask the basic thread question, but a person has to get to that point in the hobby to understand anyway. Unfortunately, many do not.

At this point I have seen the dimple question argued at shows, which is actually quite entertaining until you realize the amount of money that is being spent with little understanding of what is being purchased. It is one of the primary reasons other problem areas have not been totally addressed by manufacturers, simply being able to find methods to reduce costs. There are plenty of resources for research. Manufacturers are not trying to purposely screw over owners, but they need to be aware of the base product (ie a pinball machine), until this "magical potion" listed below arrives to the market.

Personally, I am bit surprised manufacturers have not already started to try and market these type of products already.

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ugh...epic fail...

Older games look like orange peel. While waiting around in league last night, I made a point to look at the various games. Ranges of everything from 80s solid state, WPC, and modern sterns. Games like LaserCue, Shadow... they look like orange peal paint. You can see the imperfections but the impressions on the playfield are very very shallow. You can only really see it in reflections and its just small deviations.

This.. is not small deviations
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Design or materials... this thing is going to chew itself up.

You just ruined my eyes!

The dimples on the older games are all normalized together. On that Batman they stick out like a sore thumb because there are few, and there's a lot of wood that hasn't yet compressed. Over time it will look like the other games.

Perhaps the playfield plywood manufacturers should beat the shit out of the plywood with a ball peen hammer before they ship it.

Just get that fat lady up there to sit on them first.

It has to be dead flat or it won't silkscreen.

..But Stern could "pre condition" finished playfields for nubies by pouring 1" ball bearings over the entire playfield continually for a period of one year to simulate a 30-40 year old game.

-

It would be like when idiots pay extra for per-distressed "road worn" guitars.

Nobody is fooled that some yuppie dentist has put the hours into playing the guitar hanging in their office to make it worn like that.

Only $5000 brand new from Fender:

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you are missing what people are trying to tell you completely. The point is. When that shadow you looked at was new. It looked EXACTLY like that in the beginning. But over TIME......all those dimples you see. Add about 100,000 more of those to what you see. what happens is.........wait for it............none stand out, because the there isn't a spot on the playfield that doesn't have dimples anymore. Now it looks like orange peel. put that batman on route, and talk to me in 20 years, and you compare it to the shadow, and they will look the same.

Pinball companies are not going to waste money doing that, because dimples are NOT a problem.

If dimples have not caused the world to end in the last 70 years, we should be safe until at least 2080.

(and just for trivia fun, plywood IS pressed at 200psi (300 tons) when they manufacturer it).

No matter how hard you compressed the wood, a steel ball will steel mark it up anyway. The top layer is probably as hard as you're going to get it through pressure treatment.

I'm not going to debate how much you can compress wood, so as a practical matter I'd agree with you there.

What about the grade of the plywood? I know there are different grades, but I don't know what is currently used by the manufactures. Is it possible that some people are seeing some deeper dimples where a void exists?

I know a cabinet is not a playfield, but I ran into tons of voids while redoing my Shadow cabinet. Having restored several arcade machines that all use chip-board I never really had any issues with voids, but man the ply wood was terrible!

It's not the dimples that we need to worry about. It's the clearcoat that is chipping way too prematurely and the cracking. I have cracked and chipped clear on my GBLE, and it was happening in under 300 plays. That's...not good. Dimples are fine, as long as they're normal. If they're deep enough that the ball travel is affected, then that goes beyond what I would call a dimple. But the really early serious wear is not great to be seeing.

Is that a real magnet? It looks to me like a 'metallic-looking' decal over wood...like Addams...
How does real steel get divots like that? I haven't seen divots like that before on exposed magnet poles.

The head of my penis was instantly drawn to it.

It's real alright....

Because the ball is a **hardened steel ball bearing**.

Thats because once they get 10000 dimples on them, they looked leveled out.

The cabinet is made from the most crappy Spruce/Pine/Fir plywood in the world, because these are commercial coin-op machines, not English furniture.

The playfield is made from "lumbercore maple plywood" meaning that the inner plys are also made from maple. It's $$$$.

I get that. But, you ignored my main question or you are implying that "lumbercore maple plywood" is 100% perfect?

I get the dimples are part of the pinball under normal circumstances. I, however, question if the latest Stern playfields are normal..? I was more curios if there are dimples that are excessively deep if there is an obvious explanation like a void? Just spit-balling..

No, you are just repeatedly skipping over what I'm saying. It's not about the presence of dimples or not.. its about the severity of the dents (aka DEPTH). Hence why I said "...are very very shallow". Evening out doesn't bring surfaces back up.. and evening out doesn't somehow mask the transition between worn areas and areas that won't compress (like inserts).

You can't smash a PF surface down 1 mil and say 'it will even out'.. because that 1 mil depression will never come back up. Evening out only brings everything down to that level and rounds out transitions. These examples of properly broken in playfields with orange people do not have playing surfaces pushed down. The amount of compression from the thousands of plays and hits are small, hence why the difference between untouched areas and wear areas only shows itself as orange peal.. and not two levels.

That's why I keep saying its not about DIMPLES or not.. this situation is about SEVERITY of those dents and the rate at which they are appearing. The picture is to show the size and depth of the dents. You aren't going to even out craters.

We all know playfield wood dents.. I've been talking about how BIG the hits are in these new fields. Big hits = deeper depressions. Deeper depression = more transition and less likely to even out.

The new magnets have a large 'ring' head. The larger surface makes it much more noticeable when it gets nicks and dents. Magnet cores have always been softer than the balls themselves and wear. The new design just makes it much more cosmetically noticeable.

The point is the size of the hits.. not the pattern they form. More hits only hides the distinction between an area hit or not. It will not bring the surface back up. When you have a 1mil dent in your PF.. nothing will bring that surface back up to the level of the inserts.

The severity of the impacts here is the concern... not 'pristine' vs 'worn'.

I just picked up a brand new GB pro from the distributor yesterday and got it home and checked it out. The distributor loaded the latest code and play tested so I have probably 100 dimples - but these days that seems the norm but would have preferred to put those in myself and I haven't even played it yet.

my concern is I have about 6-7 "nipples" - small raised spots in the clear (I am guessing) not sure if they cleared over crap or crap floated onto the playfield straight after being sprayed. Here are a few of them.

what do you reckon vid1900 will these level out with play, or possibly chip? - they are in the fluro reflection section

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Somebody get that playfield a sweater!