When someone sends you a pin to restore and part of that restore involves you applying the clear coat, how long to allow the play field to set and cure the clear before you start building it back up ?

Have you ever worked on an assembly line? Lines generally move fast. Employees are not standing around picking their noses. New hires on the line make new hire mistakes. Depending on management, discipline, and punishment, a new hire is most likely scared to death of screwing up and getting fired. If management employes a punitive attitude, the new hire will probably keep quite and hope he is not found out.

I worked a tractor assembly line for a couple of months. I got 5 minutes of training and the line was rolling. On one model of tractor, if I dropped a bolt and bent down to pick it up I was behind---for the rest of the ever-loving shift. It sucked.

I doubt working on Stern's assemble line is a picnic. Maybe the employee thinks mistake will be covered under a piece of plastic. Mum is the word and act like it was not you who cut the fart.

Tools foul up. The line does not stop. Need to take a leak. Hold it until lunch time. The line does not stop.

On my Munsters I have found wire harness sections routed incorrectly and stretched to the limit because of the misrouting before the connectors were snapped together.

There are the movies you see on TV of some assembly line. And then there are the real assembly lines peopled by real people and no one is looking.

An assembly line that is worked by people and not a machine is going to have assembly line problems. Doesn't matter if it is a tractor or a pin.

The things you would want to know about an assembly line is how many units of "X" have been built? There is an experience curve and lots of mistakes will be made during the early part of Unit "X"s run. And how stable are the line personnel ? Are the line workers well paid old timers with lots of experience? Or is there a lot of new hire turnover?; In other words, does Stern treat its line workers with the same respect as a game designer, an engineer, or a coder? Or are the line workers treated like non-skilled people who can be easily replaced?
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Hand made quality is nice but is overrated.

If you can indent the clear then it is not cured. Correct?

As time progresses, eventually the clear will cure on its own. Correct? If so, how does sending your play field off for more clear to be placed on top of the already uncured clear going to help things?

Suggest you run a small bit of superglue at that chip on the clear. Clear can start peeling. Superglue will lock it down solid.

I bought a clear coated play field. It arrived looking very nice and I put back in the ship box for storage.

3 months later when I removed it from the box I discovered that the the clear had settled at a different rate over the inserts and I could close my eyes and run my hands across the play field and feel the depression over every insert. But I wanted baby butt smooth so I did a light block sand and polish to get smooth but i did not like the look.

I swung a paint gun for several years painting small aircraft parts. But my work was mainly for parts protection and not beauty type work.

The only way to get the finish I wanted was to go buy a paint gun and equipment and go back into the painting biz.

I put all my coats of clear on in one session starting with a dry starter coat that I let flash for about 15 minutes. And then I went wet.

Dry to the touch did not take much time. I let the play field cure for about 2 weeks, block sanded and buffed. That play field sparkled in the sun. The play field was cured and dry and I started installing parts. But a few weeks after I had the play field built up I noticed that my clear was settling at the inserts just like it had been the first time.

I had to strip all of the parts. At this time I noticed when I removed the rails that the clear had become distorted under the rails; in essence, while my clear felt dry to touch and had several weeks to cure it was not really cured at all.

I did another block sand and buff and put it all back together. Several weeks later my problem with “sunken” inserts bit me again. So, one more time, I had to strip, block and polish.

So, my experience with my automotive clear that body shops use for fast work for next day delivery needed a lot of time—8 months maybe—to cure.

For my 2nd play field, I only put on 4 coats in one sitting. That was last summer. And this play field is still in storage before I go further with block and polish.

I am in the camp that unless you can oven bake a clear coat then it is going to take a long time to fully cure because trying to oven bake a play field would be equal to committing suicide.

And my 3rd play field will be something like 3 coats of clear maximum. Because I have discovered that a play field does not need to be baby butt smooth to provide a great playing surface; And that once the play field is under glass and the lights are flashing it is going to be a very nice looking play field with great play action.

There are tools available that allow you to measure the thickness of your coats. But for the guy doing a play field or two, they might not be cost effective.

Painting is something you develop a feel for. When you are shooting a vertical surface and trying to get that wet shiny coat and you make one more pass with your gun and then watch in disgust and horror as your paint starts to sag and slide down to the bottom, you learn just how far you can go.

Orange peel can happen to the best of automotive painters. Indeed, I was in a Cadillac dealership several years ago on a parts chasing trip. I was gazing at the Caddy 2 seater that was selling for around $60K plus. And on the front bumper cover, on the horizontal surface was orange peel. It had been sanded and buffed but not enough.

With enough "dry" coats you can sand and polish and make the orange peel disappear and get a nice finish, but it is a lot of extra work. And if you are not careful you can sand through the paint into the primer; It will make you cry.

I imagine most people are like me and paint a play field laying on a horizontal surface. With horizontal painting, you don't have to worry about runs, sags, or curtains. With the correct viscosity, painting heavy wet coats will flow into a nice smooth surface. But since you are painting on the horizontal with heavier wet coats and no risk of runs it can be real easy to wind up with too much paint.

Those here who paint a lot can tell you what you need to be doing and maybe even tell you what you are doing wrong. And you can read all kinds of books on how to spray paint. Not too much. not too little, etc. And there are some proper spaying techniques you need to learn, you must learn. When you read up and understand that swinging a gun depends on flexible action with your wrist, no stiff arming allowed, when you learn that to get even, well distributed, coats of paint depends on flexible wrist action that would make any jazz drummer proud, you are 80% there.

Read. Listen. Watch YouTube. But in the end, you have to figure it out for yourself.

To get the last 20%, hang some surfaces on the vertical needing paint; go buy a case of cheap foo foo can paint and start painting. Try to get that nice shiny coat with no runs. Push it. Try to make it run. Make it run. See where your limits are. Once you can do that and understand how it can all fall apart in one second you will be on your way to laying down some good paint.

On the old play fields, without clear protection, you see all of these flameouts at inserts that were not level with the play field.

For playability, I don't think a minor depression at the insert matters when everything is coated in clear. As far as knowing it is there, with my play field I could not see the depressions at the inserts. I could only feel them and that was a "barely feel them". With the play field mounted, under glass, and with all of the flashing lights you will see nothing.

Knowing what I know now (at least to my satisfaction) I would have installed my play field and saved the expense of block sanding and shooting more clear.

If you want to test your play field, maybe you could lay it on the coffee table and roll some balls across and see if they are rolling straight and true.

You bought a Quicksilver play field from Mirco. Correct?

What kind of problems are you having with it, please?

I need to buy a QS play field but you are scaring me. Mirco is the only game in town. Do I need to be scared?

I was not paying attention to the hardness time check with the clear I put on my play field, but I would say it took at least 12 months to get hard. I am still working on assembling this play field. It is now two years since I did the clear and it is as hard as a rock.

I have been using PPG Deltron clear which is designed for fast cure for auto body shops to get a fender bender job in the shop one day and out the door on Day 2. But body shops are only going to apply a couple of coats of clear.

I applied several coats of clear to my play field. Logic suggests that more coats will take longer to cure. As I said in another post, I placed my first play field in the sun to cure. That play field got almost too hot to touch and it cured out in a short amount of time but I could feel the inserts shift with the heat; That scared me so play field #2 just had to cure the slow way.

SIDEBAR: I know from personal experience that you cannot bake fiberglass in a radiant heat oven ( I turned 3 aircraft wing trim tabs into footballs by doing this). I also know fiberglass does not do well in a forced air oven as an aircraft nose cone I tried to bake started delaminating and showing air bubbles under the skin surface.

Obviously, I cannot make a determination with commercial play fields clearing processes, but I'm thinking a combination of many coats of clear in an effort to make a play field look like it is under a thick shiny piece of glass and (perhaps) no viable means to bake a play field for a fast cure is contributing to these play field problems we are reading about and experiencing.

My conclusion: These play fields need to be baked for a fast cure, but since it is probably not wise to bake wood and plastic then they are just going to need to sit for quite a while to cure.

Mitch, can you take an industrial heat gun to a small corner of your QS apron and heat it up and see what you come up with ? I'm thinking if you use some heat it will cure completely in the area you applied the heat to.

Probably not.

Polyurethane does not dry as in air dry. It dries by catalytic conversion. As soon as you add your catalyst and mix it up the conversion has started. There is a term called pot life which is low long the paint will remain in pourable form in your paint reservoir. Leave the paint mix in your paint gun beyond pot life and if you are lucky will only have to spend a couple of hours digging it out of all the nooks and crannies in your paint gun. You will only fail to ignore pot life warnings one time.

Depending on temperature, the pot life could be as short as 30 minutes on a hot day and as long as 2 hours on a cold day. But once you apply the paint it will be dry to the touch in 20 minutes; That's dry, but not cured.

The conversion rate depends on the amount of heat. I.E. it will cure faster on a hot day as opposed to a cold day. And lighter coats are going to cure somewhat faster as opposed to thicker coats where it is going to take awhile for the 'buried" paint to "dry" completely (see pot life).

And that is the problem the pinball makers can't figure out how to defeat. Time is money. Stern and the others do not have the luxury of waiting for a year for a play field to cure and they can't bake it. At least, they cannot bake a play field at elevated temps. But they might be able to bake them at 80 degrees in a forced air furnace for awhile and get a cure. 80 degrees would probably not trash a play field, but the purchase of a forced air furnace would be required. And then it would need to be decided on how many play fields can be loaded for one pass. A forced air oven where 500 play fields could be loaded would cost a fortune. Even an oven for 100 play fields would cost a lot of jack. And then you have the energy expense of keeping the thing hot.

The only sure thing is that production costs would go up.

Last night I had an opportunity to play several games on a Ruby Red WOZ.

The owner bought this pin NIB a couple of years ago. The play field was immaculate. The owner said there were some small dimples but I could not see them.

This all begs the question about what has changed.

I doubt JJP waited 12 months to allow for the clear to cure. And that play field looked almost brand new.

So, what has changed to cause these pooling problems and other issues?

Mirco, I recently received one of your Quicksilver play fields. It is beautiful. Your Quicksilver ad on Pinside says it is, "protected with a special ceramic clearcoat - same as we use on JJP/Dutchpinball/Heighway games."

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/shops/1042-mircoplayfields/02551-quicksilver-playfield

My question is this: What is ceramic clearcoat? Trying to find any valid information on the internet is an impossibility.

How is it different polyurethane clear that has been around for years? What are its advantages? What are its disadvantages? How long does it take to completely cure?

Thanks

Not trying to make small your concerns, but a play field is made of wood. They can and do warp. There is no predicting which piece of ply wood is going to warp and which one is not. But when you add your side rails, and the apron and add all of the mounting parts and install it into a cabinet, the warping will most likely disappear. I did not say "will"; I said "most likely will".

What happens is part of pinball design. There are two hanger "hooks" that position your play field to the lockdown bar receiver. When you clamp the lock down bar it presses down on these two hooks and pulls the play field into straight position. At the back of the play field, the construction is designed to also push down on the play field. Basically, both ends of the play field are clamped into position which forces the play field straight.

You can test out what I say by installing the attachment hardware to your bare play field and installed into the cab. I think you fiend out that it will be straight, flat, and run true.

I speak from experience. I have a 40 year old pin I restored. When disassembled, I noticed I had a big bow in the play field. The thing looked like a canoe it was warped so badly. But I put it all back together and it clamped in tight and straight and plays fantastically. I have another play field the same size as my warpy one. It is straight as an arrow and as flat as a table.

Put the mounting hardware on and do a mock install of your bare play field. Let us know what you find out.

A pin maker is not going to toss out a warped play field. It is going to clamped into the cab and pulled straight.

Go to the lumber yard and try to find a piece of plywood that is not warped even just a little bit. You will be looking for a long time.

I read what you said. I just thought I would share with you what I learned from my experience and let you know that all will probably turn out well.

Quite possibly the play field did its warping in the shipping box as it ships through several ship points with different weather and temps.

I can't answer that other than with customs a VAT was applied and it was going to cost him money. As a sidebar, what I don't understand is why a manufacturer cannot receive a returned product without having to deal with VAT. It does not make sense.

I am not a manufacturer. I am not selling anything. And I am not sitting here typing up a defense for Mirco, but experiencing what I have experienced with my own warped play field and connecting some dots, I would have told you to do a mock install and see if the play field would straighten out once it was installed. If after the mock install, if it was still warped, I would tell you to saw in in half, send me pics of the destroyed play field and I would send you another, with the advise that the 2nd one could warp, as well.

Doing a mock install is a bit of a PIA, I understand that. but I'll just add to my list of strange things I am finding out that I have to deal with in this imperfect hobby.

Well, since the US pinball manufacturers exported a lot of pins to Europe and around the world (you know, Gottlieb, Bally, Williams, Stern) I would imagine you and I are probably using the same play fields. And now that Mirco seems to be the big production scaled play field producer the world around, I imagine we are still using the same play fields. Speaking of which, we are talking about a play field made in Gemany, not the US.

I don't know the composition of pinball play field wood so I would not want to use it for scaffolding floors, either. Matter of fact, I don't think I would use anything less than 3/4" thick plywood for a floor. Any floor. But since we are talking pin play field wood and not scaffolding, your statement does not really apply to the situation here. If you have something else, I am all ears.

Marine plywood is a little different then the "regular" stuff. I would think that is a little more expensive than just "run-of-mill" plywood. Replacement play fields are already pushing the $1000.00 price. I doubt anyone wishes to pay extra money to avoid something that might warp and something that will, more than likely, be fastened down and clamped into a flat surface.

I had problems with a Mirco Quicksilver play field. Someone talked about HEP placing a washer under each post to lift the post up and off the play field.

I found something different.

These are rubberized washers. They lift the post up off of the play field. They do not take very much torque to tighten down and the rubber compresses just a little. They are "cupped" but placing them in a vise flattens them out.

IMG_0270 (resized).JPG

IMG_0271 (resized).JPG

IMG_0276 (resized).JPG

The part number is 290250 if anyone is interested.
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I removed a couple of posts to see how well they worked.

All that is there is a small stain of rubber that wipes off with your finger. There is no compression distortion in the paint at all.

IMG_0341 (resized).jpg

LOL. Stern does not even much of a guarantee. Everyone else is a hobby manufacturer operating on shoe strings. When product starts blowing backwards through the pipeline, the small hobby manufacturer can get overwhelmed quickly.

"Beggars can't be choosers" is where the restore guys are stuck at.