Are these comments based on your experience with your GB?

His comments are based on rabid fanboyism and lack of actual experience.

We get it. Go play some pinball and relax.

Yes I totally agree with you there. . I can relate it to the line of work I'm in with newly built houses..."LED" lighting shows up every thing

That clear chipping in the shooter lane and the out hole along with the magnitude of the ghosting is not how it has always been. This is not the norm

@vid 1900 - I love your comments and your knowledge is awesome. I also agree with not everything was "perfect" in the past.

Nevertheless Stern should listen to their customers. The market (from my point of view) has changed. Pinball machines are not only something to play with, they are collectibles. Especially if you have to invest 5-9k. We can stand some "loss", because we are having fun with the machines. But if quality issues reduce the value of a machine dramatically, the motivation of buying another NIB will also reduce dramatically... easy to understand.

Ghosting can and will happen, but it really seems like it is getting worse... so it is time for Stern to take a closer look at this.

After inspecting ALL my games shooter lanes ( where all purchased NIB or HUO off local collectors ).........all games except ONE have the birch playfield.
Low and behold guess which one has a tiny chip at the shooter lane

Nobody can blame Stern for attempting to reduce BOM costs (they would be stupid not to) but they cannot let this affect quality in such a fundamental part of the machines and one thing they cannot afford to do is ignore customers concerns over these quality issues.

I don't think it is accurate to claim that pinball machines are solely intended for the coin-op market anymore. In fact a coin mechanism is now an optional extra here in the UK.

Same with my Transformers Pro, no ghosting or problems.

Your luck is that you are in europe.

EU = warranty

USA = no warranty i dont understand how this is possible.

and dont post it at their Facebook page, they will bann you !!

I wasn't thinking about cutting them...but rather something done in the clearcoat process itself, more like a cookie-cutter approach with the soft clear applied. I thought about it the same as what is done with concrete....the relief channels give it a natural path to crack when expansion and contraction takes place.

I would be scared to death to have a GB LE or premium on order right now.

Probably the best thing one can do to lessen the chance of ghosting is to keep the pin in as stable an environment as you can. Keep away from windows, sunlight, garages, exterior walls, etc, and keep the temp at a constant. Basements are good to regulate temperature, but they are notoriously humid, so run a de-humidifier unless yours is abnormally dry. Best place in a home is probably near the center of the ground floor. I have several antique games with doors that will stick if the humidity gets too high, and in turn will show gaps if the humidity is low. I run a dehumidifier in the summer, and a humidifier in the winter to keep everything at an even humidity level.

Vid can chime in here, but I am guessing one reason we see this so much more these days is because home machines are constantly turned off and on. (Hot/Cold Cycles) Pins on location are turned on constantly, and therefore they are at a more constant temp. Even LED's do put off some heat.

Ok can anyone from North America chime in on this. Is anyone in the states or Canada living the same experience?

I had to go and look at my shooter lanes. My WOZ looks like Birch... TWD looks like Maple... ACDC looks like Birch....IM pro looks like maple.

LOL.

Who the hell knows.

It all just looks like wood to me.

This is a pinball machine. You make it sound like we're trying to keep a fish alive. It should not happen period.

$10K by Christmas???

A ghostbusters ghosting.....every ghost chasers dream LOL

For purposes of education, all playfield inserts exhibit ghosting at some point in their lives if a modern stylized clear coat was used, particularly in the last 25+ years.
Even if only minor.
Older playfield "Tuffcoats" and other sealers are a little different, but this is a fact of life regarding pinballs using a combination of clearcoats, wood, plastic inserts and other factors for play surfacing.
Problems can be reduced by keeping games in controlled environments.
This has been mentioned by others, including Vid1900 and others in the past, so there is value in the statements.
Understanding the nature of how the clear coat process can be effected by your surroundings will help protect your games, but is not a guarantee that there is not a manufacturing defect.

We are talking about pinball machines, here... correct?

This reminds me of thread a year or so ago where someone said they wear disposable rubber gloves while they play their pins.

I get the OP's frustration...big money is involved and that causes passions to run high... but you have to remember these games are coin-operated amusement equipment. They are meant to go in locations and earn money. That means being moved around, put in bars, slapped around, picked-up and moved, placed near windows, in hot rooms, cold rooms, near bathrooms, in high traffic areas, and places where kids will stick gum under the cab. They aren't manufactured to be cocooned in bubble wrap and placed in a vault with million dollar works of art.

Buying NIB is a total luxury...100%... it's not a requirement. I'm not suggesting that manufacturing flaws should be acceptable...but, at some point that sum of money that you've plopped down for one of these machines has to be an assumed loss. Life happens.

Ha.....If it were a fish tales. then I would agree...lol

I'm not saying it should happen, I am just saying a temp and humidity stable environment is the best chance to keep it from happening or at least from getting worse, and why not do what you can to protect yourself? I am no expert on playfields, but I have to imagine it is hard to get the clear to properly adhere to plastic inserts. It may not be the clear they are using....maybe the makeup of the inserts changed and caused the issue....truth is none of us know for sure. We all know how hard it can be to glue anything plastic and have it stay for any length of time, so this has got to be an ongoing challenge, especially when they are not doing the playfields themselves. If it is not separating when it goes down the line, how is QA supposed to know it is going to happen and reject it? If we told them to keep the playfields for another 2 months and let them cure, then everyone would be screaming because they are behind. I am NOT saying it is right or acceptable, and I am not saying it isn't either......I am merely saying it can't be easy, and tact and conversation work better than torches and pitchforks....or even porches and titchforks.

Wasn't suggesting the rubber glove treatment...merely saying if you want to lessen the chances or amount of damage, a controlled environment is best. I had a friend who had one of those inflatable bubbles he would park his Harley in that circulated air around the bike and controlled the humidity. Maybe one of those would work for my pins.......lol

Has anyone emailed a link to this thread to Patrick or Chas at Stern?

That is the big question. Something did.

Nothing really: ongoing price increases with ongoing cost cutting. Buyers still shelling out for the privilege. Torches and pitchforks, until Star Wars Super LE is announced. It will ship with alpha code, the decals will come uninstalled so its your fault they look crappy, and the PF will be insert free "because of internet bitching", but buyers will still eat it up .

I thought they moved the clearcoating to "in house", at that time as a change.

I think the quality has changed

Until the quality issue at Stern improve and seem to settle down a little the only NIB sterns I'll be buying are older titles without all these playfield and decal issues. I don't expect a pin to stay completely perfect but for £6950 ($9800) for a premium when I open the box I expect it to be near perfect.

Shouldn't be opening a NIB pin to find peeling decals or decals hanging off and serious playfield issues like cracks and chips before a single ball has rolled down it.

Just to dispell a myth being put forth over and over. While having a controlled environment for a pinball machine is a good thing, don't think for a moment that that will prevent the kind of insert delmaination occurring on Stern fields. That is 100% a manufacturing process problem stemming from improper methods/materials used to construct the field. There is probably little to nothing that a person with such a field in their machine can do to prevent the problem short of swapping in an entirely new field that doesn't have the issue. The mechanical/chemical bond between the insert and the underside of the clear WILL fail over time with normal use on such fields, plain, simple and tragic.

Almost every pf manufaturer has faced it at some point, ESPECIALLY new ones. It is in fact rocket science. The manufactuer I've worked with spent years tweaking/perfecting their process, and the secrets they developed didn't come easy or cheap.

I had heard rumors that Stern was making changes to who built their fields. Clearly they have an issue with the new production process/vendor.

-Jim

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I don't think anyone said controlled environments will prevent this from happening. It just stands to reason there will be less change over time in a controlled environment. Yes, there is a problem if they are ghosting this quick, and stern needs to figure it out. But sitting a pin in a damp basement, or a hot/cold garage will not make the problem any better.......

Hey guys I've been following this thread because I find it interesting and also because I have a MET pro led on order and am genuinely concerned. Anyway This whole wood expanding/contracting thing reminds me of when I used to do carpentry and assist with hardwood floor installations. Whenever we would get a shipment of wood we had to first bring it into the house where this wood was going to be installed, take the plastic shrink wrap off, place furring strips in between each piece of wood, and let it air out also known as acclimate to the new environment for 5-7 DAYS!! The wood would expand/contract as humidity levels would change so if you installed the floor right away the gaps in the joints would look horrible as it acclimated after it was installed. I remember once my irritable boss had us install a floor right away with no acclimation time because he wanted to cut corners and GUESS WHAT.... the floor shrunk and the joints that were tight at installation were now varying between 1/4"-1/2"!!! Looked like crap. Anyway....could Sterns playfield supplier trying to keep up with demand be cutting corners in the wood department?? Not letting it acclimate? Could the playfield be acclimating still once its at your house now? Just some thoughts because this all seems like new problems. Or maybe the bottom of these playfields need a coat of sealant as well? Im truly confused like everyone else as to why this is a problem now.

Heres a pretty good link to the process and why wood needs to acclimate to its new environment for anyone whos interested.
http://www.oldewoodltd.com/what-to-know/resource-library/hardwood-floor-acclimation

Why cant playfields be made out of that material they make decks out of. Is it a vinyl-type material? Then clearcoat it. Would that work?

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It was played with in the past. I'm not sure if the artwork was painted underneath. Orbiter 1 has a clear PF with a moonscape below. I remember way back people discussing hole stripping, polishing cloudiness, dust attraction . . . I'll have to go way back and read again.

Playfields have been made out of plastic in the past.

Some of the reasons the concept failed was maintenance, traditional acceptance, scratches, and warping due to get damage, and cost.

Sound familiar?
It should.
It was an experiment.

What a lot of people do not realize is this whole clear coat debate has happened before in the late 1980s into the 1990s.
Look up the understanding between SP vs TAG vs LS vs LS Topcoat and the creation of the "Diamond Plate" logo.
"The wheels of the bus go round and round".
Look it up, and educate, but if you don't want to both here you go:

http://www.hsapinball.com/HSA_PINBALL/PF_Production.html

Yes, this is the same thing in terms of trying to figure out the best application of coatings, what provided the best color and adhesion, and durability.
Someone is "experimenting again", and I am only going to guess that it was Churchill Cabinets under pretense by Stern.
This is more cost cutting.
The market stall is coming slowly, I can sense it.
Smart distributors and dealers know it as well.

I mean just use that material in place of the wood. Clearcoat it the same as the real wood one. Well, I guess if something better was out there, they'd use it...

Didn't Riverboat Gambler have a composite playfield?

Also the composite materials don't take screws well and you'd need to use t-nuts everywhere.