I've never gone that far. I've it a section at a time but not all at once. I can't stand to be without one of them for that long.

I can. My issue is my wife cannot Lol, half the time I am in the middle of waxing a pin and low & behold, she wants to play that one! Having one out more than a day and she makes it a topic of conversation every chance she gets. My wife is a great pin player (much better than me) so she likes to have them operational as much as possible

I strip the Playfield to flat for every game. Then it gets a deep cleaning with magic eraser and 91% alcohol. All the posts get soaked and scrubbed with an electric toothbrush and redressed in fresh rubbers.

If I'm really motivated, all the mechs underneath get disassembled, cleaned and coils resleeved.

Once cleaned like this, it won't need cleaning for years. Just a coat of wax every so often to keep the ball fast.

It usually takes 10 to 15 hours.

I think discussing anything relating to "donging" on pinside is clearly against community rules.

-jon

What is with that? You mean like rubbing alcohol? Does it work well? Always willing to learn and try something new. I have not gone to flat with a pin yet but I am sure it is in my future as soon as I, "Brave up" to the task lol.

My WCS94 currently looks like that except the pile of plastic is more like a small mountain.

It evaporates quickly.

Yes, I have taken my PIN*BOT to this level of removing parts, just to clean, polish and wax the playfield. Also I was looking for more lights under the red ramp and surrounding plastic parts. I bought a heavily routed pin. I had it 3 days, then removed everything for service. It was very dirty and there were more than 2 dozen lamps out.

"light scrubbing" is very important when using 91 rubbing alcohol. It can chew through paint pretty quickly if you're not careful.

I have a toothbrush I use to wax&remove in the hard to reach areas, I like to have my machines playable at all times as much as possible but props to you for your thoroughness!

What about clear coat? Same issue or care needed?

those are some cool pics and very informative cleaning tips! do you have a preferred wax?

those are some cool pics and very informative cleaning tips! do you have a preferred wax?

I like this stuff...

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I go beyond that every time I get one but then they seem to stay clean for a long time and don't have many issues so I think its worth it. You can kind of wax them every now and then and be ok. When I get caught up with my backlog I am going to do a better restoration on either Funhouse or my Twilight zone so I will see how dirty they actually get after a year or two.

Not sure if the guy I bought my Pinbot from went quite that far, but it was squeaky clean when I got it. Haven't needed to clean beyond the exposed areas yet.

I use 91% rubbing alcohol and a magic eraser cut up into 10-12 cubes. Work slowly in small circles and you can get almost all the ground in dirt from the ball swirls.

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The above picture was before magic eraser, and this one is the after shot.

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I strip every machine as well when I get it (or when I get all the replacement parts I need to shop it). I rebuild flippers, slings, and anything else that is suspect.

I like them playing fast and violent.

I have done that with my two oldest games. I'm sure it is easier if you have more than one game in your collection. For me, I never have time to commit to getting it done within a few days. I usually have to keep coming back to it over several weeks until it is finished.

Very important to take pictures during the removal process so you can use as a reference when putting back together. Trust me, you won't remember what you think you can remember!

Good luck with the project. I always enjoy the process and learn more for the next.

Almost every single machine that comes in eventually gets the complete PF strip and extensive clean. Like the previous posters mentioned, if you do that once, the machine will be very nice for as long as you own it.

I know it's a lot of work, but look at it this way, you're improving the value of your machine AND making it more enjoyable to own. Quite often you're also improving how it plays because you're going to fix all the little issues when you do that.