If this is the epoxy stuff I'm thinking about, I thought it goes before the clear and directly onto the wood. Some folks actually either drill some small holes into the existing wood to give extra tooth or add toothpicks ends so the epoxy can attach better. If you are worried about damaging the playfield use some masking tape.

Smart move. And you will clear again after you've done the wood repair and the painting.

I have something similar I want to experiment with on an old playfield.

I really like what you have done here. I thought about it except that in my case, the hole is hexagonal so I probably will end up having to use tape, get an imperfect shape and sand a bit more. The epoxy should be super strong and really stick to the wood.

In terms of protecting the existing artwork, I don't think you need to protect it perfectly. You don't need to either because the area needs to be touched up anyway. So in your example, you had to paint the wood, the yellow strip and the black lines.

Nice work. I really like your thread.

Your thread motivated me to start playing with epoxy wood putty on a Waterworld playfield that I bought to practice on.
There wasn't much scoop repair I needed to do but I found the putty needed to be really pressed into the wood for it to feel like it was sticking. That leaves me wondering how strong the repairs are going to be. I'm thinking maybe I could have added a thin layer of 2 part epoxy glue with a small acid brush to the wood prior to putting the putty in.

Mantis should work a lot better and they are cheaper too. Cliffy are very sensitive to the shape of the area and can be a pain to make flat against the play field. As you pointed out, they affect the shot. You could couple some small pieces of Mylar with the mantis protector so the mantis forces the mylar to stay against the wall of the hole.

Amazing work, great info and fun thread to follow. The attention to detail is remarkable.

How to you remove the insert decals?

You're on your way to having one of the nicest JP's around. I see a game that looks that nice, the first thing I do is get closer to look at details and then look underneath.

Are you clearing before putting the decals on?

You're onto something there. Personally, I would leave the sentence at the top out, do the claw marks on top of the warning silk screen, and maybe add another smaller claw mark. As if the game had been hit twice.

No speaker lighting?