Just as a general point…it seems to me that if a playfield is having problems with clear (or clear and print) separation, aren’t washers just a “finger in the dike” solution? Won’t the problem continue around the washers?

It’s really unfortunate that Mirco doesn’t communicate about their product better. I’ve don’t playfield swaps on Whitewater and Spirit, both of which seemed like a very fine product which outshone all of the various CPR swaps I’ve performed. (Very nice finish, perfectly located dimpling, even the shipping packaging was a higher calibre.) But knowing what I do now about the failures people have experienced, definitely makes me wary going forward.
I hope some good comes of the effort to hold him to account - or that Buthamburg can start producing a broad range of titles…

This is an absurd comparison.

We’re not talking about the difference between a poster print of a master painting vs. the original.

A more sensible comparison would be a reproduction of a carburetor for a vintage car. It isn’t the exact same thing, but is expected to perform in basically the same way, and to do so reliably.

If the repro carburetor leaks gas and self-destructs after 1500 miles, that’s a poor reproduction part, and its manufacturer deserves to hear feedback that their production is flawed and needs to be revamped. Doesn’t matter if it looks just like the original when it’s sitting on the shelf.

I’ve monitored this conversation for a while now, and while I initially thought it was a lot of people with unrealistic expectations, I’ve seen enough alarming testimony to have changed my opinion. I don’t have enough faith in the product to advise potential restoration customers go with Mirco playfields. Which is a shame because they are the only ones available for certain titles.

If Mirco shows that they are genuinely interested in improving their products and can show us that they’ve put in the effort, great. It shouldn’t have taken so long, but great. Until that time, I can’t buy with confidence. If it was a relatively inexpensive part, that’d be one thing, but a crapshoot on a $1000 playfield, no way.

I’ve seen a number of pictures of misaligned artwork, and while it should be better and *should* really only be sold as seconds at a reduced price, a certain amount of misalignment wouldn’t necessarily be a deal-breaker.
What really made me take notice was the massive topcoat failures and the even more shocking print layer failures.

I’m so happy that I passed on a Quicksilver project pin - I had intended to replace the playfield with a Mirco. The failures on those playfields are flat out catastrophic. $850-$1000 should absolutely buy you a product that will withstand normal use, not one that fails just from the ordinary use for which it is ostensibly intended, much less from the “stresses” of simply being assembled.

I’ve been lurking on this thread for a while but at this point I really want to amplify the message that there’s a problem here.
I installed a Mirco Whitewater playfield a while back and was super impressed by the finish, the accuracy of the dimpling, even the packaging for shipment. But now I am worried about the potential for failure. I don’t want to have to send an unhappy customer to a comment thread, essentially shrugging and saying “it’s a big club.”
I want Mirco to continue as a company because they are clearly capable of doing very good work. Assembling a new Whitewater with all new ramps is no easy task, and it all went incredibly smoothly.
If that playfield holds up, huge kudos to Mirco. On the other hand, whatever they were doing on Quicksilver and so, so many other titles we’ve seen brought up here is obviously deeply flawed, and I’m left to wonder if the WH20 owner will discover damage around the posts within the next year of home use play.
As a customer I have no way to know if there’s a manufacturing difference between Whitewater and Quicksilver. If there is one I have no way of knowing what changed, why, and whether the change was made to address previous defects.

I have no doubt that manufacturing playfields is incredibly difficult to do well and consistently. Manufacturers are using every sort of new material compared to the processes used 40 years ago, and there is lots of potential for unforeseen issues to arise. I think most reasonable people would accept that and be understanding *if* the manufacturer were making a good faith effort to address failed products. It is obviously a very complicated thing to make a customer whole once they have invested the labor involved in installing a new playfield, but by so many accounts, Mirco (and PPS) has clearly blown it on this front.

I like to tell people “there’s no such thing as a pinball emergency” - people get revved up over hobbies that they are passionate about. But in this case, I have purchased a playfield and done everything I know to do in order to install the components properly. For it to fail in the course of normal use in a customer’s house…that would be a really big problem for me. Mirco and PPS apparently do not stand behind their product. Shouldn’t a failed playfield (one with clearcoat or print separation) be replaced, if not for free then at the very least for a reduced price? It leaves people like me in a terrible position with customers whose trust we depend on.

Anyhow…I feel like I’m at risk of being repetitious. I just hope that all of this gets through to somebody. One more time: *I want to be a repeat customer, but cannot recommend these products at this time and will no longer purchase them without some accountability from the manufacturer or distributor.*

…but if the problem lies with topcoat adhesion (or, as we have seen, print layer adhesion, or both), how does applying an additional layer of clear solve anything?
The new layer of clear would be applied over a compromised base, and would delaminate along with whatever underneath it is losing purchase on the base surface.

This is the thing that makes me wary about using Mirco playfields. If there is something causing the printing or the topcoat to detach from the surface, there’s really nothing to be done about it. It’s a catastrophic failure.

Your condescension is winning you lots of new friends, I’m sure.

Original playfields wore out after several years of intense service, often with less than adequate maintenance.
Seeing playfields fail within a couple of months of use, not from wear around inserts but from actual art delaminating from the playfield *is a failed product*, full stop.

I’ve gone out of my way to politely describe why I have become wary of these products. This isn’t a case of people with unrealistic expectations, at least not all of it. There is legitimate cause for concern. I do t have it in for Mirco, I want to use his products with confidence, because what I have seen I have been very impressed with. But I can’t invest other peoples’ money in a product that has such an unreliable track record.

But sure, you go right on trying to make everyone raising concerns sound like fools. Truly, you’re advancing the conversation.

Don't misunderstand, I’m not trying to challenge the validity of your statement. I'm glad you've got a trouble-free playfield!

From my experience (as someone who likes to think he knows what he’s doing (couple dozen full restorations, full spray booth, taught by a professional finisher), it’s hard to imagine how anyone could remove all of the topcoat without damaging the art layer below. Again, I say I "like to think I know what I'm doing" not to be snarky, just by way of saying I do this work as well. I'm always ready to learn new things though, and reach out to other people doing finishing. I'm by no means an expert.

On the other hand, what you're bringing up raises interesting questions for me: was your playfield one that would have held up well regardless? It isn’t *every* Mirco that fails, after all.
Or, did the finisher’s work help the playfield longevity more from removing some of the clearcoat? (i.e., a thinner layer is less prone to cracking or lifting.)
I agree with other comments here that clear coat applied too thick invites problems. It didn’t seem terribly heavy to me on the WH2O playfield I installed, though - but that's only an isolated example.

Kruzman’s process is highly regarded, but it also takes a few months. On the other hand, given how many people are allowing months or a year of “cure time” on playfields anyway, if new playfields needed that from the factory, I bet buyers would respect a lag time between time of purchase and date of delivery. Certainly better than feeling like they had to then spend additional money to have someone redo the topcoat.

Mirco, if you are listening: there are people out here like me who see the quality you are striving for and respect it. If you cannot work with individual owners to replace defective playfields - you say these are very few in number, so it shouldn't be enough to hurt your business - then you shouldn't be selling playfields, just stick with JJP production runs. I want to buy your products, but I need to know that they are reliable and that on the rare chance that I receive defective merchandise, you will stand by your product. Seriously.

That may well be true, and I definitely look askance at people who boast about putting 10 coats of clear on their playfields. Using more clear than what is needed to protect the artwork can reach a tipping point where it's more liability than protection.

That's beside the point when it comes to Mirco.

If Mirco agrees with your point here, then the playfields from the factory should have a thinner clear layer, and the playfield warranty should be voided if additional clear is added.

That isn't the situation.

Yeah I wondered about that myself.

I installed one about a year ago and it was exemplary. Beautiful topcoat, very smooth, minimal expression of seams at inserts, and the dumpling was 100% accurate both front and back. A total slam dunk.

The only problem is, knowing what I now know about the longevity of these playfields, I worry about how it will hold up. I delivered it to the owner back in October. So far he has t reported any problems. It’s probably fine (I mean, it isn’t as though Mirco playfields are *all* defective.) But he also has a very big collection and probably hasn’t played the heck out of it. It certainly seemed fine when I worked with it and the installation went more smoothly than any of the other playfield swaps I’ve done.

Oh, I don’t think you actually care, condescending people are condescending because they think of everyone else as inferior.

But it’s interesting that in the 10 years I’ve been on Pinside, you’re the first person I’ve felt actually offended by.

Hopefully this is the only thread where that happens. Otherwise this forum is full of friendly helpful people.

I did a TOTAN restoration last fall and the owner wanted RadCals. Honestly I thought they were a pretty good product. I’m not crazy about super shiny surfaces that show off every fingerprint (the brass plated lockdown bar gives me hives…I would have to keep a microfiber cloth nearby at all times, lol), but the decals themselves were pretty nice.

Again - it’s a pity that his playfields seem untrustworthy, because the print quality and overall look of his stuff is nice. I don’t know why the guy can’t act like a grown up when there are quality control things to address. If the cost of replacing defective merchandise is gonna jeopardize the business, either he needs to figure out what’s going wrong that there are that many defects in the first place, or he needs a business partner who can manage the financials. Because if defects are not common, then replacing those items and keeping good relations with your customer base should be the obvious thing to do.

I installed a WH20 playfield last year. It seemed pretty flawless. That said, it wasn’t my machine and I haven’t seen it since October, so I have no idea whether it still looks mint or has or will develop any issues.

Could be I got one of the good ones. I didn’t know the history before starting the project. I probably would have ordered it anyway just because the playfield was really really bad, and AFAIK nobody else makes that playfield currently. But if I’d known then what I know now, I would have been nervous about it.

It’s a crapshoot. Maybe scuff sand and put on an additional topcoat, but I honestly don’t see where that helps if the issue has to do with poor adhesion from the base layer. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It’s bizarre to me that JJP hasn’t switched…I mean, it’s not like there isn’t *some other company in Germany making really good playfields* ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yeah, man, we get it, but not everyone is trying to restore a 90s game with easily reparable art loss; there’s a tipping point where playfield restorations become so laborious that it’s hard to justify. Or it requires so many layers of clear that the clear itself is at risk of issues. Or some operator gouged out the post holes so badly that you can’t fix it with dowels.

Sometimes- often - it is far more practical to replace the playfield outright. When a jerk like Mirco has the only option tied up, it hurts pinball generally. Classic Stern is having a huge renaissance, and it should be possible for people to do builds of games like Dragonfist. Mirco is just abusing peoples’ confidence and their desires. He’s created a unique hatred that I’ve seldom seen elsewhere among Pinsider.

WE GET IT

It also seems weird to me that any playfield manufacturer requires that you hand over your rare playfield. Not everyone has access, but a larger format scanner at high resolution should be sufficient for Mirco or CPR to work from. Some files on a thumb drive, done. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A hardtop is a really good option for a lot of machines. I’m convinced it’s a better option than restoration or even NOS on a game like Grand Lizard, which absolutely gets destroyed in every instance unless there’s full mylar involved.

20 years seems like a pretty good life expectancy on a playfield part which is subject to compression and impact stress.
20 years on from a scratch build or restoration, a thorough shop job is very much in order, so replacing the neoprene gaskets seems like a non-issue.
Not sure what the life expectancy of the Titan or PL silicone discs is, but I’d be impressed if they made it even 10 years.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Not that this has any bearing one way or another on Mirco. But seeing how Star posts gouge playfields over time, even the revered “90s PINS”, it seems to me those little washers aren’t such a bad idea.

Just as a point of perspective here…and this is not to diminish the very real problems people have had with Mirco’s clear coat…I’m currently doing a teardown on a Stern Iron Maiden.
You can see here the deep impressions these Star posts have left in the very thin varnish topcoat of this playfield. These aren’t in a high-impact area.
It seems to me that this “marring” is to be expected on any surface, including modern clear coat. Clear is plastic, it isn’t glass or metal. It has give, which is a good thing.

To me, seeing this strengthens the case that Cotton has made for using the neoprene gasket washers. I’m going to try them when this playfield is ready to be re-populated.

image (resized).jpg

As a person who restores pins professionally, I super appreciate you defining the terms for me. That’s so helpful!

It’s also true that I am responsible for giving a practical opinion on what people hire me to do. If someone has a blown out Space Shuttle and there isn’t a repro playfield available, I’m likely to recommend a hardtop unless they’re hellbent on having something “original.” And if the project feels like more labor than I can justify in my own mind, at any price, I’d turn such a project down. So far it’s never come to that because most people have a practical side and what they want is a nice looking game that is fun to play and will be reliable.

That said, if you want to delve into a hundred hours of pointless exercise in creating airbrush masks and waterslide decals and multiple layers of clear coat to reproduce something that has been reprinted perfectly, that’s your business I guess.

On the other hand, “restoring” by your definition would pretty much rule out the use of automotive clear coat so…

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’d call it a hardtop. And I would provide documentation of the process if I was selling one because it definitely looks like something that could be done really poorly.
I have yet to install one myself but have read up on it in case the day comes when someone wants me to install one for them.

You’ve made it abundantly clear what you think of Mirco. I’ve already said that I’m disinclined to trust their product. I would absolutely put a disclaimer on a Mirco playfield swap. AND, I would use those washers, AND, I’ve never seen a 30 year old playfield that didn’t have some amount of wear around some of the Star posts.

I feel like hating Mirco is just a hobby for some of these guys. Good lord, man, WE GET IT.

Yeah it may be time to drain this topic