I'm not there it fix someone else's pin, plenty at home for that! It was clearly related to the hardtop as you could see deformation of the surface.

I moved on to another title, the Rollergames next too it played sweet.

20220429_142151 (resized).jpgI installed one on my Blackout and I'm happy with results. Took my time and made sure the playfield was perfectly clean before I applied it. Once it was down for the few holes that were off I just took an old soldering iron with a fine tip and melted the plastic directly above the screw holes in the playfield so they were back in line.

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Yeah that does suck. I'm getting ready to put one on my Comet, which I'm happy to have after many years of no options. But I also have a Flash Gordon hardtop here and I keep thinking I should just wait for a CPR run... especially since I'm going to sell it after restore.

I played them as well. Even though the Xenon looked horrible IMO with the colored LED's, it played very similar to mine which has a NOS clear coated PF.

Space Station soon please!

My Blackout Hardtop made it onto the tournament stream at Allentown. Pretty neat.

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Well, my Gorgar plays awesome with the Hardtop and looks perfect. Can't wait to do another. Then again, I didn't screw up the installation.

Another +1 on Space Station. I just threw some halfway decent decals on the cab after a lot of resin work, and I would love to really save the playfield. Everywhere I don't have mylar is pretty bad off.

+2 on Space Station. What is it, the only pin on OE's original "teaser" survey that HASN'T been released some 4 years later? Even as other distractions and C titles see the light? Sheesh... well beyond time to show it some well-deserved belated love already! Or else for OE to finally say "Not EVER gonna happen because [reason]" and quit stringing us along...

Elektra is out! Just ordered a set for my game. First hardtop for me. Will be nice if they decide to do partial sets too with just the small upper and lower playfield hardtop sections.

What are you guys considering a bad or good install?
Is it really that much more than sanding and clear coating the inserts?

You have to do it right! Too much clear on inserts is not good (high spots). Over sanding is not good (low spots). Replacing bad inserts is required (no raised, cracked or damaged inserts) and restoring your shooter lane properly is important. Aligning the Hard Top properly and making all the adjustments to get mounting holes correct is important (they're almost never a perfect match). You get one shot once Hard Top goes down. Then you need to trim off excess plastic on edges where required. More to it than one might think if you want a good job. If you're in a hurry, don't do it.

Yeah this is a good summary!
Yes Hardtops are less expensive than a repo playfield but they are NOT CHEAP products and will last a really long time
Yes Hardtops are quicker and easier than a swap but that does NOT mean if you're doing a hardtop that you should be careless and cut corners

Its a bummer because someone says it costs less and is time saving gets misinterpreted as CHEAP and EASY. People need to stop thinking like this with Hardtops.

If you treat a hardtop resto the same way as you would any other high end resto you are left with an amazing looking machine with a playfield that has no chance of dimpling, or ghosting, is flat as glass, and plays smooth as butter, and will look brand new inevitably as long as you care for it like you would any other clear coated game. (Change the ball when needed and wax it after X amount of plays). And you get all the hours back from not having to touch up playfields and risk cancer from 2-part clear coating. AT LESS THAN HALF THE COST OF A REPO.

Love my Hardtop Restos:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/thruster-i-just-met-her-xenon-restoration-/page/8#post-6595405

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/i-thought-she-was-a-dirty-girl-before-i-stripped-her-down/page/6#post-5310350

LOL, hardtop and high end restro should never be compared.

I'll take a Hard Top any day over a modern Stern playfield or anything made by Mirco. I wouldn't be surprised if the future of playfields is some form of Hard Top rather than digital printing and clear coating. It would solve the problem of pooling and chipping. This would allow manufacturers to crank out pins with no curing time!
Furthermore, at current prices for classic pins, a repro playfield is out of the question! Even a Hard Top job for a restoration project can put you over budget by the time you finish with everything! Hard Tops are going to save a shit load of pins! Or would you prefer to pay far more for a restored original with the entire playfield silk screen shifted off center? Which is common.
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Hell, my Deadpool came with an extra NIB playfield because the previous owner had a couple chips. I have it hanging on the wall. The original playfield has thicker clear coat. Ya, that was their solution to pooling and chipping. Rather than longer curing time, we got thinner clear coating! If I run my finger over the new PF, I can feel every ridge of the art print and inserts. My Hard Top is glass smooth! Also I'll never get raised or cupped inserts affecting ball action much.

And yet stubborn ways will keep us painting over cheap wood and clearing thinner coats and bitching about dimples and pooling and wear because “that’s the way we’ve always done it!” Even though we aren’t doing it the “way we’ve always done it” it’s a watered down, rushed, horrible quality, cost cut so bad it’s not even funny new way that some how we are being asked to pay more for.
Hell, I can walk up to a machine now and with in a second of the first glance I can tell it’s CPR because it looks like the clear was applied in top to bottom strokes with a paint brush from Ace Hardware.

Yup, perfect example of paradigm thinking!

Also, I have read many times that the new digital playfield printing does not bond to the wood as well as the silk screen method of yesterday? Supposedly a reason for the paint lifting with the CC pool chipping.

Hmmm… I don’t think the quality of factory playfield clear has ever really been as amazing as you’re making out.

I’m happy to have hardtops available but wood playfields are king for me and I’m happy they are still around.

Products like hard tops, flat packed cabs and yoppsicles have me excited about the future of pinball resto. As much as I like CPR, the last title I purchased (BOPP) had all 10 rollovers completely overflowing with clear coat. Piss poor quality control that took hours of my time to correct. The judges of machines at the last TPF put out a call for maintaining originality in machines. And as much as I can embrace the concept of purity in a resto I am also all for embracing new tech. (Been building gaming systems for years and it took me no time to go from physical hard drives to SSDs. A terabyte on a stick of gum? Yes please!) The whole concept of my company(Third Coast Pinball) is to help regular folk to build a dream classic pin of their own. And thanks to companies like Outside Edge it is more affordable than ever. I have a collection of wrecked classic Bally and Stern playfields I will be hard topping in the near future. Threads like this help us all to learn lessons through others' pain and progress. Keep it up all y'all!!

Shawn

Lol, they made plastic fields, it was a failure. They don't do it anymore. It's more expensive. Bonding the ink to the base will fix the chipping, is not a clear failure, that's a substrate bonding issue, not a top coat issue.

Clears were thin. Then people got stupid and started demanding super shiny thick clear so manufactures gave them what they wanted. But paints and clears have actual spec'd thicknesses they are to be applied to. Make them too thick they fail.

What do you mean plastic playfields were a failure? The Middle/main playfield on Elektra is covered in thick plastic and is fine. My issues are with the upper and lower playfields that were never protected. The upper on mine is really awful. There wasn’t a replacement playfield set available from anyone. It’s awesome there is now a hardtop available. The games I’ve run across that had hardtops were well done and played well.

This plastic playfield is almost 30 years old snd still looks new. Not sure why they didn't catch on more.

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I think I had the same experience on that machine

The ball was getting stuck between the shooter lane switch wire arm and the clear hardtop tab that was installed too far over

The owner needs to put a bevel on the edge of the plastic, guiding the ball to the center of the switch arm, not along side it

Nope, I got stuck on the left return lane twice and the inline drops once.

It had a card on it proudly claiming it was restored.

I'll stop here.

Ahhh...they forgot to shim up the inlines with a plastic strip...If the drop tops are not level, the ball's going to hang

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This one uses a plexiglass type top on it's playfield.

New Canista has a plexi top over a MDF playfield too.

It will never wear out

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They failed, I didn't say the fields themselves failed and were trashed. The business model failed. They were too expensive, harder to machine, and harder to repair if anything did get messed up.

I can see that. But since they hold up well I think that a Hardtop can be a great solution to fix up a lot of games that otherwise would remain trashed. I'd take one over the thin overlays.

The original post I replied to said he wouldn't be surprised if plastic fields became the norm. That was a failed idea already for the reasons above, plus many think they do not play right. A hardtop is an acceptable last resort of a trashed field. The issue is too many people put one on, then post what the game looked like originally and it had minimal wear. That is just a waste.

And many do think they play right including me as my Gorgar plays fantastic with the Hard Top. And where are you getting this "failed idea" data from? Lets see your sources?
Did you even watch the video above?

I totally agree on the point that hardtops get installed when they shouldn't. I've seen a few people that installed a hardtop on a playfield that actually looked pretty good as it was or could easily be touched up and restored. That is a waste. But for playfields like mine it is needed and I really doubt there is any difference in play for a properly installed hardtop or cleared original playfield. Once waxed they should play the same.

Not quite sure why it's a waist?
Cupped inserts are a constant on these old playfields. Few people have the skill or interest in restoring a playfield and paying somebody else to do it is cost prohibitive for most. If you wish to purchase and install a Hard Top, that's your business! I enjoyed the whole process and will do it again. And it will look and play better with a smooth, new playfield surface than one with an old surface full of cupped inserts.

All I know is that I have a Space Station playfield out of the cabinet right now. It lived a couple of years with no glass on a porch, so everywhere the mylar didn't touch, the paint is crumbling. I can live with it and just lay down a playfield protector and watch it get ground to dust underneath, or hard top this bad boy and not worry about it for the rest of this century.
I know which one I would prefer, but I have to reassemble this beast at some point...

LOL!
So you're saying that playfield manufacturers abandoned tried and true manufacturing methods to appease some customer demands for thicker clear coat at their own peril resulting in this catastrophe of pooled and chipped playfields they had to replace?
Where is your evidence that this is actually what happened?
AFASK, it was the reduced clear coat curing times so they could pump out playfields fast enough to keep up with demand.
Or possibly changing the CC formula?
Or perhaps less than ideal conditions when applied?
I don't claim to know for sure! How do you??

Hmm they tried it and stopped, that would be a failure. if it was better and cheaper it would have been used more, not stopped, its a pretty darn simple dichotomy.

If it is just cupped inserts then it seems better and cheaper to just get a playfield protector. Accomplishes the same thing if you mainly just have cupped inserts. You get a smooth play surface but at least down the road if someone does want to restore the playfield they can and that option is still open.

It totally is up to the owner of a game and they can do whatever they want. But if it is a pretty nice playfield then sanding off original artwork that many people would be happy with as is then it is a waste. Save the hardtop for games that really need it. I like hardtops. The ones I've played were well done and looked great. I bought one myself and will be installing one. Just have a different threshold than you on when I think a Hardtop is justified or needed.

How to you you know it wasn't because they didn't want to wait for the clear to cure longer? So they decided to put it on thinner?
Seems like a darn simple dichotomy.

So you have no evidence to support your claims then?

That is not even remotely the same thing! I had a playfield protector on my F-14. It sucked so bad, I cut it off. Dirt got under it constantly and looked like hell! Also, if it moves at all, it scratches the underside and then you're screwed which happened as well!

I didn't say it was the same thing. Just that it could accomplish the same thing. As with any of these your mileage may vary. Some people have have good results with playfield protectors and some not. Many people have had good experiences with hardtops and a few on here have not. Use whatever works best for you.

diamond plate was thin and worked well. when posts were driven thought it, the clear would simply break. It was thin, it didn't peel up, it didn't spiderweb. Look at old WPC games you'll see the art and topcoat fully separated in a ring where the posts pressed into the wood. People started "restoring" games by adding stupidly thick clear in order to get super shiny, wet look fields. Doing this isn't an issue when its an individual, not many people will play that one machine, or handful of machines, so they don't get much wear. Stern started to run stupid thick clear in response to this demand, you can find accounts of it all over this site. Then you were looking at a high number of machines in high traffic locations with lots of eyes on them. Flaws turn up and get seen. This was done in direct response to people looking for wet look thick clear. Did stern know it would fail, doubtful. It's not really relevant though since the failure mode is the art to the substrate not the clear to the art. Thick clear acts like a rubbery plastic film you press it, it won't break easily-it will stretch. when well bound to the art the weakest link breaks, which was and still is the art to substrate bond. This is exactly why taking art away from the posts "fixed" the issue. You removed the weak point. Guess what though, get hold of a field to sacrifice and drive home posts into the art covered areas, you'll get the same movement with the art attached to the clear. You won't see it on the posts where the art was removed. They seems to have thinned the clear back worn a bit which is also making the clear less likely to stretch rather than crack. None of this new unknown in painting. Film thickness is important. No Matter how well you prep, if the application is done too thick for the medium it will fall. You think stern and JJP are pumping out games so fast that the clear can't sure if applied by the manufactures guidelines? Williams put out more in a day than those companies do in a week. There was no "waiting" to let things cure, and with the exception of insert ghosting on some titles no issues wit the clear separating. Holding parts in inventory is expensive. it takes space and is taxed considerably. That ghosting was the same issues as now, poor bonding to the substrate. in that case to plastic which is notoriously difficult to paint with normal paints.Ghosting generally did not occur on printed inserts as the screening inks did bond to plastic well and the clear bonded to those inks well.

Curing has zero to do with plastic playfields, which were a failure.

Hard Tops have not proven to be a failure as of yet and they have been tested in the field for a few years now. No dimples either.
As far as this product goes, it never existed before.

I never said it did!

Hard Tops FTW!!!!

Hey so how bout them hardtops eh? Hoo rah go team, when's the next teaser, can we get a space station? Or like anything other than this argument?

Electra was just released.

No teaser announced yet.

You stated you wouldn't be surprised if plastic fields became the norm. It was already tried, it failed. Both as a polybarb back-printed top slab over a substrate, very similar to a hardtop, but one that actually fits right since it was cut with the PF, to a full plastic field. Both were discontinued. Both were failures from the manufacturing aspect. It's not disputable that they stopped making them that way.

"to a full plastic field"
Apples to oranges. Not what a Hard Top is. I suggested plastic over wood like the Hard Top. My apologies, I should have been more clear.

That was done, it also failed. I mentioned it, you didn't pay attention. There is also a pic of one in this very thread.