Quoted from Mr_Outlane: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??
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.
Quoted from Mr_Outlane: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?
Curing has zero to do with plastic playfields, which were a failure.