Don't see too many bad Hurricane playfields. But maybe Planetary threw it in with the Comet/Cyclone licenses.

That would make more sense, lots of bad Whirlwind playfields.

My guess is also Big Guns, Whirlwind and Nitro Ground Shaker

Big guns, twister, nitro. Only going with twister cuz most everyone I've seen is really chewed up.

Can I put a vote in for Alien Poker?

RuPaul's Drag Race?? LOL

And a pretty easy one at that So excited everytime I see a new of of these hardtops drop. Bringing more value/desire for me towards the 'older' games now that the playfield can be 'refreshed'

If they’re secure sand those bad boys level

You will need to pull the mylar before you lay the hardtop.

Leveling an insert doesn't take much. Apply alittle heat with a heat gun and press with your finger or use a deep throat clamp. You can get a 8 or 12" deep throat clamp at harbor freight for $10.

I have replaced most of the inserts on the Hardtop installations I have done but you absolutely don't have to do that. I would assume most people don't. As others have said, you can sand them as they sit in the playfield. Use the heat gun or freeze spray method to get all of the mylar up before you start sanding. I wipe the playfield with a tack cloth and then naphtha after sanding. Outside Edge recommends spraying the playfield with clear coat(allow proper curing time) before apply the Hardtop. The clear coat should shine up the inserts after you sand the playfield.

Gently warm them with hair dryer (heat gun will quickly melt them)

clamp them down.

then glue with epoxy from back side once they cool

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-to-ultimate-playfield-restoration#post-551406

They are thinner than you think, and it's easy to sand right trough them, as they were already sanded at the factory
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Not at all.

A clever person could use blocks of wood in varying sizes to avoid under/over playfield obstacles, just like when you are replacing a single cracked insert on a working game

Do a "dry run" before you heat anything and make sure you have your gameplan figured out....

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Mathazar did you end doing 3 coats like the instructions are saying or...? any sanding?

I sanded out the ball wear/track areas of the upper arch and the shooter lane itself, then put down two coats of poly sanding 800 between coats. Happy with the results....here's what it looked like before popping it back into the restored cabinet:

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really nice, thank you!

Looking for advice. We finally installed a hardtop on our Space Shuttle. It was in fact one of the first they ever released (bought in the first week it was available), but only just now got around to installing (mainly because I didn't do it someone with more time and patience than me did). So it looks absolutely gorgeous, I love it, but there is one small problem. The hardtop is lifting ever so slightly where the light blue circle is. It wasn't doing this after installation. So it creates a bit of a bump there which is not terrible but kinda less than ideal, since a slow moving ball will have its trajectory effected. You can press on it and it will lay flat, but then springs back up again.

So my thought was that when re-installing all the posts and such that it compressed a little creating some force to cause it to lift. Possibly just reinstalling posts and such will let it sit back down nicely.

If we do have to glue it, my thought was to drill a small gauge hole underneath playfield VERY CAREFULLY, say 1/32" and then run a syringe of epoxy up there and then clamp or just put a heavy weight on it there to let it adhere.

Any other thoughts/ideas here ? Love the product otherwise.

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The Space Shuttle hardtop came out 3 or 4 years ago, right, and you bought about when it first came out? IIRC, the shelf life of the adhesive is only a couple of years and the hardtop should be installed within that timeframe in order to have the most secure bond (which in turn should last for years and years after the installation). It's quite probable that the adhesive is starting to fail because of the installation not taking place within those initial two years. I'd recommend reaching out to Outside Edge to confirm that and see if they have any remedy recommendations. Barring that, if this winds up being the only isolated failure point, your idea of shooting a syringe of epoxy in the cavity and clamping or weighting it down for bonding is a good one. Your lifting is in a bad spot, tho, so like you point out you have to very, very careful in drilling from underneath to reach it. I used the syringe method once on an EBD hardtop that failed with a small lift point in the right in-lane, but fortunately I had an entry point near the edge of a lamp cutout to shoot in the epoxy without having to drill any holes.

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I'd try and clear out all the sockets and posts on both sides, warming the HT with a hair dryer, then clamp with blocks on both sides

3M says it should be installed at a temp between 100-130*F

Use a 12" c-clamp

Leave under pressure for a week or so

-

Q:. Was the entire playfield clear coated prior to installation?

I had some bad staining in the upper left portion of my playfield so opted to go with a mettalic black ..everywhere that was clear including the shooter lane and clearcoated ot all before laying down the hardtop..Hardtop... The hardtop looked so nice I had to get new CPR plastics .. not finished yet ..still gotta finish rebuilding the pops and flippers.. I did go ahead and paint my bats the same mettalic black and plan on running red Titan rubbers

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Man oh man! A few years ago I almost went this route with my Mata Hari after I sanded the top too much but I only painted an arch to hide it and painted the saucer. It inspired a few others to paint the saucer black but now seeing this I wish I’ve would’ve just went all black through out because it looks bad ass!

Hey All,
So I'm going to be doing a hardtop for my Black Knight this fall, I was curious if Outside Edge includes shims for the ramps now or do they just add some extra material to create shims from?

Thinking about the approach here is all, I'm wondering if it makes sense to fill the divot areas where the ramp flaps attach with epoxy and sand it all flat/flush with the original playfield - Before adding the hardtop. Then once the hardtop is added, I'd need to shim under the ramp flap as well (but the shim would be the exact thickness of the hardtop)

Does this make sense to do or am I overthinking it?

Thanks

You're not overthinking it.

I got a Black Knight hardtop a few months ago and it came with an extra strip of clear hardtop material (PET-G) to use as shims. FWIW, I did not fill in those divot areas. My thinking was that if the original playfield and the original divot areas worked fine at the ramp entrances height-wise before the hardtop install (they did), that adding the hardtop to the top of the playfield and also adding the provided hardtop shim to the divot area I'll get the same height ratio. In my rotisserie, that does appear to be the case after installation....the transition seems pretty smooth/level to me. The proof will come when the playfield is positioned in the proper slope.

I'm working on painting the cabinet now, so it'll be a few weeks before the playfield is installed. But I'm pretty confident it'll be ok.

Those divots for the ramps are tricky. Where an issue will come up is if a ball just dribbles up the ramp, and if the divot is too deep the ball will get hung up. Easy enought to shim later though.

-hans

Thanks man I appreciate it.. I wanted to do something a little different and was pleased with the outcome.. still got allot of work to do before I finish as I am doing the cabinet and head with Pinball Pimp stencils and am going to go mettalic on all the paints and a high gloss clear.. still trying to figure out what color to do the legs, armor, and coin door..

It all comes down to the thickness of the metal ramps vs. the thickness of the Hardtop and how deep the recess was routered into the playfiled. It may need a shim the thickness of the hardtop or it may need more or less. The ramps on my BK were sitting a little low in the playfiled so I'm having to go a bit more than the .030"

Appreciate the feedback, just had a few more questions.

For Black Knight installers - The hardtop does not have any shooter lane piece - so the hardtop looks like it will lay down just to the Left of the shooter lane routing/divot - is there any issue by not having any hardtop on the Right side to match - I realize the rail will hide most of that area - just curious if that will impact plunges.

For insert polishing - has anyone just decided to only use Novus 2 after sanding everything with 220 to polish up the inserts, vs doing all the step up in grit/wet sanding?

With respect to the polishing, the steps are needed to save you time in the long run. Normally the amount of effort to polish out the deep scratches left by 220 grit with something that has small grit like Novus 2 is not worth the time investment when you can do the steps with less effort. You can think of it this way, each step finer in grit makes smaller scratches on the surface. The larger the initial scratch, the amount of time the smaller scratch needs to grind away the larger scratch to even it out increases. That relationship is not linear, so the larger the difference in scratch sizes the longer you need to polish with the smaller size grit to even out the previous step.

Makes sense to me, appreciate it!

Saving a Taxi. Getting close to the home stretch. Trying to get everything back on and just happy to have made it this far. Thank you to the Pinball community.

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Yes!! My Taxi hardtop arrived this morning!! Busily cleaning the parts that can be cleaned and buying replacements where needed.

I've seen pics of people using wooden boxes to hold the playfield while they clear coat and apply the hard top - I noticed a post earlier in this thread talking about a torsion box, which is beyond what I need. I want to ask my dad (woodworking expert) to make a box that will hold the playfield with its components underneath, but I can't find any plans or even dimensions for making such a box. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

I'm using small paint cans strategically placed underneath the playfield to support it with my Black Knight - It seems like it will be stable enough to sand and have enough clearance so the mechs underneath can hang.

No need IMO....I just use two sawhorses at either end of the playfield and the underside parts just hang freely underneath. I've done it in a rotisserie as well, but frankly it's easier to apply the hardtop using sawhorses. At least for me.

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what a waste of relatively good playfields. If that's all you needed to sand then you didn't need a hardtop.

So reusing and improving a playfield to go back into a game is a waste. Got it.

What an ill-informed statement. Take your 65% Thumbs ratio and go troll another thread.

My only concern about balancing on sawhorses or paint pots, apart from the possibility of knocking it over, is the dust that can get into everything beneath the playfield if it's not protected or surrounded by anything while sanding, which is why I thought a box might be a good idea.

While that's possible, using compressed air will take care of that. I've got a little portable air compressor that I use for that kind of thing, but a can or two of "computer duster" compressed air would work just as well.

No need for a box. Dust is not a problem especially if you use a shop back attachment for you sander. Worked great for me. I also taped off the big holes on bottom side of playfield.

Agree. I was reluctant with just the sawhorses, but it worked really well. My back, however, wouldn't rate it as well

Finish a hardtop on a Comet, can't believe how much better it plays, almost too fast, but fun as hell

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Looks great, Iike the green flippers!

I think the gate by your left flipper is incorrect.