I recently purchased two playfield protectors from Germany - one for a Pinbot with an original un-mylared playfield in very nice condition, hoping to keep it that way; the other for a Space Invaders with a little paint touchup, not perfect but very presentable. I don't want to be "that guy" who gripes about a product but I do want to relay my experiences for those contemplating buying similar protectors for their pins.
The protector arrived from Germany sandwiched between two pieces of cardboard that were exactly as large as the widebody Space Invaders protector. You know where this is going, the cardboard took its share of hits during shipping and the edge of the protector down by the apron was folded and kinked. The manufacturer's response when contacted was "cut it off". Not the end of the world, also not what I wanted to do with a brand new protector. But I'll live with it.
The larger problem: I laid both protectors out flat until I needed them, and when I pulled them back out to use a couple of weeks ago, I noticed something I didn't see the first time, both protectors had a raised lip around the entire edge, and around every hole cut inside the protector, on both front and back. I assume this has something to do with heat from the laser cutting process. No idea why this would occur, since, as an example, CPR's plastics are laser-cut yet perfectly flat at the edges. In some spots it's not terrible but still there, in others it's roughly half the thickness of the protector itself. Photo below shows an average spot. So this pretty much negates the "protective" aspect of the protector, as over time the lip is going to scratch a groove in the playfield all along its edges.
A reply to a post here suggested knocking the lip down with a jeweler's file or sandpaper, but honestly I didn't spend over 200 bucks to have to smooth out a couple dozen feet of plastic, a difficult enough chore but next to impossible around all the small inside curves and holes. I'd just wind up ruining the finish. If I'd wanted to do that, I would have just made a protector myself like I'm currently doing with a T2, but I wanted to save myself the hours of work making the templates so it was worth the $$ to me.
I emailed the company two weeks ago and received no response. Sent them the same email a second time several days later and again no response. I would like the two protectors replaced with ones that are entirely flat, but I have no idea if this lip is an unfortunate part of the nature of their laser cutting process and exists on all their protectors. If so, it pretty much makes them useless if the sharp lip is potentially going to damage the playfield all along its edges. I'd like to hear from anyone else who has one of these protectors with a lip, and what you did. Or if your protector is perfectly flat and doesn't have a lip around it, I'd like to hear that too, since it means they can laser-cut them without one. It's a shame, I was hoping to like these enough to get them for all my games, instead I guess I'm going to contact Paypal's resolution center and see what they have to say, since my emails are being ignored.
