Here is mine, beautiful isn’t it?

The bad one is lower left sling post chipped with a nice hangnail of more art about to come off.

Third photo top left sling post, cracked clear and separated but not gone yet.

Remaining photos are from right side sling posts and all exhibit various levels or rippling and bubbling don’t see any cracking yet but I didn’t remove those either so who knows.

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Yep my posts have sharp edges and burrs in spots, very poor quality post in my opinion. Plus they torqued the shit out of them causing them to sink into the clear!

If these weren’t like this who knows if this would have happened.

I still think a wider base post from day 1 that actually was flat and smooth on bottom would have been the safest course of action by the factory.

Does anyone know if the wood PF is sealed before it is painted and cleared? If sealer doesn’t totally dry before paint and clear are applied it could be easy for paint to lift off PF. Especially if the clear is soft and allows movement in the clear.

Did you speak with someone?

Here are my slings same issue, early build.
My supplier was notified within a week of owning the game.
They told me JJP isn't doing anything about it, or for the customer.

I have bought every JJP game up until this one.
Will pass on the next title.

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Guess I am the original reporting this a month after the game was released. Worked with Mirco, worked with Jack, neither offered anything to remediate.

Both sides on the bottom. A star post at each and some sealer seems to have helped.

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Yeah, I must admit I don’t know that I will do another NIB. It was a stretch for me to spend the extra cash on a JJP. Then to have this happen was painful to watch. I give it to Mirco, they did reach out right away and they said they were going to talk to Jack about it. But then nothing. Refused all offers to remediate.

Geez...hope I don’t need to involve my attorney.

Honestly not sure but if it were just a handful of people having this issue then new playfields really wouldn’t be that big of a deal.
I have a hunch this is going to be a widespread issue.

Not good at all!!!

Looks like cannon fire on this title.

Am nervous now to take a close look at my WOZ in fear of seeing this.
Been giving a mate a million questions on the Star post issue on TNA. Not stopped me from buying one last week.

Yes seeing wear is not great and the company’s need to pause and review what’s gone wrong. I get more annoyed that don’t say “hey we are trying this because we had some that did this.”

Come on, Announce they have changed to putting washers under posts or removing art from that area. Run tests to make sure the coatings not destroying the rubber or plastic.
Word gets out and having threads putting people of buying new pinballs from any supplier is not good long term!

Yeah these are some pretty gnarly photos for a bunch of 10k dollar machines that are roughly 7 month old or less.

You should remove the tortuga vuk image. Sorry but vuk hole wear is normal. Especially on a routed machine.

This doesn’t help. Let’s not get ridiculous. At best JJP offers to ship a new playfield if yours is truly so horrendous so as to warrant that. A playfield that costs less than a lawyer by the way.

In most cases though sending new posts or washers or Mylar is an acceptable solution. Hardly worth paying an attorney. I think JJP should offer that.

For me personally I don’t really care. I got a little chipping around my posts initially and after 1000 plays of doing nothing it hasn’t gotten any worse.

This is a quality issue from what I'm reading. Some posts used have a protruding edge, image below is a closeup from the one above, this is why the issue hasn't occurred on all games. Any playfield using a post like below will end up having the post dig into the clear.

JJP has used similar designed post for years without issue so what changed? Did JJP change post manufacturers or did the existing manufacturer change the design? I really hope JJP didn't change post manufacturers to save 25 cents per game as at today's prices there's no excuse for cuts in quality. My 2/4 build date posts are smooth on the bottom and came with plastic washers installed from the factory so JJP realized they needed to do something.

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If JJP had the option to get a better clear for an add on, i'd probably have paid for that.

I was being somewhat sarcastic and I did preface it by saying I hope it wouldn’t come to that but there are several who have said JJP offered no solution. Basically your problem go pound sand it sounds.

Discs, washers etc... are fine for those without or only minimal damage but what am I to do with the large hangnail just floating there? This SOB Is about to start peeling like an onion. A washer sure isn’t going to cover it and keep it there and Mylar sure as hell isnt going to help either. So seriously, wtf?

I feel bad for those with these PF issues. Let’s be honest the PF is the heart of every pinball machine. This is not a “ oh well that’s pinball” moment.

Lol...almost an exact quote from Jack.

Game on location here in Chapel Hill (@ Boxcar) has chipping on playfield and at starposts

Sounds like yours is pretty bad. Do you have pics? Just curious. In your case if it’s really bad I’d expect a free replacement PF.

Post #3 first two pics are worst and in the second pic you can see the cleft/flap that is lifted/separated but still sort of there.
The others are just rippled/starting to crack.
I just want them to give some guidance on how to get this thing to a state where I’m not worried about the whole area flaking off.
I don’t think I’m asking for too much.

I didn’t have chipping, but I thought I should do some preventative maintenance. JJ sent me 6 washers and the plan was to still use the smaller posts with these washers and 16mm Mylar circles underneath. Problem was as soon as I removed the posts saw this:

Pic one and 2 show both sling sections. Note the bit of Playfield that chipped off in pic 1. Pic 3 is my lower left post. Pic 4 is my middle left post. It has been driven in 2mm into the play field. It is down into the wood. Pic 5 is lower right post. As others have mentioned since the posts are sitting lower than the clear coat,any bump is going to lift and crack the clear coat around it. So I believe as others have done to get a hole punch of at least 25mm to stick Mylar circles around these holes and then use a star post. And don’t over tighten.

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Here is what happened when I tried to use original posts with washers and 16mm Mylar discs. The chipping became apparent when I removed the post and the Mylar won’t sit flat because the post sits below the clearcoat.

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I had this happening recently on a spooky and stern game, both playfields were replaced FOC with a fully populated playfield by Stern and Spooky.

Class acts and top notch service!

Reading this makes me never want to buy a JJP game...they’re more than expensive enough to expect great customer care too....

This thread has me feeling a little nauseous this morning, I sure hope JJP does the right thing to help y'all out. These games are way too expensive for this kind of visible issue to be acceptable IMO.

I get my POTC LE next week and therefore follow the slingshot/clearcoat issues with interest. Some thoughts from my side:

1. The whole issue is due to a bad construction of JJP. The playfield should have small holes in the playfield, in which the posts sit, so not on the clear, but in the wood. That would have prevented chipping even with sharp small posts. My Stern ST has this in the slingshot area.

2. The role of the slingshot plastics is not yet discussed. These plastics at least assist in the stability of the posts, they might be able to prevent strong pressure inwards from the sling movement if the plastics holes are properly drilled (without major space). Assuming that the chips result from the slingshot pressure inwards, a plastic can avoid this pressure if put on with slight pressure to the posts outwards (as a counter pressure to the sling pressure during gameplay). I will check the plastics when getting my LE and think of adding a clear hard plactics piece under the JJP plastics with individually drilled holes to create this counter pressure.

3. The whole group of slingshot posts are not constructed very well, because the cover plastics are connected with 2 posts only and not to the third, which has to bear the inward pressure without plastics counter assistance.

You really need to send these photos to Frank @ JJP.

The more of that voice our displeasure and wave the BS flag the more likely they will come to a good solution.

The outcome of how they handle this will surely determine whether I buy another one of their machines, period!

It's not specific to JJP, see the TNA thread. I'm really not concerned about this myself, since the damage was easily hidden with a post swap. Life is too short to freak out about this, and the game is so fun to play that it's hard to be upset about any of it.

Can you post a pic of this? I've never heard of a game ever having holes in the clear for posts

But that happens with VUKs if you don't maintain the machine
well or the machine just gets a ton of use like on route.
Look atthe HEP thread where he's restoring pins, or look at most any
restore thread. I think you should focus on the posts issue
and not include the VUK pic you posted of a routed machine,
or it discredits your concern about the post issue. You're taking
something not normal (posts issue) and combining it with something
normal (vuk wear on routed machine) and trying to say it's the same
issue.

edit: why the heck did pinside add a bunch of returns and format my post all weird lol?

I get it...not in issue for you and that is great but I’m not you.

It is my understanding that spooky has replaced pf’s and in my particular case the star posts I ordered aren’t hiding and stopping the peeling. Your fortunate to only have a small chip I guess. Many of the folks who posted pics, a star post will not cover and stop further erosion of clear coat and art.

On my game I noticed the clearcoat/art starts to wrinkle around
those starposts as well. I didn't touch it yet. Looks like it will
start to flake off pretty soon.

It's not that easily noticable, so not the biggest issue for me.
However, I'd like to prevent the flaking from getting more serious.
Bigger starposts just do more damage, from what I read...

Two issues here. Obviosly the bottom of the posts should be flat
as others have pointed out. And without a doubt the hole thru the
wood for the screw itself is WAY too big, so these post have
hardly any bearing when tourqued down, thus putting all the pressure
on the edge of the hole

yep, you have to get it right away. I got my LE at Allentown and
had more standard star posts installed with washers
underneath within a week -- so I'm fine. Some of this damage from y'all looks like not an easy fix/if at all.

From what I can tell these skinny posts are used in the chapter select area, behind the pops as well and don’t see the rippling or impressions in the clear.

There is one star post that also doesn’t seem to exhibit this wear from what I can see.

So it makes me wonder, is this style of post even suitable for the slings?

Could the amount of power in the slings also be a contributing factor, I know I had to dial mine back quite a bit as they were creating some wild ball action.

Could the power and the fact that the third post doesn’t help support the sling setup be a weakness too?

LOL if this were a Stern game you would be on a Stern cost cut rant for such a small run this does not seem to be a small issue

Could this be a contributing factor as to why they shut it down so abruptly? I don’t personally buy the lack of parts excuse.

Anyone with a CE having cracking and chipping PF’s?

I suggest changing the title of this thread:

1. Remove mention of "dimples" as that is a standard unavoidable pinball issue.
2. Replace "star" with "sling" as the default sling posts are the ones we're discussing, right?

Check out the uneven sharp edge on this post that caused my damage.

Talk about poor quality

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I have a CE that I received on April 2, 2019 that has the washers already installed.

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