I heard some differing opinions on the quality & hardness of their clear. But for this rare title, and after speaking with Ron, I thought this game deserved his special treatment. I'm really curious to see how it came out. He did 8 coats of clear, polyurethaned the backside & drilled the missing hole under the apron on the Mirco playfield. I'll post a pic when it arrives.

Really?? My QS was shite!

Really. I have no complaints. It is nice and shiny. It was still a little soft when it arrived. It has been cooking off in its box as I am busy with other things.

Now, the clear is as hard as a rock. It is triple shiny. And smooth as the proverbial baby's butt. All it needs if for me to start putting it together. Color me happy.
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What was wrong with yours?

Mine's good ... same thing with the not full cured on arrival. Its great now though, not installed yet.

My “shite” comment is no doubt tainted by Mirco’s incredibly poor customer service. The artwork and colours are great, but the clearcoat was crap. Still soft maybe 6months after production, inserts weren’t level with sunken clearcoat. Not comparable to previous repro’s I’ve bought (from CPR and previous Mirco’s).

Having to re-clear a brand new playfield is BS!! But it’s the customer service which left the sour taste. The playfield looks great now.

Has anyone found some decent looking instruction cards? Since my game isn't stock, I don't really want to use the standard version.

Coindropper posted some here:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/custom-apron-cards-printable-versions-only/page/19#post-5772883

Thank you. Exactly what I was looking for.

I went with those, easy 4x6" Costco photo printing

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My new Mirco playfield arrived from Ron Kruzman yesterday. What a thing of beauty! He had it for about 4 months. I think he did something like 8 coats of clear, sanding, buffing, etc. The final results look outstanding to me. It’s like a sheet of glass. Very happy I decided to pay the extra money to get it clear coated correctly. It will still sit for a month or so before I even begin working on it.

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It looks great. Ron does amazing work. Good job sending your QS pf to him. It will be simple free for many years now.

Quicksilver resto finally done.
Cab completely redone. Semi matte finish
New Mirco playfield with extra clearcoat added
New plastics
New posts
Titan rubbers
All mechs rebuilt
All boards serviced
Legs and coin door powdercoated
All hardware tumbled polished or replaced
All wiring cleaned/replaced
Back glass is good but may replace

Still tweaking but plays pretty good already. Need to get some more ripping from the spinners. Any tips?

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The only thing I can think of is maybe you have too much tension on the switch that moves with the spinner. Try disconnecting the switch from the spinner and make sure your spinner is spinning freely and will stop anywhere in the rotation. Then adjust the switch to apply only the smallest amount tension to the spinner.

If you have already done this then I am out of ideas.

I like your storage space for the Mars Trek Backglass.

So for spinners you need to do a few items. Definitely make sure the switch as Cotton said is balanced and resting the spinner in a down position and barely not touch. No bends or issues. Tighten up the holding screw before any of this so the tension is tight to the playfield.

But before all of this. Take your spinner bracket and debur the holes where the spinner rests. Make sure they are absolute perfectly smooth on the outside and inside edges. Then take you spinners and sand the edges that float on the bracket. Make sure you high polish that surface to a fine shine. This is the spinner arms on both sides. Then use silicone lubricant on the parts BEFORE you install back on the field. The lubricant with solvents. You don't want to spray on or around the playfield. This stuff removes paint and melts plastics.

Put back together, make sure it's balance and then make sure the switch is perfectly parallel to the field when the spinner is in the resting position.

Thats all I got. I can get 200 plus spins on the left spinner on Quicksilver and Stargazer doing these small attention to detail items. My Galaxy I just sold has a super ripper too.

Awesome advice, thank you!! 200?? You mean 20 right?

I mean 200 spins. Over 100 consistently for the first few days after these tweeks.

That is incredible!! :-O

Glad to hear this. I have been getting 100 spins on Big Game inner spinner. But I don’t have camera on to prove it.

200 is phenomenal ! A goal to strive for.

Yea, That one is weird. Sometimes you can just whack the crap out of it; but other times it's just 1/2 arse. But yup BG can get a rip it and 100 with that spinner means your doing the right things!

Beautiful classic look! You did a wonderful job on this Resto. If only my build could look half as good. That coindoor....wow

Starting the next run of Q/S harnesses in 2 weeks. If I had you on my list you should have gotten a PM to confirm. If you didn't get one and have previously contacted me about a harness let me know.

Shawn

Yesterday, I made a fast trip to Ft. Worth to Keith Holbrook's to deliver my Cheetah play field for a restore.

Someone is going to be getting a real nice Quicksilver when he comes to pick it up. A really nice original back glass, a Mirco play field, and a super paint and decal job on the cabinet.

I have played some of there pins that Keith has set up. He knows how to set them up for max play action.

Your eyes are going to bug out when you see what has been built for you !! This Quicksilver sparkles like a diamond in a goat's ass.

I also picked up my Quicksilver play field; Keith was going to restore this one but thanks to chrispin for donating his QS to Mirco, Mirco was able to make the repro QS play field. There is a difference between the two play fields that I am going show you. I had to wait until I got my original QS home before I could show this color comparison.

This is the repro.

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And this is the original. The pic quite plainly reveals that the original QS play field uses a shade of yellow for the arches and the areas under the plastics.

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Side by side.

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Is it a deal breaker? No. Is it correct? No.

My Nine Ball, Catacomb, Flight 2000, and Big Game all have the yellow in the arches and under the plastics. My Seawitch is white. I do not know the rhyme or reason.

This is my Mirco play field. It has been sitting in its box for about 6 months now. The clear has cured and is as hard as a rock. It is smooth. I can barely feel the inserts; And that is with my eyes open.

It will be awhile before I can start this build but the play field is ready to install, as is.

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Or is the original clear yellowed, by varying degrees?

i was 100% convinced that was the reason... looks like yellowed clear to me, not a choice of color from factory

I will allow that it could be. And probably is. I did not give the aging clear much credence. I'll say this: The color on these Sterns is much better looking than the piss yellow that shows up on old Gibson guitars that were painted white.

What throws me is that the yellow shade shows up even under the posts that look like they have never been removed. So, does its yellow with age when it has been kept out of sight for all the years? I'm guessing now that it probably does.

My Seawitch is white and it is just as old as the others.

I believe some games do have off white there as specification. Turtles is a bit later, but 3 playfields I have are all the same shade of "off white" and very uniform, can't see how those areas were ever pure white. Straight White base is found beneath the off white, though.

could be environment also would be good to understand from Highclasspinball more about the colour differences. I got a quicksilver playfield from mirco and it looks great in my view. (also got meteor from CPR and that looks great too).

To be honest though, the playfield I want is nine ball. Its simple the best stern on the planet. Mine is ok at the moment but I'd love a mint one. (oh and an Ali playfield I wouldn't say no to also!).

Yup. Ali and Nineball. 2 of the greatest!!!

I started scrapping some on the clear to see what I could see ( the bear went over the mountain )

Here is some light scraping with an Exacto knife. No change in color.

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More scraping. Still yellow in color.

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A lot more scraping and some white looks like it is showing up.

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More scraping and some white is looking at me. The white part seems a little thin and I have to remind myself that the white, along with all play field colors, is silkscreened ink and not paint.

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I did not want to stop there so I did one more scraping along the side of this old QS play field. Eventually, it goes to white. So, if the white areas are showing yellow due to clear coat yellowing, then these is no way we are seeing the vibrancy of the original colors when the pin was new.


I guess this could be a equivalent to some of those "old Master" paintings in the old world that are being cleaned up by the curators of those items.

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The white was probably done really thin because it's the substrate coat for everything else and so it's covered. I've no doubt at all that the pure white pigment we get today is better than from back then.

Let's call the original color "nominal white"

Christopher at pinball replacement parts make some 555 lamp boards for Big Game, Catacomb, Cheetah, Flight 2000, Freefall, Meteor, and Nine Ball. I have them in my Big Game, Catacomb and Nine Ball. They work great.

How many would be interested is getting a 555 lamp board for the Quicksilvers you are restoring or the Quicksilvers you are building. Obviously, I would like one of these for my QS build. There is safety in numbers.

Anybody interested?

https://pinballreplacementparts.com/collections/all?page=3

https://pinballreplacementparts.com/collections/all?page=4

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I'd be in for a set. These worked out well for my Nine Ball. I wish the Cheetah one included the long row of lights in the center and the set of lights in front of the five bank.

Yep I’d absolutely take them for Quicksilver

i really don't like the 555 twisting sockets so i went with individual 44 lamp socket for my 9 Ball... actually work out cheaper too, just a bit more wiring work

I would be in for Quicksilver, DragonFist, Nineball, Stargazer. Thank you so much!!

Count me in.

Got the 18AWG striped as well for this run. No more paint pens! Fun fact, one of these pictures has 7100 crimps in it. NOT a typo. These will be an all-in-one construction like the Fathoms. Easier for all of us I think. As before, do all the lighting first then add the main harness with switches, solenoids and controlled lamp wires. Instruction sheets will be posted here or can be emailed if requested.

Shawn
Third Coast Pinball

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That's five.

Nine Ball is already available.

https://pinballreplacementparts.com/products/stern-nine-ball-complete-set-of-boards-to-replace-metal-panel-sockets

Looks like a lot of work is ahead for you!

I actually liked the separate harnesses better (Ligthing/switch/coil) versus the all-in-one. It made it much easier to install, since I just did one harness at a time, making it easier to follow the wirecodes.

One-at-a-time is also how I've advised everyone that has contacted me about building one, to make it not as daunting of a task.

Any chance on getting you to change your mind?

I have to agree, my install on Star Gazer went incredibly smooth thanks to the separated harnesses. But I'm just happy you are making these things and allowing us to both save and build machines we couldn't otherwise.

I assumed they would be 3 separate harnesses, as I planned on wiring the backbox & lower cab first, then doing the playfield last. That's not possible to do with an all-in-one harness?

I think, he is saying 3 harnesses for just the playfield before as they were broken down between lights, switches, and coils. Now that will all be one large harness.

Ah that makes more sense. I'm just grateful he's producing them

I agree though if I could provide feedback on building QS and looking at doing SG next, separated harnesses made it much easier

Yes, backbox, playfield and lower cabinet kits are three separate sections. That being said, it looks like the consensus is to make the play field harness in parts as before. Not a problem! I can do that.

Shawn

That is the way I prefer it. Your SG harness knocked it out of the park.