If you are claiming that ALL YOUR new games have a bunch of shooterlane wear, then I'd say you have a streak of bad luck.

When I go to play pinball in the wild, I never see any OP using shooter lane protectors, nor do I see an inordinate ‎amount of shooterlane wear.

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ALL playfield dimple, though. Get used to it.

Maybe Stern's simply throw the ball into the shooter lane more violently... after all even their slings can cause airballs (and more dimples to go with it) these days.

Or maybe new Stern owners are just overly obsessed with what their shooter lanes look like? I confess that I don't quite get why it's a big deal. Are they becoming unfunctional?

This is the case.

OH MY GODDDDDDD MY NEW $8000 TOY HAS A MARK ON IT!!

The tears flow ... Same as if they get a scratch on their new Rolex.

rd.

Well, due to popular demand here are some pics of guitars I've made. Thread hijack!

I made about 8 guitars when I was 18. Tiger Guitars! After that, the cheaper imported guitars started coming into NZ so I stopped making them. I made the bodies, and I used ESP necks and Gotoh hardware. Duncan or Dimarzio pickups. Full Shred! I made 2x Rhoads style Vs, and some Frankenstrats and these two Teles.

The Vs and Strats were Honduras mahogany like a Les Paul. They sounded awesome. Sustain for days. They were all sold back around 1988-89ish. I know one guy who has a Strat and he's still rocking on it.

These are the Tele bodies. I mucked them up when I made them and forgot to rout the cavities for the pickup wires. Doooohhhh. Never got around to sorting them out. Hey, it's only been 23 years. .. Good things take time.

These Teles are 2 pce Amercian Hard Rock Maple. One has a tone cavity. The other has a flame maple veneer on the top. Finished with a red stain and cleared. My first attempt at a sunburst finish, the other guitars were all sprayed in 2 pot car laquer.

All the guitars were made by hand ... With a hand held electric router. That's the test of how steady your hands are

rd

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I agree. I think in most cases, cliffys and protectors are overrated for nib games that will get very limited play vs a game in the wild.

It's like scoop wear. You scoop still works but it's permanent damage that requires significant effort to repair.

Are you guys just not seeing the posts of games with just hundreds of plays and the chewed up wood?

And before you stereotype... I've been playing league pinball consistently for over 18 years and collecting my own games for 14 years. I'm no n00b to the hobby

I'm honestly not paying any attention if there's a real issue, no, so if I'm mischaracterizing people I apologize. I just find the shooter lane obsession a bit silly. Pinball is meant to be played. Obviously no one wants wear and tear, but play the shit out of it and have a good time, don't just look at it and worry.

As for the shooter lanes in new Sterns vrs other games. The coil that shoots the ball into the lane has a lot more power than my JP, Mata Hari, and some of my past pins. This explains a lot of the shooter lane wear. Put a strip of mylar in your shooter lane before the first game on a NIB.

How tight is the neck pocket using a hand router? I assume you routed it undersized then hand fit it by slowly sanding it down? I'm digging the thinline tele.

Yeah, that's right. You can see the neck cavity is a little rough, from memory when I made the bodies the necks weren't in stock. The people who were the ESP agents in NZ never kept anything in stock. Hopeless. So when the necks showed up, I'd make it all work.

I have all the necks and gold hardware to put these together. Maybe one day I'll actually do it

rd

DOUBLE DIMPLING!

I hit a shot tonight and caught it with the upper flipper doubling the speed that it smashed into a black hole post catapulting the ball back up into the glass with an almighty smash, so hard that it hit the playfield and bounced back up to give the glass another good crack and back down hard again onto the playfield!
I don't think I've ever seen a ball do that before on any other pin. This game is seriously fast.

lol... I guess that answers why this particular title seems to be dimpling faster and deeper than most.

No worrie. My almost new WOZ has tons of them already, in a few months it will look like every other NIB i have buyed

Dimples rock!!

Got plenty on my STLE....shit happens!!

Yes, but it takes an asshole to make shit happen!!

And a dick to comment !!

Yeah but it doesn't always have to be this way... any game I have that has a lot of standup targets (or some where they get hit with a hard shot) I bend them forward and down a bit. Then I put a small hidden shim behind them to prevent them from bending back upward again.

Makes a huge difference... I also swapped out the brutal blue WMS coils for orange on both AFM and MM because on a clean waxed machine they still play 100 mph. I did it originally to protect the plastics but it helped on the airball issue as well.

Granted some games shot geometry does it's best to resist these little fixes but doing it to a NIB can make a big difference. Look how raising the newer Stern's slings help stop denting even the interior SIDE of the machine... it's odd they changed this design as I never felt the older Stern's (LOTR, TSPP, etc) had underpowered slings. Who's great idea was that?

or the industry need to forego steel pinballs and go with something of the nerf variety to allow you to "safely" play pinball without the fear of dinging up the playfield and breaking plastics

Glo-Balls, Coming Soon!

Yes, it does.

It's Theater of Magic. There is maybe what, 4 standup targets? They are a mile away from that outlane.

Look at the picture, those dimples are IN THE OUTLANE.

You get tons of dimples, not because of the slingslhots, not because of standups, just because it's pinball.

And they are cute!
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I wasn't referring to TOM specifically (and my outlane doesn't look near that bad) - I was simply reminding people to angle and re-enforce their targets as it results in less damaging airballs and less broken plastics.

And the newer 50v Stern slings are even "dimpling" the sideboards of the CAB... that's fixable and not "just pinball".
My LOTR and TSPP don't have nearly the juice to pull this off.

So people can either make a simple fix or just accept it - it's a good example of how some damage can indeed be prevented.

It will, don't worry.

All that power is how the designer wanted the game to play.

Don't shortchange yourself the speed and fun of the intended design, just to save a few dimples that are going to happen no matter what.

Live a little.

It's only pinball.

Glad your advice wasn't around when we were all re-enforcing the standup target next to the clock on TZ 17 years ago. Sure it got rid of the ridiculous airballs that thing generated but hey... I guess Pat wanted the target to launch the ball so I shortchanged myself of his intended design.

Well I saved myself some money on plastics anyways.

You guys are too funny

Let your balls fly free.

Quit trying to restrain them.

If that is how the creator intended it to be, so be it.

Ok now you're just f*cking with me!

Besides I already wear boxers...

Yea...this subject has been "beat to death" in many previous threads. So I checked my WOZ last night after 200 games and can barely find any shallow dimples. And don't tell me that WOZ does not make balls fly....because it does.

So it looks like something is different in the wood or process used by vendors. Who knows, it could even depend on what time of year the wood is harvested. Regardless, the JJP playfield does not dimple like my Stern's games that I bought NIB and witnessed firsthand.

Whats funny to me is guys making a fuss because metal pinballs are creating dimple in their wooden playfield. Seriously though NIB machines always get divets regardless of the pin or maker it is part of the game. Sure some pins get more than others (typically faster pins) but once they even out it is much less noticeable. I just love playing pinballs too much to worry about every dimple on the playfield of the machine I just bought to play and have fun on. I'm not really buying the WOZ wooden playfield not dimpling if a metal ball flys in the air and lands on it. But hey we all have our own perspective I guess.

Every WOZ I see has billions of dimples, just like any other game.

billions of dimples.jpg

I think you have got me wrong - I'm not worried about dimples... heck MM *has* to have dimples as you can't stop the trolls from flinging the balls into the air and AFM's central drop target will always cause some airballs, etc.

I was simply pointing out the (well known) fact that if you angle your targets forward and do some small adjustments you'll have LESS *deep* dimples and won't (hopefully) have to replace any plastics.

Just seems like common sense... I didn't expect to take such an ass kicking about it Plus it will give you yet another thing to tinker with on your machine.

I dunno about WOZ - from a recent post it seems like they must use "magical" wood lol

You know of what you speak!

http://www.wyrdwizard.com/?page_id=45

Brad

Jeez that one "wand" looks like a pointy weapon to remove someone's eyeball - I can at least see their value as a self-defense item.

Also with your spiffy remodeled bad azz basement I assume you've added at least 2 to 4 new machines down there...
what say ye Brad? Looked pretty spacious over there

seriously, dimpling again? How many times do people have to say that every clearcoated game dimples. It doesn't have anything to do with the clear. The more airballs you have, the more dimples you get. Over the years it will get so many that the wood will be pounded flat again. it's unavoidable. Every manufacturer has it, and does it. they all look like shit after the first 100 or so games. After 1000 games, you will never know the difference.

I wonder if somebody could come up with a system of pounding the whole playfield flat after the clear coat is applied then it would be broken in for the customer? But it fixes it self with time so I guess it really does not matter just a thought tho.

if you wanted to crack the clear everywhere. Sure. Just people being overly anal and not understanding what is happening.

*Joe's PF clearcoat service* "Pre-pounded with a rubber mallet for your convenience!"

"Before we shellac it - We smack it!"

The only difference this time, which has already been mentioned earlier but overlooked by most everyone including you, is that:

STAR TREK HAS A VERY LIGHT COLORED PLAYFIELD, SO THE DIMPLES ARE MORE NOTICEABLE THIS TIME.

Please make a note of this. Thank you.

A new playfield plays very different than a 'broken in' playfield. You don't want to lose that. Just accept that the dimples will come and enjoy the new playfield. A new playfield is a terrible thing to waste.

maybe the games should ship with dimple balls, like a golf ball so the dimpling occurs at such a fast rate that after a week you convert to regular balls. This would then become an acceptable step in owning a new game and the repeated conversation would stop.

Doesn't matter if they are more noticeable or not. They are always there on every game, and people that don't know better start freaking out all over again. Like they havn't seen the 100's of threads talking about the new layer of wood getting dented on new games, NOS fields and new repo fields. It's not the colors that do it either, because IJ has a very light color pallet too. It's the damn overly bright LED's that reflect the light, that cause it it to stand out more. If people would playmore than 50 games on these things, they would see they go away.

Thanks, I imagine I could fit a few more if I put them going around the corner, but right now I am at 7...

I still wonder about yours, are the "newer" Sterns getting along with the Bally/Williams machines? I knew they never thought the day would come where they would have to share the space!

Brad

Was laughing so hard, nearly pissed my pants!!
That's some funny stuff right there!!

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If you want the CC to remain flawless never play a game.
(No fun)

Similar to show cars with chrome side pipes, they turn blue once you start the engine.
(No fun)

I did miss understand you. I agree do what you can to minimize damage I'm all for that as well. I just don't get some that don't expect to get dimples on a brand new playfield it's going to happen. ST is a fast pin and there are probably more airballs going to occur causing some dimples. Over time they will get less noticeable so just have some fun playing!

if you dont' want dimples. Play an EM.