The most amazing thing has to be the flat-earthers who point to a picture of a 1/2" thick solid steel magnet core, covered in dimples, and say "Don't you see how dimpled the wood is???? Stern is using soft wood!!!!! "

It's absolutely unsane.

Dimpling solved:

Solid steel playfield, Wooden balls.

those would be a beast to move. how about wood playfield, whiffle balls?

edit:
and for some reason, all of these choices made me think of this:

They sell those Glo-balls.

They will not dimple your magnet core, and will only very slightly dimple your Maple.

But how deep were the cigarette burns in the overlays and acrylic?..... j/k!

Haha, I posted a quote from CPR that pretty much gave us proof that you're wrong. You had said all pinball pfs were made from hard maple all the way through, which the quote proved false, you said no foregin plywood is made from maple, I posted ads from China with Lumber core hardwood. You point to the soft iron magnet core dimple over the huge craters in the wood to tell us Steel is harder than wood. But you want us to beleive your word (which yiou have no proof of) over our eyes. I guess I'm a flat earther, I will wear that badge with pride.

Just added another flat-earther to my ignore list....

The flat earther was just the end of the road for me, there is only so much hyperbole, spin and nonsense I can tolerate. There is no debate, discussion or intelligence to be had, its just rant that I am all knowing and constantly spout completely irrelevant stupidity. When they need to go flat earther it's time for an ignore. You have been on point with everything you have said.

Excellent call, put the guy that's posted 10x more helpful stuff on Pinside than the rest of us in this thread combined ever will on ignore.

I don't repaint or restore playfields and I can handle everything else on a pin. I'm sure he is very helpful to those that need it and I'm sure many appreciate it and its great that he helps out so much. As an atheist I have Jesus on ignore I think I'll be ok with Vid

I apprecaite Vid, I just don't agree with his mantra over my own eyes. I own and owned many Sterns machines. Also Bally/Williams Gottliebs, I've seen the difference in real life so I'm only debating that. No the rest of the helpful thing Vid has posted. Btw, can I still like Vid and disagree with him, or should I consider him a diety and just take his word as gospl?

Yup. And the killer is.... people aren't saying old games DON'T dimple... they are saying the newer games are DIMPLING WORSE - and it's not just the 10,000 plays argument. The divots seen on these bad PF examples are deeper and more severe than the 'dimpled all over' old playfields.

But the counter point from vid and others is 'see those games did dimple'... yeah, no shit... that wasn't the debate.

No dog in this hunt but I always wonder how many games are cratered like that? I keep seeing the same couple pictures over an over so is it a small amount of games or large?

Disagree with Vid all you want. I just think it'd be silly to put one of the best resources on Pinside on ignore over a debate like this. (I realize you weren't suggesting that, but the guy I responded to was).

My own unproven theory is that there was a problem with the pfs and after BM66 (or during production) they may have switched gears and rectified. AS pfs look amazing, everyone say so too. It's not too far fetched to think, perhaps with the new facility and new production levels at Stern coulpled with JJP, Spooky and CG demand for pfs may have led them to source alternate providers which may not have had as high a standard as the previous supplier. ?

Oops. Forgot the emoji!

There is certainly a marketing opportunity here for some young interested pinball company to come up with a none-dimpling playfield. It clearly bothers some people quite a bit and I'm sure folks would pay a little extra to have a playfield without the wear/fault characteristics of a traditional maple ply pf.

Like I said before, they could probably just pre-pressurize the PF to compress the top layers the same way the ball does over time. How hard can that be?

And who's to say that there haven't been bad PF examples over the last 40 years either? Occam's razor. Far too much anectodal experience/evidence from a few newer machines being used to wildly extrapolate to indefensible positions. I don't know how much PF variety is out there, but it's reasonable to think that there's some variety and it's been that way for a long long long time as well (before there was an internet to post this stuff).

Ummm, you know that CPR is an aftermarket producer and NOT affiliated with Stern, right?

You know that I showed pictures of Mirco playfields made of Birch, right?

You posted a link that had NO Hard Maple lumber core plywood. I even asked you what the hell you were linking to, and you never answered me.

Think of what you are saying.

If the solid steel magnet core is covered in dimples, do you expect that the wood right next to it, will be dimple free?

How would that be possible?

You posted the **proof** yourself with that BM66 picture.

1/2" thick piece of steel covered in dimples, and right next to it 1/2" Hard Maple covered in dimples.

What wood is harder than steel?

Look at it with your own eyes!

But then some people were up in arms about SW dimpling, with playfields presumably made after at least the first run of AS. Anyone know if GOTG shows any dimpling? Haven't followed that plotline.

Yup, another significant point glossed over in the 'extreme' camps... and buried in the 'all wood is the same' gross simplification in defending 'this is all normal'.

Clearly its not normal... not all PFs look like those extreme examples we see. It didn't seem to be widespread from my ancedotal exposure.. which also supports the idea its NOT normal... else we'd see it more

How widespread is it? The moon edition playfields don't seem to be widespread IMO...

Exactly, there has been pf issues in the past. To say the wood is the same, the manufactuting of the wood is the same and the deep dimples are normal leaves little room for error...doesn't it?

I believe the magnet core is not solid steel it's most likely an alloy of soft Magnesium and Iron......

Also I may have missed the part where you said the webapge does not have maple plywood, I thought you had said it was all "lumber core".....so here is better one. A MAPLE plywood made in India.....

A plywood from India made from Maple from N. America

https://www.indiamart.com/proddetail/maple-plywood-13288947462.html

Factual question, is the magnet core "soft iron" or "solid steel"?

Most likely, (no way of being 100 % sure without metallurgical testing) it's an alloy of Iron and other metals. Hence, the softness.

#1 those BM66 games came from the factory with an amazing polish. Better than any other Stern I've ever seen.

#2 new games are fully lit playfield designs. Until just a few years ago, games were dingy and dark, even with LEDs installed.

I'm used to seeing playfields out of their cabs.

I'm used to seeing playfields under intense 5000k Chroma50 lighting.

People give me their 2 month old HUO games to protect with a clearcoat all the time (probably once they decide that the game is a keeper).

I see how dimpled they all are. I see some badass craters, I see smiley faces, I see that odd dimple tucked away and wonder how did a ball possibly drop there.

When some of the other famous playfield restorers and I talk, we just laugh when newbies are crying about dimples, because we all see the same thing, every time.

We never see game with soft wood, we never see games with different dimple depths outside of the norms.

If we ever saw a playfield that had remarkable dimples, We'd post a ton of pictures.

You know we would.

Iron would quickly rust, so it's some kind of steel.

Not if it's an alloy of Magnesium and Zinc.

Again, that's not Lumber Core.

You are trying to find anything to argue about.

Any tiny straw to grasp at.

Please just put me on ignore!

Again, you are wildly grasping at any straw in the haystack.

No wood is harder than Iron.

So if the magnet core is dimpling, even if made from Iron, Steel, Cast Iron, Nickel Steel, Stainless Steel, the wood around it will not be harder.

Come on Vid man, don't get angry, but can we stop moving the goal post? I'm answering your quote above, no hard maple plywood except from N. America.

Oh yeah, what about "Ironwood"?

Seriously though, I have no doubt that dimpling is normal, always happened, etc. So I see no argument with what vid1900 has been telling us. I also wonder if some of the more extreme examples aren't games that have unresolved ball launch issues where the PF in an area is being slammed over and over onto the same patch of PF in a semi-abusive manner.

I agree dimpling is normal, etc. I would still prefer a PF that didn't dimple if possible.

I apologize if somewhere in the thread this has already been mentioned but this machine had plastic over the playfield and still had craters! Well beyond dimpling...

Brad

orbitor1_overview.jpg

You you still keep evading the fact that no matter what metal the magnet is made of that metal is harder than the wood playfield...yet that metal is dimpled!

Everyone keeps yelling that their Stern's are more dimpled than their Bally/Williams/Gottlieb's...well no shit...all those games have been around 20 years longer and most of those got played on route.

So you're saying the rest of us can't see dimples even when we have the PF is out of the cabinet and under lights too? Or the hundreds of games we've handled up close and personal?

I'm not sure if you are trying to say the photos are deceptive... or those dimples are the same as every other game, and everyone else just don't know how to see them....

I think the polished clear certainly makes the dimples stand out more... but I think I'm comparing like to like.

What I know is... when sanding and polishing my PFs of varying ages... none of them craters like those... the divot marks are largely far less severe. "pounding it out" doesn't address that when comparing divots in areas that are largely smooth... and when comparing the wood to the surrounding inserts... because the inserts aren't proud compared to the 'compressed' wood all around it beat down by 10,000 plays.

Sanding the PF makes it really easy to see the pattern and how deep it really is (or isn't).

I have old games that have been played a ton... I have old games that saw less play. The photos of the moon crater PF look like no average old game, low or high play I'd consider normal... and no newer game with low play either.

I'm of the camp that the physics of the modern games is harder on the PFs, the polished clear makes them MORE visible, and there have been some small batches of games with issues. So it's a bit of both.. yes dimpling has always been there, but that doesn't mean it's been the same result.

You keep trying to find some tiny semantical difference to argue about.

Since the 1930s, pinball playfields have been of LUMBER CORE HARD MAPLE PLYWOOD.

(I know you are going to argue, so I will reiterate that a few JJP and Stern playfields were made from Baltic Birch plywood in the 2010s)

There are millions of products called Maple Plywood, made all over the world. Those products are NOT what we are talking about here.

Evading, how about you guys using false analogy to keep this myth going? Let me be clear I don't even want to obfuscate the subject by talking about the magnet but I will answer to keep it from being used as an excuse..........
1. The magnet core is not hardend steel, it's a soft alloy, most likey Magnesium, Iron and Zinc. The matte color is a good indication, also, after a whie full steel would stay magnetic after the induction charge is stopped.
2. The core is dimpled becuase when the magnet is inducted it will slam that ball on top of the core with a much harder force than you will ever see in the game from the flipper action.

PS: so how come on some of those Bally/Williams games pfs looks same under the plastics where there was no ball travel? It was pounded smooth...right? But you should see a difference though..right? How come when a pinsider used a 10,000 Dollar instrument to check the hardness on seveal games it was dismissed as nonesense? Because with proof after proof it's easier for some to just repeat the mantra. The mantra is now like my magic phrase....say it and poof! I will appear.

Nope, those photos are perfect examples.

No way Hard Maple is harder than the Steel in the same photo.

Like I've said a million times.

Put those games on route.

And let's revisit them after 20 years of doing what they were made to do.

THEN we can see if the dimples evened out.

-

Back in the Bally days, occasionally a few playfields would completely lose all their ink in the first few months of use.

Mind you, we would be buying them in quantities of 20+ games. Never were all 30 games bad, just one or two.

Bally would send our distributor a new, populated playfield in a big wooden crate.

Those bad playfield screenings are gone from the gene pool.

Those playfields went in the dumpster after we stripped parts from them.

Bally did not even want them as proof, lol.

Same thing with old guitars. People say how great their 60s Stratocaster is, and how they can't make guitars like that anymore.

But the reality is that over 50 years, the crappy guitars got smashed, flooded, given to kids to learn on. The amazing guitars got cherished, kept out of basements, and rose to be the cream of the crop.

A newbie, just entering the guitar market, will believe "Wow, those old guitars were great!", and he can see the proof with his own two eyes. Someone who has been working on guitars for 50 years will tell you that there were a lot more dogs than diamonds......

In Australia, do playfields pimple instead of dimple?

The magnet dimples tells you it's the f'n clear. That looks like shit.

Then why is it smooth still?

Wait. There's clear coat on the magnet? WAT?

This thread is 100% proof why so many people, including myself, are just getting tired of pinside.

I can't blame Steve Ritchie at all for calling pinside a cancer.

Seriously, we are grown men (and women)...do we honestly need to hand out diapers and pacifiers?

We don't need to. The wood isn't going to UNcompress. So the PF level after being smashed is what it.. it's only going to get lower if anything. We also know from the majority of examples that have been 'beaten flat' that the PF isn't full of valleys from compressed wood vs the uncompressed inserts.

The 'beaten flat' games that we have... aren't that different from the games we have that were spared the hell of route play. Since you keep saying playfields are the same... we've already seen the 20yr experiment... both played to death and non. We don't need to repeat the experiment if everything is the same as you keep advocating.

So again... you're saying its possible to have 'batches of duds'... and variation in output. So why is it every case here is just 'normal' and problem is the viewer.. instead of... some of these being 'dogs'.

I don't have a horse in this race, but here is a recently uploaded picture of a HUO BSD.

Brad

HUO_BSD.jpeg

Playfields get more compressed.

The only way wood fibers can sometimes be uncompressed is using steam.

That sucks that somebody ruined it.

It would have been worth a fortune if it were never played.

dimple-dimple-little-star (resized).jpg

Lol....one dimple

There isn't? I don't own a pin with a magnet. Well, I own a basket case BK that I've never played. Regardless, you can say that's just the way it is, but that BM looks like shit.

No clearcoat on Stern magnet cores.

It does not need clear for protection, has Stainless Steel ring.

530-5320-07 (resized).jpg