I have a pretty nice Whirlwind, that had a NOS playfield installed back in 2005 shortly before I bought it. I love the machine and plan to keep it for a while longer.

The playfield has factory mylar installed on the top half, in the same area as many of them do. However there is no mylar on the lower half. Early on I added a couple of small patch pieces where the balls drop off of the left ramp (2 areas), and in the shooter lane.

I can now see some early signs of wear and would like to come up with a plan on how best to preserve the playfield. I prefer not to remove the upper playfield mylar to then go the clearcoar route. I am leaning towards putting a sheet of mylar down over the entire lower half, and would plan on dropping/removing everything from the bottom half of the playfield. Once the mylar sheet is on, I would then use an exacto knife to cut out the areas needed to remount switches, flipper bats, etc.

Has anyone else tried this approach? If there is a better idea out there, I would also like to hear about what choices I might have. Thanks.