Jeff Bader, the man who made WOZ cabinets and playfields, is a friend of mine. I'm fully aware of how he and other vendors have been treated by JJP.

Nope.

Looks closer. Its there, it goes all the way up to the inlanes. If not, Stern will send you a precut piece because it is supposed to be there.

I was not offered this option prior to shipping (August 2014). The $150.00 spent on a protector, sadly, becomes a trivial amount compared to the labour involved in the tear down and rebuild of a playfield.

Am I going to order the mylar pop bumper protectors: absolutely.

You see the edge lifted on a 30 year old game, but for home use, you've got plenty of time before that happens.

....AND because you waxed the playfield before installing the Mylar, you will find you can remove it easily and replace it with new material when that time comes.

Someone had a good point earlier. Is there a way to tell if Bader or Mirco made the playfield in my machine? Are they marked with a serial number or a Vendor code?

I took delivery of my WOZLE during mid July 2014. This is a HUO WOZLE so it doesn't get that many plays, only 332 so far, which doesn't seem right from the game audits. Did those reset as I updated the game code?
I would say over 1000 games have been played since I got it.

I don't see any wear or defects to date. (I also have it set to a 5 ball game).

There is a Walking Dead Pro at a restaurant in Oakland CA that is displaying playfield wear in the high traffic areas. I had to do a double take (because the design has a weathered look already)on the few months old pin. Dirt buildup and light decals worn off. But a heavily played pinball that's not maintained (especially ball replacement) will wear down. My opinion - and its baseless armchair quarterbacking - is that people also play public machines 'harder' in some cases when it's not theirs or theirs friends to bash.

I expected less out of you Brian

Okay, for the crowd that will get this tomorrow. This is a joke to Brian....

I don't know. Seems fair game to me. Jack threw a 3rd-party vendor in a very small community under the bus on a public forum to save face. He should expect a little drama.

I thought the WOZ was supposed to be vastly superior in terms of quality build than anything on the market. I read that hear.

Just playing devils advocate here, but if your friend made that playfield (and the others I've seen or heard of with clear/artwork coming off in sheets), then he has done significant damage to JJP's reputation regarding quality. Is Mr. Bader willing to accept all costs resulting from exchanging machines with his defective playfields?

I'm not trying to pick on you or Jeff, but you have to realize what a horrible position Jack (or Stern or anyone else for that matter) is in when faced with having to exchange entire machines, or at best wired playfields, for defects that shouldn't be there in the first place. This could put him out of business if there are too many bad playfields out in the wild...

This entire thread is about wear on one game? Wouldn't bother me if that's the case.

Disclaimer: I don't own WOZ.

Maybe if you get a chance you can see what Bader thinks about the playfields that are "disintegrating" and the cause and corrective action.

Are they angry jack took their playfield business to Mirco?

Is the alleged money owed to Bader due to the failing paint/clearcoat?

I bet there is more to this story.

There always is.

How do you tell who made your pf?

Well, you can always find out the hard way and play your game 4000 times.

I highly doubt this is a widespread problem. Just Pinsiders with nothing better to talk about right now unfortunately. Give everyone a good update on Hobbit and this thread will quickly fade away.

That's why it's so important for every manufacturer to thoroughly inspect all incoming materials. A supplier will typically only warranty the value of what they sell. Otherwise, they would likely quickly go out of business. You could supply a $100 part to a $10k item. This one may be tough to inspect for, especially if it's only a small number of defective playfields but that's part of what it takes to retail a complicated product - and why they deserve to charge a good margin.

Not sure on WOZ, but on most playfields I have seen it is labeled on the edge of the playfield somewhere.

Yup. I just get tired of hearing about how JJP's vendors are being treated.

"Just Pinsiders with nothing better to talk about right now unfortunately."

That's his real playfield and it looks pretty concerning. Aren't you the same guy that speculated about JJP debt recently? Who are you to pass judgement on what is worth talking about or not?

Not what I've seen, more of a ticking bomb.

I thought i read a topic about this a while back and JJP took care of it. Maybe I was dreaming because I can't find it.

Let me find a pic of my real car and go complain to toyota.

The same analogy / logic could or should apply to the issues with the light boards be it a vendor quality problem or design issue and built to spec.

Ultimately it makes no difference if its Stern , JJP, Ford or Toyota if you are putting your name on the finished product you are responsible for the end quality of the sum of the parts.

If relied on too heavily a supplier can really hose a good company and companies can and do hose excellent suppliers.

I don't know if Mirco marks his playfields or not, but I don't believe Jeff did. Here's what I know and how you may be able to tell who made your playfield.

The initial run of WOZ's had 1/2" thick playfields and were made by Jeff. Not sure how many of these were made, but at some point, the designers decided to make them 5/8" thick because of all the hardware being mounted to them. Jeff made these also. I have no idea when Mirco started to make playfields, but all his are 1/2" thick. 1/2", then 5/8", then 1/2". It shouldn't be too hard to figure which one you have. Simply measure the thickness of your playfield and determine when your game was made. 1/2", early run, it's Jeff's. 1/2", more resent run, it's Mirco's. If it's 5/8", doesn't matter when it was made, it's Jeff's.

I also know the initial games shipped with mylar in the heavy wear areas, like you would expect. At some point, they quit installing the mylar and it was decided a mylar kit would be sold separately for addition cost. This mylar could be installed on your game in the factory, or you could install it yourself. Either way, it cost you more money.

My WOZ playfield is 1/2" thick and is 2 years old.

How does all the Williams hardware work with a 5/8" thick playfield? Are there custom flipper bushings and pop bumper rods? I thought JJP always bragged about using stock Williams parts for easy (cheap) servicing?

Not really sure but there was a lot more CNC work needed on the 5/8" ones.

So based of the comments here it appears that early WOZ's had mylar installed in some areas?

That was the plan at least.

I don't understand the decision not to include mylar in high wear areas such as between the pops. My XMEN LE has mylar in the pops area so why not WOZ? Seems like a very low cost item to make owners happy for the long term.

Mine is an October 2014 build and has little mylar squares in some areas (in front of the wizard, in the inlanes, maybe other places).

Given that it's a HUO machine, I didn't bother with the playfield protector. But, I noticed in this thread that people said I should be waxing the playfield and changing out the balls now and then. When should I be doing that, or better yet, any guides to everything a home owner should be doing to maintain one of these?

You can have it included. It just cost you extra.

I don't own a WOZ so this would be better asked of those that do. All I ever do on my new games is wipe them down with Novus 1 every 100 plays or so and change the balls if/when I see any wear.

Call Jack and ask. I always wondered how easy it would be to switch from one thickness to another. Better yet, call Joe Balcer. He had to deal with it directly.

I took a look at mine. It's a 5/8" model, so has to be from Bader. The clear is holding up well at all the drops and holes, only slight chipping at the back of the Winkie cutout, but nothing I wouldn't expect from a WPC or Stern with same number of plays (around 1500). I mylared the shooter lane and a bit around the throne room, but that's it. The clearcoat is very thick and glossy and looks good.

Now, there is one problem. I got a good light down near the pops, and felt around the skirts as well (kinky!) .. and it appears the wood is being compressed, because you can plainly see woodgrain in the clear where the ball is hit by the pop, and that area is noticeably lower than the rest of the PF when you run your finger across it. This is worst at the first point of contact from a right orbit shot. This wear also shows a bit at TNPLH, but not as much - PROBABLY because I set the strength of TNPLH bumper to about half factory (action was too stiff and ended abruptly at full strength). My trees are factory strength.

See attached pic. I'm adding mylar and I'd advise anyone else to do the same, regardless who made the PF - those trees are brutal! You can't see it unless you get a good bright light over the bumper area, but when you do, the damage is apparent. This is only 1500 games.

woz-pf.png

You think setting a pop to half factory would cause damage? I would expect it to reduce damage.

It did reduce it; the wear at TNPLH is barely visible - much less than the trees that are full factory strength.

I thought you were saying the damage might be caused by you reducing the setting.

I hope a fully populated playfield was sent out instead of one that requires hours and hours of work to swap it out.

I tool a pair of calipers to my playfield last night. My playfield thickness is .575

I'm not sure if that would be considered 1/2" or 5/8" thick....being that .575 is somewhat in the middle of those 2 thicknesses.

Not sure if mine is a Bader, or a Micro.

I took receipt of my WOZ in April, 2014

Just a side comment, pretty much ALL games with an orbit leading back around to a pop bumper, like Addams, Whirlwind, Monopoly, Simps PP...many others, will wear exactly like the pix shown without mylar protection. Yes, in home use too.

It is a fallacy that home use games won't wear. Simply false.

Such a shame that JJP cheaped out and skipped the mylar around the pop bumpers...

I think that the game was set for 30 balls a game instead of 3.

Not to change the subject, but how does one find out the total number of games played on a WOZ ?

$

My stern ST playfield clear coat cracked at the ball trough in 150 plays. Also cracked around the front of the drop target. Patrick say's the star trek playfields are\were on back order, and has told me they have had issues with the clearcoat, and was looking into new suppliers.

I remember many on here warning you buyers about false claims of quality and now people act surprised the games are having so many problems. Marco has had his own problems.

Sweet job on the mylar template!!! I just used your template and added it to my heavily routed woz today. As you can see, my PF was holding up just fine without it, but 5 minutes of work was all it took to put this in, so why not.

photo(16).JPG

Jack, two questions:

1) How can I check my WOZ to see which playfield manufacturer it has?

2) Should I be stripping down various parts of the playfield (pops, scoops, etc) and adding mylar?

thanks, Todd

Better to make a phone call...