HOW DO I GET BALL SWIRLS OUT OF A PLAYFIELD?
bri...@yahoo.com
good however there are like ball swirls in it. I tried magic eraser, i
tried wax and polish, but i tried the polish and wax with only a rag
and my finger. Should I use like a buffer or does someone out there
know how i can get rid of these ball swirls? I am putting new decals
on the game and shopping it and if i could get some of these ball
swirls out i think it would look gorgeous, now it looks nice. Any help
is appreciated.
thanks
brivy
bulldog69
buffer and buff tell the swirls are gone...
Kansas Pinball
When you used the Magic Eraser, did you use it with 90% isopropyl
alcohol? That is the key. It pulls the dirt out of the micro cracks and
then evaporates leaving the dirt in the eraser. It definitely works as
I have brought back lots of playfields with it. I had a Nitro
Groundshaker that had people who looked like they came from the lizard
planet! Once I finished with the Magic Eraser and the alcohol, they
looked fantastic.
Remember that if you do try it again, be very slow with the process.
You will actually see the swirld makrs disappear and things get
brighter. Don't get greedy and go for the brightest level you can get
because before you know it, you will see the wood of the playfield show
through! Also, remember to move around a lot. Don't scrub in once spot
for too long.
Doug
Gunstar Hero
you can do, short of just waxing the hell out of your PF and learning
to look past the swirls. Sorry.
Gunstar Hero
bulldog69
buffer and buff tell the swirls are gone...
skbrothers
You should also Google search RGP for "Magic erasure" and "ball swirl".
You will find alot of threads that reference good techniques for
removing/minimizing ball swirl. Definately "Less is More" with the
magic erasure go easy and don't try and make it look new again.
Remeber Ball swirl and Playfield wear adds character :)
It's probably adviseable to consider clearcoating after you
remove/minimize the swirls, as they will only come back. If you Clear
the PF you will refill the grooves and even out the PF surface again.
Anyone else agree with this approach?
Steve
Chad Tower
There is a point worth repeating in there. Magic Eraser damages the
paint. Plain and simple. It works by removing paint. You can only
realistically do it once and it will not prevent future swirling. The
only time, IMO, someone should be doing that is when they are going to
somehow seal the area (clear, mylar) in another matter to prevent the
issue from coming back. It WILL come back and you WON'T be able to fix
it a second time.
Action Pinball
playfields. We use these on most restorations we do in our shop, and I have
seen that some games/playfields will respond better than others to the ME.
It's never possible to get all the marks out but the ME in general does get
a good vast majority of them out, in most cases, and when used properly.
"Proper" use, from my experience, means really putting a lot of "elbow
grease" into using the ME. It's not just a quick wipe-down procedure.
We typically use 2 (and sometimes 3) ME's per playfield, depending on how
well the playfield might or might not respond to the ME. But most results
we've had have been quite outstanding. You can see how playfields have come
back in some of the higher-end restorations we've done lately- using the ME-
including Bally Six Million Dollar Man, Bally Dogies, and probably a few
others we still have listed on our site.
After using the ME, you have a lot of milky-white dried residue on the
playfield. We take the majority of this off with 409 surface cleaner, and
then clean/polish the whole playfield with Diamond Bright cleaner/polish.
After buffing that off, we follow it up with a couple of coats of Kit
Carnauba wax. You can get info on all these products, and tips for use, on
our website at www.actionpinball.com
Hope that helps!
Ray J.
--
Action Pinball & Amusement, LLC
Salt Lake City, Utah USA
Web: www.actionpinball.com
We're serious about pinball. Anything else is just for fun!
<bri...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1151337771....@r2g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
BWAGNER5150
playfields.
Ben
mcdefjef
explanation) is here:
http://arcadearchive.org/pinball/magic/
bulldog69
buffer and buff tell the swirls are gone...
NOW GET TO IN
Don
- Don
Chad Tower
I assume his parents have been yelled at enough by now.
skbrothers
I Dont' Feed I
I The Troll I
I (A.K.A. Bulldog) I
I______________ I
I I
I I
\\I I//
This sign is posted as a courtesy to all constructive members of RGP.
Please do not respond to the senseless and/or inflammatory post that
prompted the posting of the above DO NOT FEED THE TROLL sign. His (the
troll's) mommy should be home soon to put him in his "Jammies" and tuck
him into bed. Thanks!
Mark Clayton
First, there's no paint on a playfield - it's ink, and it's an incredibly
thin layer of ink. The clear on top of the ink is many, many times thicker
and harder than the ink layer, and that is what you're normally wearing
away with any kind of abrasive (ME included). Whatever you use to
polish out the clear will wear away at the clear top coat, and if any of them
start to touch the ink, it will be through the ink almost instantly.
So, wearing away at the clear is fine as long as:
1) you go slowly and carefully.
2) you don't go through it to the ink.
3) you wax or re-clear (preferred) after you're done
Magic Erasers are about as abrasive as 1500 grit sandpaper,
but they are more effective than sandpaper at removing swirl
marks. They "damage" the clear (not the paint or ink) by
wearing it down and cleaning the dirt out of the swirl marks.
The swirl marks are crack in the clear that go all the way down
to the ink. Once you clean the dirt out of the swirl cracks,
they are less visible, but they are still there. MEs are the
only known things that will effectively clean the dirt out of
swirl marks, so that's the kind of "damage" I like.
-Mark
--
http://pinballpal.com/
"Chad Tower" <to...@gis.net> wrote in message news:1151340464.2...@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
Chad Tower
Yet the "damage" is still irreversible. You can only realistically use
this method once. I don't think a simple waxing is enough to cover the
damage being done to the surface. Eventually, I think sooner than most
think, the swirl will return if a person isn't eternally vigilant about
wax and cleaning.
MXV
should see what he did to my prototype funhouse playfield, it once
again looks like it just was made!
Mark Clayton
But even if you don't, I don't see why you couldn't repeat the procedure
as long as there's a good amount of clear still left. Subsequent cleanings
would go much easier, since the "hard" cleaning has already been done,
and the remaining layer of clear is somewhat thinner. Car paint polish
does the same thing - it removes some of the clear, but you can certainly
polish your car more than once. It all depends on the playfield and how it's
handled. Some can't take even one Magic Eraser cleaning without breaking
through, others take it in stride. That's been my experience so far.
-Mark
--
http://pinballpal.com/
"Chad Tower" <to...@gis.net> wrote in message news:1151415885.0...@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
Chad Tower
Mark Clayton wrote:
> The "damage" is reversible if you re-clear, which is what I recommend.
> But even if you don't, I don't see why you couldn't repeat the procedure
> as long as there's a good amount of clear still left. Subsequent cleanings
> would go much easier, since the "hard" cleaning has already been done,
> and the remaining layer of clear is somewhat thinner. Car paint polish
> does the same thing - it removes some of the clear, but you can certainly
> polish your car more than once. It all depends on the playfield and how it's
> handled. Some can't take even one Magic Eraser cleaning without breaking
> through, others take it in stride. That's been my experience so far.
Do you mean re-clear as in the whole playfield, or a method of spot
clearing? And how would one determind just how much of the original
clear is left before trying a second time?
I'm not sure I buy an analogy to a car. The concept is similar but a
car is designed to withstand a decade outside in the weather and
regular wind of up to 60 or more miles per hour. You should be able to
do that to a car dozens of times without noticeable effect.
I'm not being sarcastic, BTW, these are genuine questions.
Maybe what I need to do is locate some junker playfields and practice
both ME and clearing techniques.
twilightzonepinball
kind of dull. I wouldn't recommend it unless you plan to clear coat.
-Tom
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze8f4tt/tomstwilightzonepinballmachineaccessories/index.html
Mark Clayton
I wasn't talking about spot clearing. Most of the time when I
ME a playfield, it's already completely stripped so re-clearing
is not that much more work.
I don't know of any definitive way to tell exactly how much clear is
left, but after a while you get a feel for it. The ME gets out almost
all of the dirt, but not all of it. The stubborn dirt doesn't seem to come
out until the clear is almost completely removed, so I usually stop
well before that point. For home use, where the game is kept
clean and waxed, you don't need much of a clear layer at all,
except around high-wear areas.
As for the car analogy, you're right that you can polish it many times
(if done correctly). But the mechanics are the same - polishing removes
some of the clear, and polish too much or too often and the clear will
wear off.
-Mark
--
http://pinballpal.com/
"Chad Tower" <to...@gis.net> wrote in message news:1151500726....@75g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
Chad Tower
Mark Clayton wrote:
> I wasn't talking about spot clearing. Most of the time when I
> ME a playfield, it's already completely stripped so re-clearing
> is not that much more work.
I would imagine that re-clearing a playfield is a highly developed
skill all its own though, yes?