Are you looking for a solution to protect your playfield from scratches and peeling? Keep on reading to find out how!
Protect Your Pinball Playfield
To keep your pinball machine in top shape, you need to regularly clean and wax the playfield.
Besides looking better, cleaning and waxing prevents wear and tear on the playfield surface and protects the painted artwork. The steel pinballs will roll on top of a wax coat instead of directly on the playfield.
Cleaning should be done first with a mild cleaner like Novus 1. Avoid products that say “polish” as polish means it has abrasives mixed in. Better to use elbow grease and a mild cleaner rather than a product with grit in it such as a polish.
Spray a little bit of the Novus on a cleaning pad (rather than spraying it all over the playfield) and gently rub all the surfaces of the playfield.
Get under ramps, between in lines, around jet bumpers, along inlanes and outlanes, the shooter alley, ball trough. While you have the glass off the pinball machine, also take time to clean off the plastic parts with Novus. Rubbers can be cleaned up with a mild citrus cleaner.
Once everything is clean, inspect the balls and replace if you see cracks, rust or chips. Pinballs are cheap, replace any old balls that look damaged as the will only act like sandpaper as they run around the playfield.
New pinballs come with a layer of oil on them. Clean them off with some Windex before installing.
So you’ve got this playfield in your game. It’s in nice condition, but pinball being pinball, sooner or later that heavy steel ball is going to fly around the playfield, inserts will break or sink, the surface will get scratched and you may get damage from kick outs or ramp drops.
So what to do? We found some products to help out your playfield
Let’s start with Novus, since they claim that 25% of their sales is to the Pinball industry.
What is Novus? It is a series of abrasive polishes, originally formulated for the plastics industry.
Yep, I said it; ABRASIVE.
Novus wears down your playfield coatings; Paint, Lacquer or clearcoat.
Novus #3 is a very abrasive cream. It is used to polish out deep scratches. It is so abrasive, that you need to use Novus #2 to remove all the scratches that #3 creates. This is probably the least used of all the Novus products as far as pinball goes.
Novus #2 is an abrasive cream. It is a much finer polish that leaves a really shiny finish on many materials. It does a nice job of polishing out fine scratches. It is NOT a wax. You can’t build up layers of it. It does not protect the playfield.
Novus #1 is a mixture of alcohol, water and suspended waxes. It’s not really a polish (it contains no abrasives), it’s more of a cleaner that leaves behind a very slightly waxed surface. It slightly repels dust and fingerprints for a short period of time. SOURCE
Ready Player One
Now you are ready to wax. I use the best “Carnauba” wax called “One Grand Blitz Wax”. It is hard to find, expensive but you really will only need to buy a container once and it will be used for many years.
Carnauba, also called Brazil wax and palm wax, is a wax of the leaves of the palm Copernicia prunifera, a plant native to and grown only in the northeastern Brazilian states of Piauí, Ceará, Maranhão, Bahia, and Rio Grande do Norte.
Carnauba wax such as Blitz wax isn’t 100% carnauba, it contains softners. Pure carnauba wax is very hard and would scratch the surface of whatever you are trying to wax.
So softeners are used to make the wax pliable. Use a clean cloth to apply a thin layer of the wax to your pinball machines playfield.
Then you need to wait about a half an hour for the softeners to evaporate. The wax will turn hazy. This haze will then need to be buffed off with another clean cloth like an old t-shirt, diaper, chamois or little cleaning pads.
Once cleaning and waxing is done, your pinball machine will look fantastic and new balls will zip around super fast.
Recommended supplies for cleaning and waxing your pinball machine playfield.
& That is how you can protect your pinball playfield!
PINBALL ADVENTURES
Pinball Adventures is a North American manufacturing company producing fresh and unique Pinball machines. Our goal is to create to the highest standards, and spark the same joy we found as gamers when we rolled our first quarter into that coin slot so many years ago. Stemming from a lifelong passion, Pinball Adventures is created by gamers, for gamers. We strive to bring high quality, innovative, and captivating experiences for all to enjoy.
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