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[16] Cleaning and waxing your EM playfield to perfection of look and speed
Aaaaaaah, the playfield. So beautiful and artsy, yet has the unfortunate burden of dealing with a heavy metal ball smashing into things all over it and dealing with the ball nearly wherever it goes. Not a great mix for something 30+ years old let alone much older.
This is probably the ultimate debate in pinball. There are millions of different chemicals/cleaners out there and it seems like every Pinsider had to pick a different one...
I feel like I've perfected the mix myself. I've tried a few different options... here is my favorite and the ones I use across my ENTIRE personal collection (not a paid advertisement, hah!):
Cleaner: Novus "2" (Novus 2)
Wax: Mother's Pure Carnauba Wax (Comes in a red tin (don't buy the liquid one), !DO NOT! make the easy mistake of going and buying the kind that has "CLEANER" in the title - it looks identical besides this but is very abrasive, not what we want at all) I found mine at Pep-Boy's, I think AutoZone also carries it as well. Of course the obvious solution is online if you can wait a little bit. (You can) A lot of stores only carry the CLEANER version. Even if you're in a hurry/excited, don't give into the pressure to get this one! Trust me!
If your game is a very rough project and has literal dirt on the playfield, you can brush this off with just a dry rag, but even Novus 2 on this will help. I like Novus 2 because you can use it from the dirtiest of dirty to very clean. I threw out my stinky flammable harmful Naphtha jug (it didn't clean at all anyways - terrible suggestion) long ago and never looked back. I remember I started to taste that stuff the next day when working with it for too long. Not good...
So, to start, shake your Novus 2 bottle (carried locally in "The Container Store" in big bottles and small combo packs, buy the big bottles and also invest in some Novus 1 for fronts and bottom borders of plastics, never use 3 in pinball. Much easier to find online, but I've driven an hour one way to the closest The Container Store to go get some more if I was in a hurry) quite well as instructed.
Then, open it up and squirt some onto a clean microfiber cloth (don't skimp here! There's a great 18 pack at Home Depot for like $10, I LOVE those). Test in an inconspicuous area to make sure it doesn't take your playfield paint off. I like Novus 2 because you can even scrub harder than you would ever have to into a 1960's Gottlieb playfield with no ill results, but I would be weary about using it on a woodrail playfield, especially earlier ones.
One you assure that it will not damage your playfield, begin to clean your playfield. If I am going through a game for the first time I like to take everything off of the playfield to get it extra clean, and it also making applying to wax later MUCH easier. Eventually your playfield will begin to clean up, and if you have any ground-in dirt marks (looks like crackling, in black) you can scrub a little harder. Novus 2, unlike some other products, tends to be
pretty good with no messing up playfields and leaving no margin for error. That being said, I did once scrub hard enough to go through the clearcoat on a playfield and it left a nasty light spot compared to the rest of the discolored playfield. You can scrub hard for some time, but not too hard! DODGE INSERTS with text on them because this will likely either fade the inserts or completely pull the text off of them. You have been warned! It's not hard to do and if you get a little on an insert it's not the end of the world, it will wipe off without repercussions once or twice.
Once your playfield is totally clean (don't forget the usually nasty and gritty SHOOTER LANE! Do it last of course.), leave it sit for about 5 minutes to make sure all the Novus is dry and whatnot (not as important as letting wax dry or really even ever mentioned), and then use a CLEAN microfiber cloth to wipe off the playfield. This will leave a jet-fast speed (you can feel it under your hand with the rag as it begins to slide) and a really nice shine on the playfield.
Unfortunately, it's not very protected - and we can easily recreate this with the wax which makes the game play even faster and also makes it shine nice.
I love Mother's Pure Carnauba Wax (and no other wax - waste of time!) on playfields because it creates that impossible clear-coat like shine (without being fully as intense of a shine, which I certainly see as a good thing) and also makes the ball play lightning fast.
To apply this wax, get some on a CLEAN microfiber cloth and then put it down onto the playfield and begin to push it into the playfield in circle motions. Unfortunately the downside of wax is it creates a billion little wax crumbs, but once they dry up they're not too bad to get - but a tip I found myself when doing this is if you keep the rag firm to the playfield, it will keep most of the wax together in one ball and any little crumbs that do appear either get smushed back into the main one (as described a few words ago) or get trapped in the rag.
Some people like to heat the wax to make it more applicable. I do this a little sometimes (25% of the time) but not too much or it really gets liquidy and messy and will apply wrong/weird. This process takes a lot of time especially if you do not remove anything off of the playfield, but it is well worth it and is a necessity to owning a pinball machine properly rather than just personal choice.
One your playfield has been fully applied with one coat of wax (DON'T FORGET THE SHOOTER LANE AGAIN - it's really cool when it's done too!), go do something else for 20 minutes and come back. I'm serious. Set a timer. Not 14 minutes, not 25 minutes. People have always said "no amount of time is too long for wax to sit" but in my personal experience I have found that to be very wrong and it left awful residue and wax behind that eventually turned the ball into something like a snowman effect. Eugh!
Once it has been 20 minutes, come back again with another CLEAN microfiber cloth (cloth #4 - you can wash these after all is said and done, by the way.) and rub your playfield just as you did when you were applying the wax. You'll begin to feel similar effects under your hand and the cloth as you did with the Novus - it will feel lightning fast and the playfield will begin to shine in the light.
Make sure you get all the wax (including any that might have gotten stuck between switches or in holes in the playfield, lots seems to also drop into the bottom of the cabinet if you are not careful), then put a brand new ball in your game (if possible) and go enjoy it! I usually give it a little grace period of maybe 10-20 more minutes to ensure it is all dry and that the new ball does not get caked up with anything you may have missed.
Enjoy your new lightning fast and beautifully cleaned playfield "the Otaku way"!



