Playfield Overhaul - surface
Dennis Amero

First thing was to countersink 18 #6 x 1" stainless steel wood screws through the bottom of the playfield (exactly where the original brad holes were), clamping and attaching the arch pieces. I wanted them screwed tightly in place ahead of time in order to make the playfield as rigid as possible for the potentially heavy scrub.

The thinking was that, if the board flexed too much, the ink finish could maybe spider-crack. Another reason for doing this in advance was, having never attached arch pieces before, I wanted to use the dirt lines on the playfield as a template for positioning everything properly. :-) (plus, using screws would remove the warp from the playfield corner)

Anyway, I tried a bunch of cleaners before stumbling onto a product called Gel-Gloss (hardware stores/home depot), which did what I thought was a pretty amazing job. That was some really tough dirt! Nothing I dared to try was coming close to touching it. But after spreading this stuff out over a small area and letting it stand for 2 or 3 minutes, I found the grunge came off clear to the ink with minimal elbow grease. 100% no difference between colors under, and out from under the arch pieces.

As time went on, I got a bit braver and went for larger areas until I was doing pretty much the entire horizontal space between hole rows one at a time... keeping a clean back-up buff cloth handy to make sure no surface remained wet (in case the stuff started soaking/lifting stuff it shouldn't).

It says on the can it's a "one-step cleaner & polish". It does leave a slick finish which I think is good on the ball return panel, but I suspect it's too thin to substitute for good ol' wax up above. So after removing the arch pieces and cleaning all surfaces, I put some 8 or 9 coats of Mothers "California Gold" Carnauba Cleaner Wax. The board looked brand new!

Lido
untypical clean playfield

Dennis and I traded a few emails discussing the gel-gloss product. We concluded it is the petroleum distillates that dissolve the old wax. Previously, I used Naptha and a green scrub pad to remove old wax, but some care is needed to lighten up the scrubbing when you reach the ink. In any case, I was looking for the magic product that you hose on and wipe off, and it sounds like gel-gloss does that.