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SDTM Cary Hardy: Pinball Clear Coating - The First Coat

Straight Down the Middle·video·33m 27s·analyzed·Nov 26, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.025

TL;DR

Comprehensive clear coat tutorial emphasizing prep work, equipment setup, and first coat execution with troubleshooting.

Summary

Cary Hardy from Straight Down the Middle provides a comprehensive tutorial on clear coating pinball playfields, focusing on pre-work preparation, equipment setup, and the critical first coat application. The video emphasizes that successful clear coating depends heavily on meticulous prep work—sanding, masking, cleaning with naphtha, and leveling—rather than the coating process itself. Hardy demonstrates the technique on hard mode using budget equipment (Harbor Freight HVLP gun, small compressor) and documents troubleshooting issues like fast-acting activator and improperly leveled clear, showing how to recover from application mistakes through flooding and eye-dropper touch-ups.

Key Claims

  • Clear coating is easy, but pre and post work involved in the process will test the patience of any detail-oriented individual

    high confidence · Cary Hardy opening statement establishing the core theme of the video

  • You must sand your playfield before clear coating to give the clear coat surface tooth to grab onto; failure to sand will result in clear coat lifting

    high confidence · Hardy's explanation of sanding necessity: 'If you do not sand your playfield before you clear coat then you are asking for trouble down the road'

  • A first coat of clear will amplify and magnify every defect in the playfield over the next 24 hours

    high confidence · Hardy discussing first coat behavior: 'over the next 24 hours you're going to find that this clear is going to amplify and make every defect in your playfield magnified'

  • You can accomplish professional-quality clear coating using subpar/budget gear like a Harbor Freight HVLP gun and small compressor

    high confidence · Hardy demonstrating this with actual results: 'Contrary to popular belief, you can accomplish this task using subpar gear... the end result is going to show you that it can be done'

  • P95 mask is the minimum acceptable respiratory protection for clear coating; full body suit with supplied air is preferable

    high confidence · Hardy's safety equipment discussion: 'This is, I want to say, the minimum when it comes to air purifying yourself... I know people that use a full body suit with supplied air... the safer the better'

  • Optimal air pressure for HVLP spray gun application is 40 PSI

    medium confidence · Hardy's equipment settings: 'you want to make sure that when you are spraying your gun that you are at a solid 40 PSI. Different strokes for different folks but this is the PSI that I will be using'

  • Clear coat should be mixed to a 4:1 ratio of clear to activator (as specified on container)

    high confidence · Hardy mixing the clear: 'I'm mixing it to a four to one ratio as per the container requests'

Notable Quotes

  • “Clear Coating is easy. but it's the pre and post work involved in the process that will test the patience of any detail-oriented individual.”

    Cary Hardy@ 0:55 — Establishes the core theme that success in clear coating hinges on preparation and finishing work, not the coating application itself

  • “If you do not sand your playfield before you clear coat then you are asking for trouble down the road.”

    Cary Hardy@ 7:49 — Critical technical requirement: sanding creates surface tooth necessary for clear coat adhesion

  • “The point of clear coating your playfield is to preserve it to make sure that you're protecting it so if you're going to clear coat and not worry too much or put much effort into the pre-work and making sure everything's like clean and ready to go then you're going to basically just put clear on something and it's just going to be protected but it's not going to look as good”

    Cary Hardy@ 9:38 — Reinforces philosophy that clear coating is fundamentally about preservation, requiring meticulous prep to achieve aesthetic goals

  • “Contrary to popular belief, you can accomplish this task using subpar gear... the end result is going to show you that it can be done.”

    Cary Hardy@ 12:54 — Democratizes the clear coating process by demonstrating that expensive equipment is not a prerequisite for quality results

  • “over the next 24 hours you're going to find that this clear is going to amplify and make every defect in your playfield magnified. So deep scratch, sunken inserts, you know, pitting, anything like that you can think of this clear coat is going to magnify that to really show you in 24 hours”

    Cary Hardy@ 10:47 — Explains expected first-coat behavior and why multiple coats and sanding iterations are necessary

Entities

Cary HardypersonStraight Down the MiddleorganizationPinsideorganizationvid1900personHarbor FreightcompanyLowe'scompanyWalmartcompany

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Straight Down the Middle producing detailed, multi-part educational series on advanced pinball restoration techniques; content positioned to serve home collector and DIY enthusiast segment

    high · Production of comprehensive clear coating tutorial with promised follow-up videos; credits Pinside community knowledge; encourages viewers to reference forum resources

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinside forum (specifically vid1900 playfield restoration thread) established as foundational knowledge repository for clear coating methodology within collector community

    high · Hardy credits vid1900's thread as 'the ultimate guide to pinball plating build restoration'; recommends all viewers reference this thread for comprehensive information

  • $

    market_signal: Budget equipment (Harbor Freight HVLP guns, small air compressors) successfully used for professional-grade clear coating, challenging equipment hierarchy and cost barriers

    high · Hardy explicitly demonstrates that 15-dollar Harbor Freight HVLP gun can produce results comparable to premium equipment; emphasizes results over gear quality

  • ?

    technology_signal: Emergence of detailed restoration content on YouTube targeting home collectors; democratization of professional restoration techniques through video education

    high · Detailed technical tutorial with equipment recommendations, step-by-step process documentation, and troubleshooting guidance accessible to general audience

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.100

0:30
Clear Coating. The pinnacle of pinball restoration skills. Or is it? Clear Coating is easy. but it's the pre and post work involved in the process that will test the patience of any detail-oriented individual.
1:05
Chances are if you're watching this, then you too care enough about your game to protect it and give it that wet and shiny look that everyone else enjoys.
1:16
There are many ways to go about doing this, and I'm going to walk you through it, step by step. Hopefully by the end you too will have the confidence needed to perform this process yourself. Are you ready? This is by far going to be the most analyzed and most critiqued video that I put out to date. Understand that the following content is not the only way that you can clear coat your playfield. There are way too many variables for me to list here on the different ways people go about doing this process. What I will recommend that you do is follow the forum thread on Pinside under vid1900's How to Restore Your Pinball Playfield. like the ultimate guide to pinball plate build restoration. A large chunk of the info in this video is due to the knowledge that he has shared willingly amongst all of us. Please use caution when dealing with the chemicals involved in this process and wear the appropriate protective gear. Straight down the middle, including myself, are not responsible for any damages that may occur to your project. If you plan on following along with these instructions you do so on your own accord. Thank you.
2:48

Once activator is mixed with clear coat, the chemical reaction begins immediately and time becomes critical—you must be ready to spray with no delays

high confidence · Hardy's experience: 'once this activator is in there mixed up stirred up it's already going to work. It's already starting to activate the clear. So you need to mix it and then pray that you've got everything ready to go'

  • Hand sanding can create an unlevel playfield because hands naturally conform to crevices; block sanders should be used for wet sanding to maintain levelness

    high confidence · Hardy's explanation: 'typically when you're sanding with your hand your hand is going to naturally form and go into any kind of crevice so you're not going to have a level playing field'

  • A 98-99% water solution with a drop of dishwashing liquid soap should be used during wet sanding to prevent clogging sandpaper with clear coat debris

    high confidence · Hardy's wet sanding technique: 'The mixture I'm using that I'm spraying on the playfield is I want to say like 98, 99% water and like a drop of like dishwashing detergent liquid soap'

  • “This is some nasty stuff. This is not something that you should just take lightly. This can be very dangerous to your health. So please use an air mask and protection when dealing with this.”

    Cary Hardy@ 21:17 — Safety emphasis on two-part auto-clear toxicity and respiratory hazards

  • “You want to make sure that you don't pour all of your clear into your container before you shoot. Leave it a little bit behind so that way, after you clear coat your plate, you're able to have some ready and mixed up, ready to go, that you can do touch-ups on”

    Cary Hardy@ 26:39 — Practical pro-tip about reserving mixed clear for eye-dropper touch-ups post-application

  • “All I'm doing here guys is lightly going over the playfield. Think of it like peeling the scab off of a wound. It's just the top layer to give the wound the ability to breathe again.”

    Cary Hardy@ 27:33 — Metaphor explaining the purpose of inter-coat sanding: opening the surface for cure acceleration and leveling

  • “I'm going to sand where I believe everything needs to be sanded and then I'll clean it off and go over to make sure I don't have any rough spots. The sanding process is essentially a rinse and repeat, guys.”

    Cary Hardy@ 29:52 — Describes the iterative nature of the multi-coat clear coating process

  • “I didn't reform the second coat till maybe I want to say even two weeks after my first coat, guys. I spent the next week just sanding a little bit each every day to get this down to where I wanted it to be.”

    Cary Hardy@ 32:06 — Demonstrates realistic timeline for clear coating: two weeks minimum between first and second coat for proper leveling via daily hand sanding

    • Okay, now that the disclaimer is out of the way, let's get down to business. When it comes to clear-coding your playfield, you have two main decisions that you need to decide on. First decision, do you want to just disassemble the top side and that's it? Or do you want to disassemble both sides to where all you have is the playfield and you do not have to worry about mechanics or electronics that will be left behind during cleanup and post work, pre and post for that matter. For this video series, I'm going to be doing top side only, which tends to be what a lot of people do because some people, not all of you, get a little nervous when it comes to completely clearing the back side of a playfield and rightfully so. It can be a little intimidating, but I will say that due to my experiences, I for now on will be disassembling top and back of a plate bill because it's going to make the pre and post work just so much easier. Sonny we can do this the easy way or the hard way. But as you're going to find out throughout this video series we're going to be doing it the hard way. So this is actually going to be a little easier I think for a lot of you since I'm going to have a lot of things going against me on this. You should be able to get the same results in probably a lot easier way than what I'm going to be. Now granted some of those decisions that you make are going to cost you more money. You can go about doing this a little bit easier. So first off and obviously you're going to be taking everything off the top side of your play field leaving nothing sticking up. Basically anything that is going to be on the top side of your play field will be getting clear-coated. You can't just mask off certain areas and expect things to go well in the end no you need to remove everything this play field i've chosen not to do a complete full restoration when it comes to paint touch-ups or anything like that all i've done is around the scoop areas it has done a wood epoxy to basically form the holes and make it to where it's a solid sheet and just to where it needs to be i'm not going to worry about doing paint touch-ups because you're not going to see these wear spots anyways because you're going to have clippies over these scoops. So all I'm doing is basically prolonging the life of the clippy protectors. So after you disassemble the entire top side of your playfield now becomes more prep work. Now you're going to need to get some painter's tape and just mask off every crevice of this playfield to keep from clear coat escaping down and getting up underneath the wires and just causing further issues. On this playfield I have every switch slot, every pop bumper hole, every scoop, everything is masked off to where clear coat cannot just easily escape and go down there and cause further issues in my post work. Along with getting all your holes masked off you want to also further make it easier for dealing with this play field and moving it around by usually zip tying like a lot of dangling mechs or switches zip tying those to other areas to keep everything tightly bound to the back side to where if you had to pick up this play field to move it or deal with it things aren't just going to be getting in the way and just falling to the ground. It just makes it a lot easier to manage if you control where all your switches and everything are at by zip tying or you can use some painters tape around other stuff to get it all nice and snug and controlled you also want to have your wire harness completely inside of a large ziploc bag i'm just using a basic walmart bag right here just to kind of control them to keep them inside there so that way if any clear does get in there it's not going to get all over your wiring harness but it's not just clear that i'm worried about here guys it's the post work involved with all the sanding and stuff like that we don't want a bunch of residual just getting down there and gunking up stuff trust me you don't want to have to deal with that mess once you believe that you have everything under control masked off now we can make sure that our play field is ready for sanding what you mean you want to sand before we even clear coat yes I know this is gonna sound bad and this is gonna be something that you're gonna be really iffy about doing but if you want your clear coat to actually stick and not lift, then you're going to want to make sure your playfield has some tooth to it. This is basically, I'm going to use in this video, I want to say 500 grit. I would probably go up to maybe an 800 just to play it even more safe for you people, but use an 800 grit sandpaper and go over the playfield like so.
    7:30
    I'm not applying a lot of pressure. I'm mainly just letting the sandpaper just kind of dig in and this is going to give the clear coat more surface area to grab onto. If you do not sand your playfield before you clear coat then you are asking for trouble down the road. When sanding your playfield you need to watch out for any kind of obstructions like GI bulbs that can stick a little further out of the play field than anything else. This will individually tear your sandpaper if you go over hard enough or at just the right angle and it's just more frustrations that you have to deal with. Sometimes you can kind of push them down just a little bit further or just be careful when sanding around them but still make sure that you get every nook and cranny sanded that clear coat is gonna be touching you want to make sure you get into your shooter lane all that kind of stuff any area that does not get sanded is more likely going to have lifting for clear coat if it's not sanded i'm just telling you how it is that's what's going to happen guys okay so you've given your playfield a good once over or twice over whatever you believe to give your playfield enough tooth now it's time to get this thing cleaned up by using naphtha. Naphtha is going to be a chemical solvent that you're going to be using a lot of so don't skimp on the quantity when you purchase this. If you have doubts on what your plate field is going to look like clear coated take naphtha put a little bit on a microfiber cloth and just wipe a certain area of the plate field that will give you a real quick look at what your plate field will look like once it's been clear coated. So if you're sanding and you feel like there's no way this is going to look good put a little naphtha on there wipe over it and for a few seconds before it evaporates it will give you a good idea of what that playfield is going to look like with the deep dark colors and the shiny look as well but we're going to be using naphtha throughout this entire process pre and post so after you've sanded your playfield you obviously need to clean your playfield because you don't want any loose debris getting into your clear this is something that i need to stress guys is that the point of clear code in your play field is to preserve it to make sure that you're protecting it so if you're going to clear code and not worry too much or put much effort into the pre-work and making sure everything's like clean and ready to go then you're going to basically just put clear on something and it's just going to be protected but it's not going to look as good so one of my primary objectives is what i'm doing is it's like filters and a clean room and stuff like that to help control particles This is not going to be a single coat and we're done guys It's the first coat that you're gonna be performing on your playfield is nothing more than a foundation and to lock everything in place And then you can build off of that So even if I were to be doing any kind of touch-ups with paint or anything of that nature I wouldn't do that until after I've clear coated because I want to lock in the wood fibers in place and then I would paint But I'm not gonna be doing any kind of painting in this video. Maybe down the road we can go into that I'm trying to give you a little more emphasis on what this clear is going to do. So your first code is at first going to look really good, but over the next 24 hours you're going to find that this clear is going to amplify and make every defect in your playfield magnified. So deep scratch, sunken inserts, you know, pitting, anything like that you can think of this clear coat is going to magnify that to really show you in 24 hours so if you're trying to preserve a play field that has a lot of flaking paint and in the more you kind of like mess with it it's only gonna get worse then you really don't want to sand too much over those areas guys because you're just gonna knock off more paint it's just gonna be more touch-ups that you're gonna have to do down the road so as per usual like I said there's a lot of variables to this so this is mainly going to cover those that do not require any touch-ups on their plate build. Also when sanding you do not want to use just your hand and sandpaper. This is just asking for trouble when it comes to how level your plate build and clear is going to be. You want to use a block sander and eventually when we get onto wet sanding you're going to see what I use there because typically when you're sanding with your hand your hand is going to naturally form and go into any kind of crevice so you're not going to have a level playing field now when you're first sanding it's not going to matter too much because you're wanting to get everything rough but when you're coming to leveling your play field flat on wet coating or wet sanding rather that's when you're going to make sure you don't want to just use sandpaper in your hand because it's just going to be a big issue down the road let's move on to your pneumatic equipment i'm going to be pretty much accomplishing this clear coating task on hard mode like i said earlier because typically when you want to accomplish this task, you want a really large air compressor to make sure that you've got enough volume to accomplish your task without running out of compressed air, obviously. So ideally you want like a 26 gallon plus. I'm going to be accomplishing this task with this. That's right. Contrary to popular belief, you can accomplish this task using subpar gear. That will definitely be in the comments down below, people talking about my Harbor Freight clear coating gun and stuff like that. the end result is going to show you that it can be done. Any connection that requires you to screw in, you want to make sure that you have a couple of rounds of plumber's tape around the threads to make sure that you've got a good air lock. If you have everything screwed in, put together, and you can hear air seeping out of any connection, you want to solve that problem right now. I'm already on hard mode with a little bitty compressor like this. I don't need extra air escaping into the wild. I need all I can get. I also have a filter attached at the base of the gun. This is going to make sure I don't get any unwanted moisture or dirt or anything like that from the compressor to the gun. So let's go over some of the equipment guys. Now majority of these items I purchased at Harbor Freight. Others you can get at your local hardware store like Lowe's and stuff like that when it comes to the chemicals. So I've already gone over naphtha. You need a good amount of that. You're also going to need lacquer thinner. This is going to be a chemical very useful for pre and post work of your clear coating gun to shoot. To make sure the gun is clean to shoot and to make sure the gun is clean after you shoot. Mesh strainer filter. This is to make sure that we don't get any unwanted particles into our clear. This is a P95 mask, purchasable at Harbor Freight. This is, I want to say, the minimum when it comes to air purifying yourself. And for this process, this is the minimum use, guys. I've seen people online using just a simple like masks that that is good for like mowing the lawn but is not safe for clear coating you're going to need at least minimally this but you know I know people that use a full body suit with supplied air praise by all means go for it the safer the better some of your compressors will have a built-in air regulator and the gun itself has an air regulator I'll go over that later but I'm I've got another air regulator that I keep at the gun so that way I can monitor it while I'm shooting in case there's any kind of issues and just to make sure that I have a constant flow. And of course your spray gun. When it comes to what clear coat should you use? That is going to be a debate that will never end for a lot of us in the pinball industry. People have got their own opinions slash even facts to prove which one should be used and which one should not be used. All I can say is, you know, do your research. go on pinzide see what results people are getting you're going to see me use this clear coat on the first coat but i change it up and we'll go over why when we get there along with your clear coat you need of course the corresponding activator for it the measuring cup to measure your clear coat hardener to clear coat ratio usually it's a four to one eyedroppers for some post touch-up work trust me you're going to want these you can get these at your walmart in the medicine area this is where I got these at. A stirring stick to mix your activator and your clear coat, gloves obviously, and of course goggles for eye protection. All right your basic $15 HVLP gun. So some of these settings that you're going to need to adjust on here to how you see fit is your built-in air regulator. You want to basically have this thing all the way out as far as you can to where you want it just barely on there.
    16:26
    So that's going to be your internal air regulator. I don't use this because I like more accurate control. That's why I have my air regulator that I attached to my gun. So this is just to make sure that it not utilizing this portion of it Uh this right here is going to adjust the fan the fan amount like how big your spray is going to be So this is all the way down right now. I would max it out and then do a full 360 around but your gun may be a little bit different that's why you do the spray test before you shoot just to see how big your spray is going to be and the amount of fluid that comes out can be adjusted by this bad baby right here I usually have this thing all the way out as well so once this is this is going in that's going to limit the amount of fluid that will be released so I would basically unscrew that out as far as I can and then tighten it in place right there and then I'll do some test sprays and adjust accordingly okay so you've got all of your equipment needed you've got your playfield sanded you've got your playfield cleaned let's Let's get this thing in the paint booth. Another important factor that some people completely forget about when they're doing this is to make sure that your play field is of course level. I'm taking your basic level here and measuring the X and Y all over to make sure I'm as flat as I can be. It starts out being off, but surprisingly enough and what I use to solve this problem are pennies. Yeah, I know, you're thinking, what? But they're cheap, they're sturdy, and there's plenty of them out there. So I actually just use pennies and depending on what you're actually shooting on determines what you're going to use to get your playfield level. You can level your playfield however you want to. This is what I'm going to use. But as long as you accomplish the same end result as making sure your playfield is level, then that's all that matters. Just make sure it's level and sturdy. You don't want the slightest movement to cause it to wiggle out of place because you're going to be clear coating on this and you don't want it to be sitting there and then all of a sudden something falls off and collapses or falls onto it. Trust me guys, you want stability and consistency for this process. Alright, so our play field is level. It is in position. We've got all of our gear ready to go. I think it's time to get this clear coat mixed and start shooting. You want to make sure that when you are spraying your gun that you are at a solid 40 PSI. Different strokes for different folks but this is the PSI that I will be using for this particular gun. Before we just go running in and pouring in our clear coat and just spraying our plate fill we want to make sure that our gun is calibrated and our air pressure is consistent. I'm going to be using a regular sheet of cardboard and water just to deter the fan size as well as the amount of volume that is spraying through my gun. I'm going to be spraying this just over and over again at different amounts of volume and distance just to give you the idea of how much volume is going through this gun. This is the time where you get the test to make sure that your air pressure is consistent. Once I have my fan size as well as volume dialed in and my air pressure looks consistent at a solid 40, I'm ready to move on. Before using actual clear coat, I will be utilizing the lacquer thinner. I pour just, you know, a good amount into this gun, swish it around, and then spray to make sure, one, that my gun is clean and working functionally, and two, that if there's any other residual or dirt, grease, moisture, that the lacquer thinner should be able to take it out. Once the lacquer thinner has been completely depleted from my container, my gun should be clean and be completely prepped to accept clear coat. So something I need to stress here guys, and that is once again that this is clear coating, two-part auto-clear. This is some nasty stuff. This is not something that you should just take lightly. This can be very dangerous to your health. So please use an air mask and protection when dealing with this. I need a nuclear reaction to generate the low-point 21 gigabit of electricity that I need. So we're going to be putting on our equipment and start mixing the clear So I'm mixing it to a four to one ratio as per the container requests Now I'm going to show you here why we use filters In a redundant matter because we want to make sure that we are getting the best Look at our clear and these containers sit on a shelf in my garage and they obtain dirt on the top and the lids so whenever it comes to me pouring things in, there's a very good high chance that you're gonna get dirt or dust or whatever falling into the clear and that proves it right here. So once you pour your activator into your clear, that activator is going to work guys. So let it be known that this first coat is not going to go very well and that's for a couple of reasons one i have a fast hardener and that is due to the previous play field i did during the winter so i used a fast hardener and it is currently in my garage at this point like 95 degrees outside 43 percent humidity i want to say so once this activator is in there mixed up stirred up it's already going to work. It's already starting to activate the clear. So you need to mix it and then pray that you've got everything ready to go with no stop, no issues. That's not the case for me here guys because I forgot a very important step in the preparation process before you cleared your playfield. You can see me as I start to use the tack cloth to make sure I get any possible last bit of dust or dirt that could have fallen onto this playfield and then I noticed that I forgot to put some 44 bulbs into my GI sockets. You're live.
    23:40
    Oh god damn it. What? Stop it? Yeah. Meanwhile my clear is there on the stand just activating away starting to do its job. So I had to take a quick time out to find bulbs then get the bulbs in place and then do the tack cloth one more time due to all the work that I was doing over the playing field for these bulbs.
    24:11
    Now we can actually start shooting. So when shooting this, you want to go in straight, consistent lines back and forth with a little bit of it overlapping over each time you go over. Now due to past experiences, I can already tell you at this point I was already like, hmm, this doesn't seem like it should. So I immediately start spraying over it again because I'm already getting a little bit concerned. It like I seeing the clear shoot and it going on in the play field but it not really doing what it should It not looking like it leveling out It seems like it more coagulating together And this is not what the typical fashion would look like
    25:16
    Now, definitely at this point is where I start to get concerned. I have a decision to make, guys. And that is either to stop what I'm doing, wipe off as much as I can, sand, and then start over again due to a clear coating issue. four which is the preferred option in my opinion and that is to flood the plate field that is when i use all the clear that i have to in order to get this plate filled completely coated and covered so i end up going back and forth making a couple of more batches just to make sure i make enough to cover this plate field i'm using way more clear than i should guys but this is what i'm having to do which sucks so this is like I said the first coat does not go on the way it's supposed to this is not the typical results but just to show you as an example that even though your first coat goes on like this you can still save the play field and fix the issues now I'm going over the play field with the eyedropper to help mix up any kinds of like you know, areas that were just unseeable at the time with the gun. Just eye dropping here and there, here and there, any kind of low areas that I see. The eye drops is something that you're going to be doing, so you want to make sure that you don't pour all of your clear into your container before you shoot. Leave it a little bit behind so that way, after you clear coat your plate, you're able to have some ready and mixed up, ready to go, that you can do touch-ups on just here and there. It's a very, very useful technique.
    26:58
    As you can see the playfield has a very nice sheen to it, granted it's a very thick coat, but we will be end up chewing that down over the course of the next couple of weeks. Now like I said earlier in the video, after the first 24 hours you should have a good top solid coat on your playfield. Now it's not cured, but you should be able to touch it and it not be tacky. So I'm actually taking it out of my booth and we're going to perform the very first sanding. All I'm doing here guys is lightly going over to the plate fill. Think of it like peeling the scab off of a wound. It's just the top layer to give the wound the ability to breathe again. Also notice the pad and the size that I'm using is very large. So this gives me more surface and level area to go over at one time, making sure that the playfield is level.
    28:01
    So my primary objective here is to go over this playfield a great deal to open up the clear to give it the ability to cure faster. Because I've got a very thick first coat and I do not need it to be this thick.
    28:22
    So I'll wipe everything off and then I also go over it again with napkin just to make sure that everything's all cleaned off. Then I'm going to look over the playfield. Any area that is shiny and reflective is a low area, a low spot in the clear. So this lets me know that there are still some spots that need to be hit before I even attempt at shooting another coat. so I'm just going to walk around the play field and kind of point out certain areas that I'm already noticing as I'm doing this whole standing process
    29:14
    Now, I'm going to let this be the first sanding and I'm going to let the playfield sit for another 24 hours. The next 24 hours I'll do another coat of sanding. I'm using a 500 grit by the way. The sanding process is essentially a rinse and repeat guys. I'm going to sand where I believe everything needs to be sanded and then I'll clean it off and go over to make sure I don't have any low spots. The mixture I'm using that I'm spraying on the play field is I want to say like 98, 99% water and like a drop of like dishwashing detergent liquid soap. This gives the ability to go over the plate field smoothly and slickly without the clear that you're sanding off clogging up your sandpaper. What I'm doing now is getting into the really low spots that I discovered during this process with just a little bit of sandpaper. Now I told you that in order for your clear coat to really stick to the previous version, you need to make sure that it's got some tooth. So I'm getting into these little shallow areas that I can really see with this little bit sandpaper getting it down in there and standing around to make sure it's all nice and rough
    31:26
    Now, in order to counter all this, make my next coat easier, I'm going to have a little bit of clear coat mixed up, just enough to where I can use eye drops to fill in these gaps. I'll fill for the low areas and just drop a couple of drops in there and that clear should be cured, I don't know about fully cured, but it should be nice and solid in 24 hours. And then of course, again, I'll do a sanding again. just like before my first coat I'm going to make sure everything has completely been sanded and level and cleaned up ready to go and then we're going to move on to our next coat.
    32:06
    Oh man that looks a lot better. I didn't reform the second coat till maybe I want to say even two weeks after my first coat guys. I spent the next week just sanding a little bit each day to get this down to where I wanted it to be. If you've got the tools for a pneumatic sander or an air compressor, by all means, use it. Mine at the time was broken, so therefore I'm going by hand. And like I stated, I'm doing this in hard mode. The next coat goes down way smoother, guys. But we'll go over that in the next video in the series. That's gonna wrap up this video. If you like what you've seen and maybe even learned something, then give me that thumbs up button down below. And if you haven't already, do not forget to hit subscribe. That way you can be notified whenever we upload something for your viewing pleasure.
    32:56
    Until next time, guys. Peace out.