Cabinet restore or replace?

[femto]

Hi all,
        Been tinkering in the shed today and pulling apart my Card Whiz. I have seen what others are doing with these machines and I want to do the same. I removed all the contents of the machine and have the cabinet bare but I am not sure weather to rebuild or replace the cabinet. The back legs have at some point been ripped out I guess and somone has wedged in some pine to replace the broken away plywood. The front door part is loose and has some layers missing from the bottom. The base sheet which sits in a groove has parts of the groove missing. Do I somehow repair this or build a new cabinet?

[femto]

Any ideas?

[ralph67]

you can get some timber strips from hardware or 10mm half round or square and glue this to the cabinet bottom . either remove the old strip or reglue existing trim/ply if okay. i did remake the rear of a gottlieb cab using 20mm ply but its a bit of a job because you need to rebate it along the corners. or put a post out for a cab im sure someone near you would have that era gottlieb cabinet.

[Boots]

you can get some timber strips from hardware or 10mm half round or square and glue this to the cabinet bottom . either remove the old strip or reglue existing trim/ply if okay. i did remake the rear of a gottlieb cab using 20mm ply but its a bit of a job because you need to rebate it along the corners. or put a post out for a cab im sure someone near you would have that era gottlieb cabinet.

If you want it to look mostly original you could do what I did to a Williams cabinet.
I cleaned up the bottom of the sides so that the groove was completely removed and the remaining plywood side was 8mm thick.
I then cut strips of 12mm plywood and glued and clamped them in place.
Cut the strips a bit wider than the step from the baseboard to the edge of the cabinet sides so they protrude above the bottom of the sides and when the glue is dry, trim the excess off with a router.
Then end result is from underneath it looks just like the machine has 20mm plywood sides just like it did originally.

[Strangeways]

Removing the back panel is a difficult job, but that's what you might have to do here. You can take the removed panel to Bunnings etc and they should have the correct replacement and cut it for you. You will have to route the bottom section. While you have the cabinet apart, replace the bottom section as well.

[Boots]

Removing the back panel is a difficult job, but that's what you might have to do here. You can take the removed panel to Bunnings etc and they should have the correct replacement and cut it for you. You will have to route the bottom section. While you have the cabinet apart, replace the bottom section as well.

If you want to replace the bottom panel, Bunnings may not have the correct thickness masonite.
I ended up using braceboard, it's still masonite, it's 1/4 inch (6.35mm) thick which is what was required for the Williams cabinet I repaired.
To help the strength of the cabinet you could also glue the masonite in and nail it in too, just make sure the nails will be hidden by the cabinet side repair strip.

[femto]

Thanks for the ideas....some of which I hadn't considered. I will mull over this for a little while and decide which way to go. Whatever I do I will keep you posted.

[femto]

So I have been working on this for a while and thought I had better share what I did. I received some advice from Greg (OLDPINS) who has the same machine and I then replaced the front and rear panels. The rear panel was chipboard whereas the rest is plywood which I thought was bizarre so I replaced it with plywood. It wasn't too hard, I used a circular saw to cut the piece out and to make cuts to make joins. It all fitted together nicely so I then glued and screwed it. Very happy with the result.

[Retropin]

Good stuff..

All pins were made to a strict budget.. thats why 1 player wedgeheads are so sought after... less money spent on score reels means more for game play etc.

The decision to use chip[board for the backs was due to rising costs of quality ply... over a few thousand machines, it was quite a saving.
very few of these backs have stood the test of time

[goodolddays]

Looks great . Will have to tackle that job (replacing the back) myself on of these days