Rebuilding Cabinet Floor ... looking for advice

[General Zod]

I recently purchased a Ms.Pac cab in need of whole new cabinet floor, how should take out the existing floor and replace it, and what type of wood should I use?

Any special tricks to removing the bottom piece? The sides are also a little water damaged on the bottom, but those can easily be addressed. I'm just more concerned with the cabinet floor.

I even had this corny idea of just building a box, or crate style frame around the bottom half of the cab, and calling it like ... and please forgive me for this ... " Pac in the Box "  

Any suggestions you could give would be appreciated tremendously.

thanks...

mike

[Jabba]

Could you upload a pic from inside cab and outside cab (i.e., the bottom piece)? Hard to figure how this is mounted

[General Zod]

I will as soon as I get back my camera.  

[OSCAR]

I just did the same thing to the Centipede cab I'm restoring.  I haven't had a chance to update my site yet with a proper write-up, but here is essentially what I did.  Although this may not be exactly the same as a Ms. Pac cab, perhaps it will help you out some.

1. My cab had some moisture damage along the front bottom edge.  Most of the damage was to the front coindoor panel and along the left side.  I initially expected that I was going to have to replace the bottom, too, but it seems that the particle board sides wicked up the moisture and the plywood bottom was pretty well protected.

In these photos, the cab is lying down with the front panel facing up.  Here you can see the particle board was severely damaged, in some places the 3/4" board had expanded to over 1.5" thick.

http://www.oscarcontrols.com/centipede/cab-repair01.jpg
http://www.oscarcontrols.com/centipede/cab-repair02.jpg


2. The front panel was removed.  This was pretty easy, I just carefully knocked it out with a hammer leaving the 3/4" x 3/4" braces attached to the sides.

http://www.oscarcontrols.com/centipede/cab-repair03.jpg
http://www.oscarcontrols.com/centipede/cab-repair04.jpg


3. I rolled the cabinet over on the right side and knocked out the bottom panel.  Then I used a circular saw to cut off about 4" of the bottom left side.

http://www.oscarcontrols.com/centipede/cab-repair05.jpg


4. Here is the bottom panel.  It was at this point that I decided that the bottom panel was still in very good shape and hadn't delaminated from moisture.  If I had to replace this panel, I would have used the original as a template and cut a new one with my router.  In my case, I just sanded it down to remove most of the stains (some of the darker ones were too deep and can be seen in the photo).

http://www.oscarcontrols.com/centipede/cab-repair06.jpg


5. A cut a piece of plywood to fill in the bottom left side that I had cut off previously.  I glued and clamped it together, and glued a 1" x 4" over the seam on the inside.  Then I used my construction stapler to secure the brace in place.  The photo of the inside was taken after I had already started to put the wire harness in the cab.

http://www.oscarcontrols.com/centipede/cab-repair07.jpg
http://www.oscarcontrols.com/centipede/cab-repair08.jpg


6. Here is a shot of the new front panel installed and the bottom put back in.  The second photo shows the cash box/ARII holder put back in.  The front shot shows the new panel refinished in black.

http://www.oscarcontrols.com/centipede/cab-repair09.jpg
http://www.oscarcontrols.com/centipede/cab-repair10.jpg
http://www.oscarcontrols.com/centipede/cab-repair11.jpg

[SaiNRuB]

Oscar, that was very interesting and beneficial.

Question, how did the bottom panel survive the water damage. Was it because the centipede cab is raised on pegs our the outer panels were that airtight?


Awesome work by the way buddy, PBR's on me.




Edit: Nevermind  

but it seems that the particle board sides wicked up the moisture and the plywood bottom was pretty well protected.

[dmsuchy]

Oscar, your restoration is nothing short of amazing, fantastic work! You should have your own show on the Discovery channel.

[General Zod]

Oscar, your restoration is nothing short of amazing, fantastic work! You should have your own show on the Discovery channel.

I second that !!

Just that post alone OSCAR not only gives me the information I need, but the confidence that it isn't going to be quite as difficult as I had imagined. Although I respect your work, and I know there was a great deal of time and accuracy involved, your pictures speak louder than words in this case.

If you're familiar at all with the MsPac cab, you know of the 2 wheels in the rear of the cab, well one is completely gone, and hole now takes its place.  

So I figured on removing the bottom panel, and then perhaps if the damage is more severe than I could see originally, maybe taking a few inches off the 4 sides of the cab.

Definitely a good tutorial, and I appreicate the input everyone provided.

Thank you !!  

Mike

[OSCAR]

Thanks for the comments, I'm glad you guys found the pics useful.  There's not much to it, really.  Just take a look at how the cabinet is constructed and how it can be taken apart easily with as little destruction as possible.  Treat every piece you remove as if you plan to re-use it, even if it is junk.  You never know, you may have to go back and measure something off the old piece or use part of it as a template.

[studboy62]

Oscar, I'm a board n00b and someone had to point your post out for me, but wow what a post.  I have a centipede box exactly like the one you have there.  I have water damage in slightly different areas but my bottom piece is shot just like yours.  

I have a question though, I still have the side art on mine.  Here's some pics of it.  

As you can see in the 2nd picture, the paint is starting to chip off at the bottom and the board down there is crumbling apart.  

I was planning on putting some wood putty over the crumbled part and sand it down a little and then try to repaint it to match the rest of the side.  For the bottom I was gonna just knock it out and replace it outright.  

Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks