Repairing Laminated Cabinet, Possible?

[phantax]

I recently had a friend pick up a couple of cabinets on his way down to my place, so I did not get the chance to inspect them myself. One of them happens to be a Virtua Fighter 2 cabinet which I have been keeping an eye out for, for quite a while.



I currently have a Sega Model 2A / Virtua Fighter 2 that is in a generic cabinet, so it is really looking for a more proper home.

Upon inspecting the cabinet it has some water damage on the bottom of the two side panels, I think this could be fixed by cutting a few inches off on each side and using new board in its place, it can be painted black as the front has a 3 - 4 inch black stripe on the bottom which I wouldnt mind extending around to the sides.



Some of the edges have chips of laminate taken off, which I guess is melamine - Ive never worked with a laminated cabinet before so I am kind of clueless as to what to do.



Since I would like to salvage the cabinet in its original color / artwork I would rather not remove the laminate. Could I repair the edges somehow and then get paint color matched to fix it? Or should I just scrap that idea, strip the laminate, paint it and MAME it?