I recently completed my "clean up" of my sar search and rescue cabinet. Its not a restoration by any means, as its not the original cab, and its not done to look 100% original, but I am happy with how it all cleaned up. Internally everything works fine and is tidy enough, so this was really just a cosmetics project. It was my first one, so I learned a fair bit, and would maybe do a few things differently next time, but overall am quite happy.
Before:
After:
(Just noticed the glare on the marquee in this pic. The marquee is in great shape, that is just a reflection in this pic)
Work done was:
- take off old side art panels, glue on new 1/8th plywood, then stain and clear
- new t-trim, buttons, locks installed
- painted the coin and cash box doors, as well as lots of other areas black
- create new bezel art and plexiglass, as I couldn't find any decent copies out there. found a copy of the original that was roughly a square inch, and blew it up and cleaned it up till it was use-able
- created a new bottom for it, as the old one was rotten
- cut and installed a new plexiglass cover for the control panel
- probably a few other things I'm forgetting, but basically a complete overall cleanup
I bought the cab for $300 Canadian, and put about $150 into it. So grand total came to $450 Canadian / $334 US. It was a fun project too that I really enjoyed working on.