Repairing Wood Rot?

[kuehnau]

So waking up today I decided to mess around with the various arcade parts I got laying around. I basically tore the cabinet I bought apart, so I could properly paint it. I got the parts from the basement, which had been drying the last two months or so after I painted them. I brought them into the garage and started putting them together, only to notice on one of the side panels, the bottom part looked swollen. I grabbed it and squeezed and it's spongy.

Let me be clear, my basement is warm and dry and the other arcade panel isn't spongy at all, so I am not exactly sure what I am dealing with. I was going to go ahead and just put it together anyways, but then I realized that with the way the bottom is on that panel, the glue a staples may not take at all, or, later on pose a much more serious problem.

Is this fixable? Or should I just think about dumping the wood and starting over?

[kahlid74]

You need to make sure to find all the damages areas.  You would treat wood rot no different than any other part.  Two ways:
1). Use a completely new piece.  If the rest of the cab is safe/good to go, cut a new side.
2). if you don't want to do that, cut away the rot and a bit more of "good" wood.  Cut a new piece that fits the old piece.  Glue together and use firing strips inside for additional support.

Depending on how big the area is and if it's load bearing, you should really cut a new piece but if it's purely cosmetic, you can do a piece for piece replacement.

[kuehnau]

It's spongy, but not crumbling or falling apart. My plan was to use wood hardener on the spongy bits and use furring and pray

[Sarver Systems]

But if it's swollen...you might not get it flat again.

You could try clamping the area with some wood clamps to squish out the water. and then heat it somehow to get it back down to 2% moisture. Otherwise its just going to swell up again.

If it were me, I'd cut the damaged and replace it, or build a whole new panel, as was suggested above.

[kuehnau]

To be honest at this point I don't even care anymore. This project has been dragging on for almost two years. I added some support on the inside, and then glued and stapled all the edges. Tomorrow I am going to hit the spongy spots with wood hardner.

It's taken too much time and work, it's going to be a filler ---smurfy--- cabinet, until I can buy an xtension cocktail kit and then I am burning the ---smurfing--- thing down.