Burn or Restore - What Would You Do?

bungy

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Picked up this heap of waterlogged Tron yesterday, but I'm not sure what to do with it. All the MDF/praticle board has damage, both sides, front, bottom & back doors. The bottom backside is falling apart and had to be clamped together or the sides sit on the ground.

The game was complete and the hardware is in good shape otherwise. Game board & power board both work fine in my good Tron. Haven't looked at the monitor or power brick yet.

My first thought is to part this and burn the cab, and I feel strongly about that. But part of me says that I have the tools to save this, so why not? I can reuse the plywood cross supports, but EVERYTHING else will need to be reproduced. It will be a cost/time prohibitive task, but I hate to see a Tron die. What would you do with it?
 
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Wow, tough call. I'd burn it, but if I had the skills to save it after all that swelling, I might think twice about that. I would consider using at least the sides as a template for replacement, if they are the worst of the cab, but all the bondo in the world probably wont help that swollen cab.
 
Keep all the good parts and junk the cab. Hopefully you can buy a new or find another good cab to put the parts in. - Barry
 
Sure did! 350.00 in birch ply, i have a guy from up that way comming in june to pick up one cab.. not sure if he can get both in his van, his cab is smallish, maybe he would bring it to you for a little gas money? Pm me and i will look up his name, see if he can hook you up! Brett
 
Reminds me a lot of my Tron. When I bought it from my local arcade the bottom was so water damaged it literally separated from the rest of the cab when I moved it. I was all set to burn it and part it out, but I ended up cutting a new piece for the bottom and using wood hardner and additional wood bracing to hold it together again. It's not pretty, but it's pretty solid at this point and it works. :) I honestly had hoped to find an empty Tron cab to transfer the guts into so I didn't want to spend a lot of time with it. Oh well. I'd say give it a shot in terms of getting it stable. It can't hurt.

Here's a few pics from the repair I did.

f1b7be87.jpg


tronrepair1.jpg


Finished repair...ugly but the can is usable at least.
IMGA0443.jpg
 
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nooooooo way......dont burn it. ive had lots of cabs like this. take an orbital sander and sand down the water damaged areas so its as close to flush with the rest of that section. start off with low grit sandpaper and then end it with high grit. if its still not smooth, add some bondo or wood hardner and then smooth it down with some high grit paper. roll on the primer, and then paint it a satin black. get some gorilla glue to bond the cab together. (you could put a planet together with that stuff!) take your time and it will look great.
 
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That thing is so far gone, burn it. Just sell the parts to someone who has a repro cabinet or an otherwise nice but converted cabinet. It's just not worth the time, money, or effort to rebuild something like this. Unless of course you just want to do it because you're crazy and like to waste your time and money just to be able to say you "saved" something. Then by all means, do what you want. :)

Wade
 
Alright, here's the deal. The cab doesn't have to be rebuilt. It can live the rest of it's life in semi half-ass shape. Use those woodworking skills you have to fix it up solid where the bottom isnt' falling out, and leave all the original art on it. Get it working, and sell it to somebody who wants an affordable tron that will never look perfect but you can get working perfect.

It's bad, but it's not DEAD bad. Everybody sees games with damage, and immediately thinks that they want to put them back to perfect, or burn them. Not every game has to be in perfect condition.... this one has been abused, fix it up as good as you can and sell it (with full disclosure of course that it's not a mint tron).
 
I woulda fixed it in my younger days, but now, I'd burn it and look for a new cab. In fact I recently faced this dilemma with a rotting particle board Shark Attack cab. I picked up a solid Stern Cab to put all the parts in, and the original cab finally met Prometheus' gift last night. Baby, sometimes love just ain't enough.
 
Given that you have a good Tron, restoring makes little sense unless you just want to do it.
Figure what you want out of it for parts, then see if someone wants to pay.
If not, then part it out and throw a match to it.
 
Im thinking part it out to someone/people that could really use the stuff. If it was my decision..id GIVE the cabinet away as not to have its demise on your hands...
 
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