Punchout cab repair

Radford119

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Donor 2011, 2023
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Just got done repairing my PO cab that had some nasty damage right in the curve of the control panel.

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I started off by cutting out the damaged area, once I removed all of the flaking wood and old filler I was left with a pretty ugly scar. I squared off the area and cut it clean. Then matched a new another piece of wood and glued it in place. I added 3 dowel pins between the new piece and the cab to add stability and help hold the piece in place. Once the glue dried I was left with the image below.

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The closest size plywood I could find at home depot without going any larger than the cab was 1/2 inch. I figured I could make it work and fill the rest with bondo to make up the difference in thickness.

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I was worried the piece may wiggle from side to side if hit the wrong way so I decided to reinforce it with some staples on each side. I routed out an area equal to the depth of the new wood and started stapling it up. From the inside the staples will be covered up by a piece of wood that retains the monitor plexi.

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After that I put bondo over the staples and remaining gap and sanded smooth.

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I then made a template from the opposite side and flush trimmed the excess to match.

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Overall, I was happy with the way it turned out and hopefully once I laminate the cab it will be almost invisible. Let me know if you think this will hold up or if I need to rethink how to do it. This was the first time I used bondo and I am not sure how thick you can apply it before you run into problems.
 
Thanks for the positive comments. It took a few tries to get used to working with the bondo. The first batch I mixed too much and it dried up on me. But after that, it was smooth sailing.
 
Finally finished for the most part and I thought I would share. Nothing special but I'm proud of it. Still looking for a nice lower door, a complete unhacked harness for the original power supply and a couple of orange buttons.

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That's some truly RAD work man!!!! ( Looks really mint....Ever want to sell that one I'm sure someone will really appreciate how nice it looks compared to most of the others rags out there...)
Oh yeah my moon patrol is still workin like a charm.....
 
Very nice work! Your repair reminds me of damage I had on my Ms Pac cabinet. A nasty lock bar hole had to be patched and bondo filled so I cut the hole to be more square before patching and bondo. I ended up using a thin piece of wood on the inside, but I really like how you used dowels.
 
Nice work there. Some would have just just filled the whole section with bondo. While bondo will give you a smooth finish it is not strong enough in some applications I seen bondo corners cracks before. I don't see that ever happening in your case.
Great job. Keep up the good work and thanks for sharing.
 
Thanks again guys for the props! I have always been skeptical of bondos structural performance in large areas. I have never done the rebar technique but it might work good as well.

As for the staples that was my solution to help it from wiggling left to right because I could only get dowels on one edge of the small piece of wood and the cab. If I could do it over I would probably have done the inside as well with staples and bondo. It has three staples on the inside, but they are covered by the side bezel retainers and would never be seen anyways.
 
That turned out great Brandon! Can't wait to play it next time I'm over. Which by the looks of things will be soon.

JJ
 
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