Saving my Gorf after it got wet...

Dewman

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I posted this on the end of my Gorf thread, but I thought for reference, I should prolly throw it in this section as well with a bit more detail.

I had a Gorf Delivered to me that was never on location... However, the guy who delivered it, got the bottom wet. Unforgivable really. But when a noncollector delivers a game, sometimes these things can happen.

Now the original pictures I got from the seller showed slight bowing/belling/flaring at the very bottom of the cabinet, which was obviously from 30 years of sitting on a concrete floor in someone's basement. Even though it was on raised metal casters... moisture did transfer from the concrete to the bottom of the cab.

I didnt realize the cab had gotten wet as it was dark when it got here and the people delivering it were in a rush. I acted fast once the swelling started and I realized the bottom HAD gotten wet during transport. Due to this I do not have a lot of "before pictures".

So realizing the bottom of the cabinet was not going to stop swelling, and this great piece of history may have to lose it's bottom half...

I grabbed 6 X 1/2" pine boards, and some 4 foot wood clamps, and started forcing the cabinet square again with VERY slow cranks as to not over tighten and damage the cab worse. It took a little bit, but we got her square again and even squeezed some of the water out! It was VERY odd to see water come back out of the particle board edges...lol

It sat like this for a week.

See pictures. ( more to come!)
 

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So... after I was sure it was dry, I left it for one more day...lol Now, I was left with the realization that the particle board edges would likely turn into a nice graham cracker crust for cheese cake if I didnt do something. I have seen this happen many times before.

After a ton of research (as nobody really had a good answer) I decided to go with plain old yellow glue/wood glue. I picked up this trick in a speaker making instructional PDF...lol Who would have thunk it?

With the clamps still on, I painted all around the exposed edges of the particle board bottom. I let it dry over night as it was a "THICK" coat. Then I did another coat in the morning with the clamps still on. After that coat dried, I removed the clamps and did a third coat. Once it was dried it was nicely sealed!

Now, it wont hold up to more water, but it is sure as hell good enough to keep it from coming apart! I hit it VERY lightly around the edges with some 320 sandpaper, just to sand down the rough yellow glue edges, and she came out real real nice!

My only regret is the whole bottom didnt get wet...lol You can see in the last picture where it held the original "belling out/ flaring" in the 2 inches in the back of the cab. Had it gotten entirely wet, I could have gotten ALL of the slight swell out of the cab... but this came out damn near perfect... looks better and more square than it did before it was wet!

(more pictures to follow)
 

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Here are the rest of the pictures.
It is only missing the light above the bezel on the inside of the cab, and I will replace that tomorrow! This thing is awesome, and I am SO GLAD the cab wasnt ruined... this is the nicest Gorf I have personally seen, and it would have killed me if this little piece of history had gotten ruined!

You can see the bottom of the cab looks great... cant even tell (if you didnt know already) anything had even happened!

SO, if you ever get the bottom of a cab wet, so far... this has worked perfectly! If it is still good in 6 months, I think we have a winner!
 

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Great job! I never would have thought of clamping the cabinet sides, but I'll keep this in mind if I'm ever in the same situation :)
 
Hey thanks guys... just hope it can help someone else down the line. It sucks thinking you are going to lose a nice cab to it's natural enemy....water!...lol (wouldnt be funny if the cab was destroyed!)
 
Next time you run across a wet cabinet, Minwax Wood Hardener will probably work better than glue, although it looks like you got it done well with glue. Minwax soaks in and delivers a resin-glue-whatnot that's been suspended in what smells like acetone, where it then dries inside leaving the glue particles which then cure, making the wood it rock hard. Regular glue doesn't soak in as well.

Nice save.
 
Ill take water damage over a kicked in coin door any day!
 

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Thanks all! I was actually going to go with a polyvinyl acetate, but decided after hearing horror stories of things that were not supposed to hurt particle board, soaking in and swelling it at a later date... that I didnt want anything soaking in... more of an encapsulation. Just on a fluke, the wood glue I chose was waterproof too...lol

SaminVA nice Gorf!
 
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Great story - sweet machine.

Still need to get back to my full restore. Its completely apart, waiting.....
 
Nice...I had a similar idea for a cab I had. It was in pretty nice shape but I wanted to prevent the very front from chipping..you know the typical peeling and cracking from moving..I thought to coat the underneath so it would have a nice hard shell and prevent the particle board from splintering and thus causing damage...my only thing is I'd like to find something that is almost clear..but I think wood glue isn't bad deal..especially using underneath cause you don't see it anyway....isn't there some type of other glue that is white that is capable of being sanded too.. I think i saw Rich Lint mention it in one of his posts..which is good for atari cabs with white vinyl..anyway nice save..
 
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