Tron Restoration - Sideart Removal, Cabinet Repair (Part 1)

Time to start on the cabinet.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I already stripped all the parts off of this cabinet, except the wiring harness.  So basically I have a big ugly wood box.  It’s not in terrible shape, just pretty much normal wear for a 25 year old video game.  There are some deep scratches in the wood, several small dents, and a damaged front bottom corner.  The sideart is 90% missing on one side and is scratched up and damaged on the other. 

The damaged corner wasn’t too bad:

There were also a couple places where it looks like a previous owner had to do some cabinet repair.  There are several screws through the side to tighten up the joints.  I ended up pulling each of them out and counter-sinking them so I could put wood filler over them.

Also removed a metal ID tag put on by the original operator:

Removing the side art turned out to be really tough.  I was surprised how thin the vinyl was.  I heated it up with a heat gun and used a putty knife to pull it back.  This just ended up spreading the old adhesive.  I was able to pull it off piece by piece with just a bit of heat as I went, but after I pulled a corner loose with the putty knife.  Had to repeat that many times to get all of the side art off.  It was VERY brittle, so I needed the heat gun to soften it a bit.  However, just a little too much heat would cause the vinyl to stretch out and break off.  Had to go slowly to make the least amount of mess.

As soon as I started, I knew this would be a pain:

Almost there…

What a mess!

Tron and Sark’s Last Stand…

Just for fun, I kept Tron’s head and put it on the side of the monitor frame.  Tron will be trapped inside this game forever!

After a long time, I got the art off of the cabinet.  I then used some mineral spirits to removed all the globs of leftover adhesive.  After a quick sanding to prep the finish, here’s what I have:

Decided to fill in the problem spots with some “Rock Hard Wood Putty”.  This was recommended in an old site post that I came across years ago. This stuff works great on corner repairs. However, it did NOT do a good job with the scratches and dings. Going to have to get some Bondo after all. I used this to fill in all the bad spots, but then when I went to sand it, it was too easily pulled away. Here are some pics anyway:

Had a bunch of screw holes in the top. I’m guessing this was one of the early Tron’s that had an extra monitor on the top to show off the gameplay. Wish I had another one for it. That would look cool!

The corner with some wood putty in place:

Finally, I had a busted out back door lock hole. First I thought I’d try to put the remaining putty I made up into it, but then decided to cut out a square around it and replace it with solid wood. Here are a couple pics. I still have to wood fill the joints, and sand it, but it will come out much better this way and be more solid.