I received an extremely water damaged Taito cabinet a couple years ago from Dan Lane in MA. It was good for hardware only, as the wood had *extreme* water damage. It sat in my mothers garage until just last month.

I had considered using it as a template and cutting out a completely new cabinet, but luckily I didn’t have to. A guy on the RGVAC newsgroup offered a pristine – but completely stripped – one up for grabs. I snagged it immediately. Brought it to my moms, and took all the hardware off the old one, and moved it to the new one. Then I took a sledgehammer to it. Should have taken some pictures of that!

The idea is a Taito Classics cabinet. Elevator Action, Jungle Hunt/King, Bubble Bobble and the like.

First thing I did was remove the sideart with a heatgun. Got some degreaser, and removed many years of nicotine from the cabinet sides. Broke out the vaccuum and dust attachment, and sucked all the crud from the insides.