Disassembling cabinets

[nassekova]

So let's get the good news out first: After almost a year of hunting, we finally found a bigger house! It's and old " after war" house which was the type we were looking, and it has had all the major renovations done recently (plumbing, electrics, sewers, subsurface drainage etc. ) so only some minor painting left for us to do.

AND it has a tall enough basement for Arcade cabinets! The basement ain't that large since it has a large fireplace in there but it's large enough for me to build a small man cave there This also means that I can finally get my Tekken cabinet from my parents house!

The red are will be "The Arcade"

Only problem here is that there is only one way in to the basement, and it's a 90cm doorway which is then followed by a round stairs...

I know I can disassemble my Blast City in half and build it back in there, but how about that wooden Tekken cabinet? Hammy said he has taken two Time Crisis cabinets apart and built them back up OK, but stt told me that they might loosen up and might need to get some L-shaped support irons there when building it back up... My worst fear is that some glue will tear that plywood on pieces....

So any hints/tips/dont_do_it/do_it suggestion how to get them in the basement? Blowing up a hole to the wall is not an option

This is the cabinet that is giving me the headache (I bet Blast City will also be a lot of work, but it should not have any glue on it):

So any experience on dismantling these wooden behemoths?

 

[nem]

You probably won't even need to dismantle the Blast. Take out the monitor to make it light and just remove the CP. Should go down a round stairwell just fine.

Good luck with the Tekken though. Those kind of cabs are not supposed to come apart.

 

[nassekova]

You probably won't even need to dismantle the Blast. Take out the monitor to make it light and just remove the CP. Should go down a round stairwell just fine.

This would be great! And it will probably go just like you said, those stairs are pretty wide luckily.

Good luck with the Tekken though. Those kind of cabs are not supposed to come apart.

Yea... I think I need to go see how it is connected to my parents place and make the final judgement if it can be dismantled... If not, perhaps you are up for a trade? I even now have that topper (well @Hammy has it but I already paid it) to go with the cabin...

 

[Mrhide]

I say fix/ remodel that round stairs to make everything pass!

 

[64MK]

Yeah! The house is the problem, not the cabinets. Make it change.

 

[ReplicaX]

Most wooden cabs like that Tekken are gonna have hundreds if not thousands of brads in them with glue. Just how they were made on the line.

 

[benime]

Having witnessed a DDR Kcab basically sawed in half (friend removed the monitor portion from the speaker portion) to get moved up stairs in a Chicago town house, I would say you might be better off selling/trading the Tekken.

The DDR was at least moderately doable since the monitor box was basically just nailed/glued to the bottom portion of the cab, but I don't see how you could easily break down that Tekken.

 

[nassekova]

I will take a close look at the cabinet next time I go to my parents place and look if there are any large glued parts together. If that is the case then I will have to sell it. But from the pictures I have I think those large side mounts at least are only with wooden taps and some screws.

And if someone from the nordics countries or EU close to Finland wants to trade this for a Candy cab PM me!

 

[Hammy]

Most wooden cabs like that Tekken are gonna have hundreds if not thousands of brads in them with glue. Just how they were made on the line.

I was surprised at the lack of glue on time crisis (stripped to nothing/reassembled at least 2 over the years) , This tekken is also made at brent leisure...
So with a bit of luck, just the same they did not bother with glue.

The pegs are a pain but if you get a new pack of 100 or whatever it's no problem, just replace the broken ones.

 

[ReplicaX]

I was surprised at the lack of glue on time crisis (stripped to nothing/reassembled at least 2 over the years) , This tekken is also made at brent leisure...
So with a bit of luck, just the same they did not bother with glue.

The pegs are a pain but if you get a new pack of 100 or whatever it's no problem, just replace the broken ones.

Yeah, depending on where it was made is gonna vary. I can tell you that 90s Midway, Atari, and a few other US cabs that were subcontracted to Churchill Cabinets were well glued and braded lol. Churchill also did a lot of pinball cabs and playfields until Chicago Gaming Company bought them and all their equipment.

 

[hoagtech]

I had a safe that didn’t fit. I removed my door frame and cut into the wall to get it to pass.

I used white base board around the door frame. It didn’t take very long either. It might be worth saving your woody

 

[nassekova]

I had a safe that didn’t fit. I removed my door frame and cut into the wall to get it to pass.

I used white base board around the door frame. It didn’t take very long either. It might be worth saving your woody

The problem is not the door frame, it's the stairs. They are very steep and spiral shaped and there is not enough room to twist that wooden behemoth in there.

 

[nam9]

Unscrew/remove staircase..
Lower cab?
Profit??

 

[nassekova]

You probably won't even need to dismantle the Blast. Take out the monitor to make it light and just remove the CP. Should go down a round stairwell just fine.

With monitor and CP out we barely managed to get Blast City to the basement

So that Tekken will be no go and I need to take it apart, but more about that when I get to my parents place. Just moved in and the whole place is a mess but as a Finn I had to pour beer on my glass and go fire up the SAUNA!

 

[kikaso]

Cold beer in the sauna sounds like heaven

 

[Trol]

Make the house fit the cabs....not the other way around.
Just create a new outside entry and loose the stairs

 

[Mrhide]

Well sometimes you have to so with what you have but disassembled, they are much easier to move!!
Remember: measure twice, move once!

Yes, we might have had to removed « some part » of a door frame downstairs but it was in my way for a while so now all is good

 

[Neodogg]

I’d use a heat gun on the glue parts and a little pry bar to get things loose on the support/connect pieces. Take plenty of pictures and mark pieces where they go.

 

[nassekova]

Well today I got to my parent place and after a 10 minutes of eyeballing I went for it!

Couple hours later we had everything on pieces

Nothing broke but weather promised rain in 1 hour and we had to first drive back to my place to get a trailer (I couldn't take it when I came since my car does not have a hook for it). So some fast loading and rain proof plastic on top of the set.

Few drops fell just when we got to my home street but everything stayed dry! Then the problem was those damn stairs and bottom piece of Tekken which had that control panel "tower" really stuck on it. I mean you could lift the whole thing from the tower, it was so well stuck in there so no hope to get that off. Luckily that control panel part was only with six wooden taps so after we got that out AND I had to remove dog gate temporarily, then we managed to fit that in to those stairs

So everything is now in the basement on million pieces... Nothing broke and now is a good change to fix some old damage this had before I got it. Some one has kicked it in arcade on the right foot side front and plywood had few cracks on it.

So I glued those

And one socket was loose inside the plywood under the speakers so I clued that too

Tomorrow I start to clean up everything, get some fresh wooden bolts (or what ever they are called )and then start to assembly it back, wish me luck

There was hardly any glue on the cabinet when we disassembled it, only few small drops in a few places which we just scraped away with thin paint scrape.

 

[nem]

get some fresh wooden bolts (or what ever they are called )

Dowels

Nice job!