Cabinet question

As mentioned previously, the laminate on my Wurlitzer 2150 needs to be addressed. I REFUSE to go the oak shelf paper route; although it would be so, so very much easier. Fortunately, I've done a good bit of veneer work over the years and have a veneer press large enough for the sides. I've completed the fun of a full disassembly to get the sides and cleared the hurdle of removing the old laminate so I am ready to start the veneering. Here is my question. The sides are rather bowed. Now, the sides are simply poplar jointed together and I have some rough poplar on hand so I could make up new planks. However, trying to accurately place the various rabbets, dados, insets, etc. would be problematic. The fact that there is a doubled up piece at the front, which cannot be removed, and one side is curved and indexing becomes tricky. Add in the inevitable bit walk, bit drift (if you tried to sandwich the old to the new and index through) and router creep and I must assume I will introduce some variances in the cabinet that will cause me no end of grief. The rails for the changer mech table and the frame will, no doubt, straighten things up some. The sides also have veneer (painted) on the inside, so I won't be adding any 'backer veneer' (I was a bit surprised to see this, even though it is considered a best practice). As you can tell, I've all but convinced myself that it will be fine, since the jukebox was working before I disassembled; however, I thought I would ask this august group (and Ron and Rob ) what they thought.

Hey OG,
When it comes to "wood' ( or is that "would"?) , I no nothing !! Hammers/nails/saws routers/plains (planes ?), and the like, are all band from my hands, by law, !! Ron Rich

Ron Rich wrote:Hey OG,
When it comes to "wood' ( or is that "would"?) , I no nothing !! Hammers/nails/saws routers/plains (planes ?), and the like, are all band from my hands, by law, !! Ron Rich

That, my friend, is a perfectly acceptable answer. As a matter of fact, any answer that does not in any way suggest, recommend, imply or otherwise infer that I should fabricate new cabinet sides is the correct answer!

Given Ron's whole-hearted support and the lack of other responses, which can only be interpreted as 'hey, you'd have to be a complete idiot to not resuse the existing sides!', I believe I will press forward with layout. Since I will be enjoying the morning with a visit to the dentist, I guess there is still some time for someone to post a contrary opinion.

(On an unrelated note...Tell me, why, in this age of innovation, where we have seen amazing advancements in medicine, dentistry seems to be like that undiscovered tribe on the banks of the Amazon. If you need a tooth extracted, it's the same pair of pliers the village blacksmith used in the middle ages! Thankfully, this is just the regular checkup, but still can't someone figure out how to use a laser to remove tartar and plaque rather than sharp steel implements?)

Pliers to remove teeth??--I think my guy used di-no-mite in my mouth !
Ron Rich

OK, so here is the finished product. I purposely made it a very simple design for two reasons. One, I think it compliments the basic, clean lines of the 2150 and two, my shoulder is still messed up after my last veneering project (arcade cabinet done with over a dozen veneers, most very hard woods). Anyhow, here are a couple of pictures:
dohttp://www.phonoland.com/download/fil ... ew&id=3492

Well,, Original, it's not--but I like it ! Ron Rich

Ron Rich wrote:Well,, Original, it's not--but I like it ! Ron Rich

Yeah. for awhile I was thinking about going with a light curl maple and a ribbon mahogany to imitate the original Formica; however, the original colors weren't actually very good imitations (albeit state of the art in the mid 50's, I'm sure...no high resolution ink jet printing back then), so the colors were going to be off. Plus I did not think the design (solid middle with border) did a lot for the machine. In my reading, both on this forum and other places, I understand the 2150 was the cheap follow up to their fancy 2100, which celebrated their centennial. They did away with the fancy page turner (I read that operators complained patrons spent more time playing with the motorized page turner then tossing quarters in it) and lost all the bling of the 2100. I'm thinking not a lot of time was spent on the aesthetics of the 2150. "Hey what should the sides look like" "I don't know just make it light in the middle with a darker border around the whole thing." Anyhow, the most important thing is that the boss likes it a lot better

OG

Looks nice, thanks for sharing.

Best
Darrell

I agree, it's a nice looking jukebox.
Once I finish my custom "home-made" 45/CD jukebox, I will upload photos - it's still in "construction" for a while.
I chose "wildflower blue & sunflower yellow for the "two-tone" look, trimmed out in aluminum.
I'm sure Ron, among others will get a kick out of it.

Speaking of "kick", it's got 4 -10" air-suspension woofers, 4 -3" tweeters, a 200 watt amp system, and yeah, it kicks!

MattTech wrote:I agree, it's a nice looking jukebox.
Once I finish my custom "home-made" 45/CD jukebox, I will upload photos - it's still in "construction" for a while.
I chose "wildflower blue & sunflower yellow for the "two-tone" look, trimmed out in aluminum.
I'm sure Ron, among others will get a kick out of it.

Speaking of "kick", it's got 4 -10" air-suspension woofers, 4 -3" tweeters, a 200 watt amp system, and yeah, it kicks!

I'll be anxious to see it as well...I'm not sure my windows could stand up to that much kick. Are you using dyed veneers? Some of those dyed quilted maples you see on guitars are amazing.

Old Goat wrote:

MattTech wrote:I agree, it's a nice looking jukebox.
Once I finish my custom "home-made" 45/CD jukebox, I will upload photos - it's still in "construction" for a while.
I chose "wildflower blue & sunflower yellow for the "two-tone" look, trimmed out in aluminum.
I'm sure Ron, among others will get a kick out of it.

Speaking of "kick", it's got 4 -10" air-suspension woofers, 4 -3" tweeters, a 200 watt amp system, and yeah, it kicks!

I'll be anxious to see it as well...I'm not sure my windows could stand up to that much kick. Are you using dyed veneers? Some of those dyed quilted maples you see on guitars are amazing.

Nah, no "veneers" on my box - just semi-gloss paint.
As far as cabinet styling, it's got a mixture of seeberg, rock - o - la, and wurlitzer mixed in.

Google 'blue quilted maple guitars'. Imagine if you went with that look. Almost makes me want to redo mine