I am starting to restore a 1958 Bally All-Star Bowler that needs some cabinet work. Wanted to get some opinions on what to do. I really need to replace the bottom door at the back of the cabinet. It's had some water damage and the plywood is badly delaminated. The rest of the cabinet while it still has paint is badly flaking. So I think I have a couple options...
1. Shoot the cabinet as-is with polycrylic and seal in the flaking orig paint. Replace the bottom door and paint it as close to the orig paint as possible.
2. Strip and restore the whole cabinet trying to match up the orig paint as best possible.
Now I have really no idea how to go about getting the orig look of the Bally paint. It's a textured taupe color with blue fleck. It almost looks like a rust-oleum stonecraft paint.
Does anyone have any thoughts or ideas? My initial reaction is option 1. It's only original once, and this preserves that. I don't at all mind the paint not being perfect. That said, since I have to replace some wood on the back, How do I paint it and get it to match decent enough? It's not super critical that it's 100% since it's the back of the cabinet.
Thoughts?