Raven
Gottlieb, 1986Hello! Last September I took my Raven to the Cleveland Show and in the process my harbor freight cart broke through into the bottom of the cabinet. Looks like particle board and I'm guessing by the looks of the rest of the bottom, it has seen excessive moisture at some point.
I'm thinking the whole bottom needs to be replaced. How do I go about accomplishing that?
Quoted from vid1900:It's the quickest fix in the world, as long as you have (or can borrow) a router with an edge guide.
Is there a guide for how to do this
Quoted from vid1900:It's the quickest fix in the world, as long as you have (or can borrow) a router with an edge guide.
I'll see if I can find one to borrow. Any particular bits?
My son inherited a working mata hari with the same issue. I will favorite this thread and look forward to learning how to do the repair.
Quoted from Geocab:I'll see if I can find one to borrow. Any particular bits?
A 1/2" bit is big enough. I've used a 1x4 clamped at each end of the cut when I didn't have an edge guide on the router.
I've done dozens of these, everyone has their own way of doing it, this is mine.
best to have the cabinet standing on end so that the front is about eye level. Take a straight edge and mark a line down the length of the bottom lip approx 1/2 inch in from the inside edge on all 4 sides. Take a sharp utility knife and slowly start scoring down the line. Takes a bit, go slow but you'll eventually break through. Break off the inside edge of the lip and you should see the outer edge of the bottom board. Once you do that on all four sides turn your attention to inside the cabinet. Work a small spackle knife under the blocks that hold the bottom board to the sides of the cabinet. If you get lucky they will all stay with the cabinet, if not, no worries you can glue them back in when you're done. Now going back to the bottom side look for any nails they may have used and from the inside use the spackle knife to wiggle it enough that you can grab those nails with a small pry bar or hammer. Once you clear enough of the bottom lip that you can see the edge of the bottom board, pop it out. use the old board as a template for cutting a new one. I have them cut for me at Home Depot. Fit the new piece, be sure to clear any debris from the cabinet edge, the smallest amount of old glue or wood chip can prevent it from seating properly. Now with the new board in place tack nail it in place, this can be tricky because you don't want to use too big a nail and possibly go through the outside of the cabinet. You can also glue it down overnight. Now there's 2 ways to finish it off. If you have access to a table saw just rip pieces about a 1/2 wide and the proper height to replace the pieces of the lip you removed or depot has small strips about 2 ft long in cubbies below the big pieces of trim. This can then be glued and clamped to the original edge of the cabinet. Done. It's reads a lot harder than it is. I have other before and after pics here:https://www.facebook.com/Preservation-Pinball-and-Paint-383113651705319/ and also on my pinside profile. (glad I saved this rant as a file from the last time I posted it!)
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With a router:
1. Set up edge guide to remove the inner 1/4" lip of the cab
2. Set bit depth to just a hair above the particleboard bottom.
3. Ear, eye and lung protection required now.
4. Rout out one long side and one short side from cab.
5. From the inside of the cab, separate the cleats from the bottom of the cab with a chisel. They are soft pine, so a few may just explode. Be careful not to chew up the blade of your chisel by hammering into staples.
6. Kick out bottom of the cab.
7. Remove metal Ghetto Plate (if present) from the bottom and use the bottom as a template to cut the replacement. Use 1/4" Baltic Birch plywood, not more junky particleboard or Z-brick.
8. Once you have the bottom panel cut out, clamp the old bottom on top. Using a Pattern Router Bit, cut the circular Speaker and Switch holes out of the new bottom.
9. Take some 2x4 pine scraps and run them through the tablesaw at 45* to make replacement cleats. Make extras, because you will certainly need them in the future.
10. Flip cab again to upsidedown and do a sanity check that you cut the replacement panel properly.
11. Run Tightbond3 glue around the edge of the cab and set bottom panel in place.
12. Using small brad nails/staples, attach "window screen molding" to secure the bottom panel where you routed out the 2 sections.
13. From the inside of the cab, wipe and glue drips with a wet rag.
14. Brad nail/staple the internal cleats (I know the glue is enough, but it's authentic).
15. Paint Ghetto Plate battleship grey and reattach.
16. reinstall switch block, speaker, power supply.....
I'll add onto this, just got the bottom plate removed from my cabinet. I suspect the bottom plate on my cabinet was replaced in the past, looks like Liquid Nails was used to help secure it in place. What worked for me using my router and a "free" edge guide.
I took a piece of scrap 4X4, it was in rough shape so I ran through a thickness planer to get flat surfaces and square corners. My cabinet is 3/4" thick with a 1/4" grove in it, so I spaced the spiral cutter (1/4 Diablo DR75102) right at 1/2" from the face of the wood block.
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To be able to fine tune my 1/2" spacing, I drilled 2 holes in the fixed base plate and tapered one of them, then ran a deck screw into it flush. This was the "pivot" point. The other 2 deck screws with nuts/washers on them have some wiggle room with the holes they run through. The nuts/washers are so that when those deck screws are tightened down the tapered head of the screw would shift the router base plate.
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The face of the block against the cabinet, I had sanded and waxed it to help it slide along better. The large block of wood gave me a fair amount of control and it wasn't too difficult to keep the wood block flush/flat against the cabinet.
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I adjusted the depth so that the cutter was just kissing the edge of the original grove. This cutter was able to go through the base plate a single pass.
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Now that I know what I'm doing, once staples, corner brackets and other items are cleared out, I could cut out a base in 10 to 15 minutes without much hassle.
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I'll follow up later on with putting in the new plate.
A bit of an update to offer up... so while this took me some time because I'm going overkill on this, a standard replacement could be done in 1 day if you have the tools on hand.
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0.5" MDF cut to size. This is my first time doing this and it boiled down hard core "measure twice, cut once", but with a lot more measuring and double checking myself over and over... and I got the length spot on the first try but the width was 0.25" too wide and I had to go back and cut a thin strip off the bottom plate.
But with that, it dropped right in and was a good fit all the way around.
Once I was ready to glue in, I used Liquid Nails Heavy Duty adhesive. I cut the tip of the nozzle so I'd get just over a 0.25" bead and applied it along the vertical edge of the opening, just over the step/lip the base plate will rest on. A bead along the cross brace and a few gobs in the corners. Dropped the plate in and pressed down. I then went over the bottom with more adhesive, trying to work it into any gaps or openings between the cabinet and base plate. Then with a rag, ran my finger along the inside lip to help work the adhesive in and remove the excess adhesive.
Clamps, you really can't have too many on hand. Harbor Freight units here, so PBR beer budget going on.... clamped up and then let sit for 24 hours.
Clamps removed, it is in there solid. I went in with a chisel and cleaned up some of the squeeze out on the inside.
I will be doing the corner wedge braces, need to cut some new ones out and paint. Cut out a few holes (speaker, vents, power supply and switch) and this is done.
What I've learned..... this wasn't as bad to do as I figured it might of been. My wood working skills mostly consist of watching a lot of YouTube videos of Frank Howarth and Matthias Wandel. Having a few choice tools is 85% of doing this: a router and block of 4X4 shouldn't be too difficult for most of us.
Quoted from pencilneck:A bit of an update to offer up... so while this took me some time because I'm going overkill on this, a standard replacement could be done in 1 day if you have the tools on hand.
0.5" MDF cut to size. This is my first time doing this and it boiled down hard core "measure twice, cut once", but with a lot more measuring and double checking myself over and over... and I got the length spot on the first try but the width was 0.25" too wide and I had to go back and cut a thin strip off the bottom plate. But with that, it dropped right in and was a good fit all the way around.
Once I was ready to glue in, I used Liquid Nails Heavy Duty adhesive. I cut the tip of the nozzle so I'd get just over a 0.25" bead and applied it along the vertical edge of the opening, just over the step/lip the base plate will rest on. A bead along the cross brace and a few gobs in the corners. Dropped the plate in and pressed down. I then went over the bottom with more adhesive, trying to work it into any gaps or openings between the cabinet and base plate. Then with a rag, ran my finger along the inside lip to help work the adhesive in and remove the excess adhesive.
Clamps, you really can't have too many on hand. Harbor Freight units here, so PBR beer budget going on.... clamped up and then let sit for 24 hours.
I went in with a chisel and cleaned up some of the squeeze out on the inside. I'll be making new corner wedge braces and gluing into place to finish up the job here.
Really good up until the yellow paint. Totally butchered all that work you did.
Quoted from pencilneck:A bit of an update to offer up... so while this took me some time because I'm going overkill on this, a standard replacement could be done in 1 day if you have the tools on hand.
0.5" MDF cut to size. This is my first time doing this and it boiled down hard core "measure twice, cut once", but with a lot more measuring and double checking myself over and over... and I got the length spot on the first try but the width was 0.25" too wide and I had to go back and cut a thin strip off the bottom plate.
But with that, it dropped right in and was a good fit all the way around.
Once I was ready to glue in, I used Liquid Nails Heavy Duty adhesive. I cut the tip of the nozzle so I'd get just over a 0.25" bead and applied it along the vertical edge of the opening, just over the step/lip the base plate will rest on. A bead along the cross brace and a few gobs in the corners. Dropped the plate in and pressed down. I then went over the bottom with more adhesive, trying to work it into any gaps or openings between the cabinet and base plate. Then with a rag, ran my finger along the inside lip to help work the adhesive in and remove the excess adhesive.
Clamps, you really can't have too many on hand. Harbor Freight units here, so PBR beer budget going on.... clamped up and then let sit for 24 hours.
Clamps removed, it is in there solid. I went in with a chisel and cleaned up some of the squeeze out on the inside.
I will be doing the corner wedge braces, need to cut some new ones out and paint. Cut out a few holes (speaker, vents, power supply and switch) and this is done.
What I've learned..... this wasn't as bad to do as I figured it might of been. My wood working skills mostly consist of watching a lot of YouTube videos of Frank Howarth and Matthias Wandel. Having a few choice tools is 85% of doing this: a router and block of 4X4 shouldn't be too difficult for most of us.
Good job man, I like the yellow...
Quoted from lordloss:Really good up until the yellow paint. Totally butchered all that work you did.
I butchered it up some more for ya...
ibfMLNq (resized).jpg
https://imgur.com/gallery/e3OXwNg
I'll be getting a speaker kit and will do the rest of the holes in the base plate at that time.
Router mounted to scrap wood to be used for a circle jig.
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Located center or base plate where speaker will go, drill hole. Using a bolt as the guide pin.
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Placed router in place, fired it up and lowered it until the cutter went all the way through the base, then raised it back up so that I was cutting about half way through the material.
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Did my first full circle cut at half way through. Then I moved about 0.5" past the first through hole I made, lowered the cutter to go all the way through and did a half circle cut, raised the cutter, moved past 0.5" again, lowered cutter and finished up my cut. I was left with two "ears" or "tags" holding the center cut out section in place. I did this so that the center pivot would remain in place while using the router.
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I used a small saw to use the 2 "tags" and free the center piece out.
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I went in with a flush trim bit to clean up the tags. Could of been sanded down as well if needed.
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The speaker kit I'm using came with an adapter place, I used it as a jig to locate where I needed to drill my 4 holes for the screws to hold the speaker in place.
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Holes drilled. I'm using machine screws with a taper head from the bottom up. Counter sunk the heads on the bottom side and will have nylon lock nuts so nothing will vibrate loose.
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Still a few simple things to do such as mounting up the power switch. When I first went to tackle this whole base plate project, I wasn't sure how to attack it but thinking things through a bit I was able to get great results... I'm nothing close to being a wood worker or such. If I have to do this again, no problem. Don't be afraid to give it a go!
Anyone replace the bottom board just to save weight? I have a Recel cabinet that weighs a ton and the bottom board not only is MDF but has ANOTHER sheet of MDF glued to it for security. It's like 3" thick!
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Cleveland, OH
Sana'a
Eatons Hill