All my Sterns have wood in all 4 corners on the bottom corners. Again I guess I must be lucky.

Jesus Christ its one thing after another with this company.

Oh man, I can see seller's faces when asked for pictures of underneath a game

I'm betting the corner is blown out by not having a chase piece of wood when the miter is done.

While it cosmetically doesn't look good, structurally I doubt it makes much of a difference.

That is all I would be concerned with, as long as it's all structurally solid I can live with wood missing, me and the misses are past playing pinball from underneath the cabinets it's way more fun on top

That much filler will not add integrity. Filler will crumble if it is flexed.

My additional concern is; the cabinet cracking goes right through the decaled corners as well.

Exactly.

I will be reinforcing my BM66 cabinet with leg brackets (is there any difference between the data east/sets/stern brackets compared to the Bally/Williams ones?) and an L bracket at the top just to be sure

It's called "Thank you brother can I have another" position

My AS pro has these holes. But they only extend about 15mm into the cabinet. Surely it's only cosmetic.

Anyone know the difference between the DE/SEGA/Stern and Bally/Williams leg brackets??

Is it cost cutting or just poor cutting?

You should know better than to call HighProtein 'Shirley.'

Looks like there was some form of knot/wood imperfection at that point of the ply. If you took apart all the layers of ply, there would be holes and knots all through it. Just so happens there was hole/imperfection on some of the ply on the corner. I seriously doubt it's a structural problem and the qc people determined it was ok to go into production. Given there is no paint on it, looks like there was no missing piece at the factory, but it has fallen out in transit or after setup, which is why it passed qc.

Having said that, I don't doubt they are using cheaper quality ply than years ago, but that is true for all mass produced furniture.

I would be more worried by the large crack in the TMNT ply.

No, it's a question. I'm honestly wondering how the last 15mm of a joint that is over 500mm long makes any structural difference. Maybe it does. I don't know. But my point is that, wouldn't it just be addressing a cosmetic, i.e. visual issue, given that the area makes up such a small percentage of the actual joint?

Correlation does not imply causation.

Wood filler will not strengthen the joint in any way. If there was flex or movement, the filler will just crumble and break away. If you were going to 'fill' the void with something, it should be a stick of wood a bit smaller than the void, and epoxy.

Be careful sliding these cabinets in the back of your vehicles, the little notches are very easily caught by the liner or other objects and will rip larger chunks away - a friend found out the hard way on brand new AS

I never slide my games in my vehicle (for that reason)... I always use a 1" x 32" PVC pipe under game, to roll it in. EZPZ and no damage.

I too am wondering about the difference. Looks like PinballLife carries the Bally/Williams style and their pricing is better than Marco. Marco carries both styles. Here are some links:

Bally/Williams http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=144
Bally/Williams http://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/01-11400-1
DE/Sega/Stern http://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/535-7394-00

From the pictures it is easy to see that the Bally/Williams style is a "taller" bracket, so it would mount to the cabinet over a larger surface area. I have some of the Bally/Williams style brackets I purchased at Chicago Expo a few years ago, but I'm not sure what vendor they are from. I did a quick "test fit" of the Bally/Williams style on Metallica and here is what I found. First, look at the bracket picture and you'll see that there is a portion of the bracket that doesn't have any leg bolt holes, I'll call that end the "extended" end. On the right side front the bracket could be mounted with the extended end either up or down. On the left side front the bracket could only be mounted with the extended end down due to the positioning of the tournament switch above the leg bracket. There is lots of room when mounting the bracket on the right side front, but you'll have to work around wires and such when mounting on the left side front (but looks doable). One thing I do notice is that when the Bally/Williams style bracket is held in position for mounting (so the flanges on both sides against the cabinet), the back side of the bracket does not touch the triangle piece of wood on which the factory bracket is originally mounted. Maybe 1/8" gap there? Would that be an issue using this style of bracket in a Stern game?

The DE/Sega/Stern brackets are not as tall as the Bally/Williams style, so it would be a bit easier to mount this style on the front left side working around the wiring bundles and such as it would not extend as low into the cabinet corner. I don't know how the "fit" (gap between back and triangle piece of wood) compares to the Bally/Williams style. Perhaps someone that has installed this style could tell us?

Comments anyone?

Not sure what other differences there might be that I can't see from the pictures.

The back of mine sits flush on my GB Pro.

IMGA0088 (resized).JPG

Really? So the back of the bracket is flush with the triangle piece of wood (and of course the original leg bracket is removed)?

Yup. Same with Space Station that I put on a few days ago. Even if there's some gap just glue wide washers onto the metal bracket around the leg bolts and screw holes to take up any gap. You are taking any ground braid and moving it to the outside of the new bracket right?

Well if your OCD is kickin in might as well do it. For the top side use epoxy.

Put down the NIB box folded down inside the car and slide the machine over it.

I put the game on a moving blanket and then one guy pulls the blanket while the other pushes.

Ohhhh that may be risky, especially keeping it straight. I'd only go an inch or two.

If the joint separates further, the wood filler will crumble or stick to one side of the other. It's not going to bond the wood together like a glue or epoxy would. It would mostly be cosmetic. If you were to fill the entire void with an epoxy, that would add strength. Ideally, you'd add the missing piece of wood back (a square dowel, slightly undersized), pushing it into the void, coated with epoxy or good wood glue, such as Titebond.

Here, you can use mine.

IMG_2761 (resized).JPG

As pro.

IMG_8553 (resized).JPG

Damn. Looks like the lock bar is holding the whole corner together. I don't see a bit of glue in that seam.