Dr. Dude comes from the factory with T molding.

Safecracker too.

Bally Midway started adding T molding in the early 80's. IMO. it's a cheaper way to make a cabinet. Compared to earlier Bally, Stern and Wms cabinets were made with real birch plywood, had mitered corners. These cabs were painted and stenciled. The finished look had a seamless look all the way around the cab. The back boxes have nice wood trim on Bally and sterns.

The cheaper cabinet consists of mostly MDF or particle board. They are butt jointed because you can't really expose the edges of particle board. This is where the T molding comes in. It finishes off the edges and protects it from chipping. This is how most video game cabinets were made as well. Particle cabs have decal artwork, usually never stenciled. Therefore the cabinets only had to be painted on the edges where the ends of the decals are exposed. Personally I prefer the original way they cabinets. The only good thing about T molding is that it comes in various colors and textures. Easily replaced and rather inexpensive.

I used adhesive backed 3/4 in gold moulding on my ToM backbox and I love how it came out it looks way more "finished" IMO plus it is completely reversible

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Where did you find this molding? I like it.

I ended up buying a roll of it on eBay for just under $20 but I will say the adhesive backing really sucks so I also bought a roll of 3M automotive mounting tape at the auto parts store and ran it on the backside of each strip that I used it worked really well. You can get the the 3M chrome version at the auto parts store but the gold stuff they don't carry that's why I had to resort to eBay

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I personally dont care for it if the game didnt have it stock, I can see why some guys do like it since the head is plywood so you have a layered painted end showing.

Depends how its done, if they used the adhesive stuff above, its easily reversible no harm done. However if they routed the channel for real t molding then it would reduce the value and make it harder to sell.