Seeburg R Restoration Images
Main Jukebox PageThis is a collection of pictures I took while I was restoring a Seeburg R. I tried to document and illustrate how the the Formica was applied to the cabinet. It was necessary to cut some of the Formica before gluing to the cabinet since there was no practical way to trim the edges after applying the Formica.
Before: This is the picture taken by the seller.
Picture taken after the jukebox arrived home. Notice where the wood got gouged out when someone tried to break into the cash box. The damage is above the coin door and to the right of the coin return. The light colored portion of the cabinet has been painted over with a white paint.
Close up of the upper half showing the crud covered pieces under the dome. You can see a spot on the gold where I did some cleaning to see how it would look. It did clean up well, but the black goop (formerly the rubber gasket material around the dome?)
was a pain to remove.
Picture taken after all the parts were stripped from the cabinet and
some of the non-factory white paint has been removed.
During the cabinet repair process.
Gouges and missing wood have been filled in with Bondo and the delaminating plywood glued back together.
A new bottom piece with the quarter round has been fabricated and glued to the cabinet.
The Dune wood laminate for the right side of the jukebox has been cut to within 1/32 in. of the curve based the tracing from a paper template. The paper template can be made by tracing the edges or by creasing the paper on the edged of the cabinet and then cutting the paper based upon those marks.
The paper template is used for marking the laminate for an initial rough cut. I usually cut to within 1"-2" of the markings. This makes the piece of laminate smaller and more managable for the more detailed work. The markings from the template are used to make the cuts for curved edge where the Dune wood meets up with the chestnut burl. It is this edge that must be pre-cut prior to gluing the Formica in place. I have heard that the chesnut burl Formica has been discontinued, so dont be surprised if you have any difficulty in finding this.
In the photo, the formica has been clamped in place using the curved edge to position the Formica. The cash box opening was cut by first using a dremel tool to drill and cut a hole large enough for the laminate trimming bit to fit through. Next the opening was cut using the laminate trimming bit. The frame for the cash box is then placed on the Formica and the opening for the frame could be traced on the Formica.
A straight piece of wood is clamped to the laminate to be used as a guide when trimming the straight portions of the opening.
This means that the laminate is turned over for cutting so that the guide bearing for the laminate trimming bit contacts the wood guide. Since the pencil lines are on the other side it is important to mark on where to start and stop cutting on the glue side of the laminate.
This is the result after the straight portions were cut. The corners were cut freehand using a slow and steady approach to the cuts. The corner cuts were made very close but not up to the marking. The cuts were finished using a dremel with a sanding wheel bit.
The dremel tool with a 'cutting table' attached and the cutting bit installed. Next to the dremel is the sanding wheel bit. I used the fine bit at the slowest speed. The sanding wheel can remove the laminate fairly quickly, so only light pressure is required.
Also, I used the sanding wheel to do the final trimming the dune wood laminate along the curve after the laminate was glued down.
Formica has been glued down and trimmed. The outside edges were trimmed using a router with a laminate trimming bit. I think a laminate trimmer would work since it is probably easier to handle due to its smaller 'table'. The coin return opening was trimmed using the dremel with the cutting bit. Care was taken when using the dremel to not take much away from the wood of the cabinet.
The Speaker opening: I do not have any good advice other than to tell you not to do what I did. I used a 1/2" rabet router bit. The problem is that router bits seem to be too aggressive for trimming laminate. In my case the router bit tended to chip the edge that it was cutting in some circumstances. I got lucky and all the chips were covered by the speaker grills.
The small pieces of burl will need to be precut. This is particularly the case with the small shelf below the speakers. In this picture, the small pieces on the front facing edge are being clamped in place as the glue sets up. The front is not perfectly flat here which causes the laminate to lift before the glue sets.
Profile of the stainless trim at the bottom of the speaker grill. The edge has been smashed down a bit because it gets pinched between the cabinet and the fluted glass panels.
This is after I bleached the buttons. The surface was crazed and after I bleached the buttons the tranclucent red hazed up. I fixed this up by sanding the crazed surface with 400 and 600 grit sandpaper and then finishing with a polishing wheel on a dremel. In this picture the zero and one buttons have been sanded and polished. Using the bleach was a total mistake. I recommend using "Retrobrite" to brighten the white on the buttons.
See my Seeburg 220 restoration for how the buttons look after treatment with Retrobrite.
Now that the grill cloth is in place, I can really begin reassembling the cabinet parts.
Still putting things back together.
More reassembly. Still need to get that dome cleaned up and reassembled.
Here is the a quick slap together of the top half for a Christmas presentation. Picture with flash.
Same as above, except no flash.
Here is the mech frame after some serious cleaning.
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