I will be careful. I can see they are raised off the bed, which suggests they aren't very well covered with any sort of protection. I'm going to touch them as little as possible.
I've used traditional finishes on wood, generally shellac and old school BLO without the drying agents. I was taught by my dad and granddad that 30 coats of finish was a nice round number. Ten coats on a 24 hr cycle, 15 coats every other day, and the last 5 with 3-4 days drying time and sanding/steel wool between them. If it gets tacky I know I put it on too thick and need to clean it off and take a step back. I expect two - three months for a good finish, so I'm prepared for the level of commitment this will represent. :-)
I'm seriously considering restoring the original color I see on lots of Franklins-- the green and purple. This one is orange and brown, which blends into the gold. I've done model and decoy painting in the past so I know what I would be in for with that sort of project. I kind of feel like if I'm putting in the effort to get a good shellac on the machine I may as well re-color the decals while I'm at it.
Does anyone make replacement ruler decals for the cabinets? Since the Free and the White cabinets had the same decals I'm assuming there was a common supplier.
If no one does, do you think there would be interest in them? It seems like they would be an easy decal to work up and get produced in bulk inexpensively since it's just a long rectangle. I could easily work up repro art that was a good facsimile of the original. I looked into getting decals printed and I can't justify the cost for the couple cabinets I have, but if a dozen or so folks wanted them I could figure out getting them designed, manufactured, and mailed out.