Something a wee bit different this time and something I have never done before...
I won another auction! This time for Binatone Colour TV Game
MK 10 in its original box! it cost me around £15 and even came with the
original instruction manual.
As you can see from the photo, the box is a wee bit battered
and bruised, time for some research into what I could do to improve the
condition of the box.
I found a pretty informative video on youtube where Retro
Gamer Boy restored an old megadrive box and thought that I would give it a go.
(see below link for the clip)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI3oMOmBaao
I flattened the box and attacked it with some baby wipes
Those wipes did their best removing over 40 years of dirt
and dust… just look at the state of them… yuk!
The box was now clean..ish!
Time for the next step
Ironing the box as flat as I could get it. After watching
the clip agian, it advises not to use a dishcloth, so I dug out some greasproof paper as was shown in the clip. The
clip didn’t say what temperature to set the iron too but I did see steam coming
from his one so I cranked the heat up to full and got to work
Here is a picture of the ironed flat..ish box
The
next step was to repair the cardboard on the box, for whatever reason, I lost
most of the photos of that process but I did have to do a little more
restoration of the cardboard at the end so I will add those photos now
As you can see from this photo, the cardboard had frayed and separated.
I raided my 8 year olds art and craft box, stealing his PVA glue and a small paintbrush
then carefully applied the glue.
When repairing the cardboard, try and apply the
glue on each layer of the split cardboard as this will make the repair a whole
lot stronger. Add the glue then squeeze it (not too tightly) with your
fingers to stick it all together
The PVA glue takes around 24 hours to dry completely. After
a day, I again raided my 8 year olds art and craft boxyet again, this time for his felt tip
pens. A good bit of advice from the youtube clip was to avoid permanent markers
as they will leave a purply shine on the box. Felt tip pens soak into the exposed
cardboard very well and any excess ink can be carefully wiped with either a dry
cloth or in my case I just used my finger.
I started lining in the black areas of the box and I could
see the results instantly, what a difference!
Retro Gamer Guy advises not to use coloured pens in his clip
as it is quite difficult to get the exact colour but the Blue, Green, Red and
Yellow stripes on the left side of the box were looking pretty awful after I
had coloured in all the black areas so I took a chance.
On a piece of paper I started experimenting with different
shades of blue, green, red and yellow felt tip pens to try and find the closest
match and eventually I found the closest match. It was never going to be
perfect so I took the chance and got to work.
This proved to be as awkward as Retro Gamer Guy had advised
as the ink from the pen looked darker (especially on the worn section of the
box) I was hoping that this would lighten when it dried and luckily for me it
did. I also found that if you use your finger to smudge and spread the wet ink
on to the cardboard it kind of gives a uniform colour on the area you are
colouring in.
I decided to leave the main photographs on each side of the
box; I did consider printing a picture on some adhesive colour laserjet paper
but decided against it in the end as I thought that it would look ‘too new’ and
out of place.
Here is a before and after picture of my handiwork
It is nowhere near perfect and I am sure that with practice,
I will improve my skills but the box is a whole lot more rigid and the main
colours are far more defined.
Although it took a few days, I am quite pleased with the
result... many thanks to Retro Gamer Guy for posting his clip!
Comments
Post a Comment