Repairing Crushed Big Box Games with the 'Retro Hot Plate'

Squashed, flattened, broken or torn cardboard game boxes can be heart breaking and I appear to own more than most. Often they are included with a donated system, languishing at the bottom of a box. So I thought I'd try to make good some of the examples I have by coming up with a technique to straighten them out. I'm sure we can refine this further in time but I'm pretty happy with the results so far, it just needs a name!

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● Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:24 Testing out some techniques to repair boxes
05:04 A device to repair squashed big box games
10:15 Repairing Lotus 2 squashed game box
13:34 Fixing lots of squashed big box games
16:26 Conclusion on fixing squashed cardboard boxes
19:07 A 60 second game restoration

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[RMCRetro]

What are your tips for game box restoration? Do you have a good way to colour in those crease marks? I'd love to hear them all! Neil - RMC

[JeremyRiedel]

Hi, great channel. I've worked for years in preservation sciences and managing museum collections. Here are some hot tips. Avoid using cyanoacrylate ("super glue") on any projects where preservation is a concern. Generally speaking, super glue is not considered archival. Something like PVA (polyvinyl acrylate/acetate) is, though you might have to order the beads in bulk and mix it yourself. Also, there are any number of neutral pH, archival, book-binding tapes on the market. I suggest these for taping box corners. Again, I wouldn't want to apply dyes to creases unless they are from a company producing archival ink like Micron, but even then, color-matching is a concern, and it's not reversible.

[davidhale]

Lighter fluid is a lot gentler than acetone for removing old glue and dried on stickers. It also evapourates very quickly which avoids causing any water damage to the artwork.

[jasongrimes]

Using the metal plate is brilliant. I have done some research into how museums curate their paper objects. I think why most people recommend wood glue is because it's a PVA glue that when dry is still flexible. I think that because you shrinkwrap yours that it should be ok, but over time the very hard super glue could damage the boxes farther and come apart. Most museums use a wheat paste and Japanese rice paper to fix things like the corner tears. The important idea behind this is that you can completely undo it later and use a better technique if one is discovered. I'm still on the fence with re-painting or covering up the box/crease wear. I just haven't seen very good solutions for that yet. Very nice job, the boxes look great.

[edition-deluxe]

I'm a professional book restoration artist, and had never seen your hot plate method, and absolutely love it!

[no-one]

Beautiful. From a something that looks like trash to a collectors treasure, these are truly amazing.

[waldnew]

Nice to see the Zool box restored! Unfortunately it did get damp with others up in my loft! I think it was part of an instruction manual that got stuck to the front of it! Edit :- thanks to another comment I believe it's part of the back of the box from steg the slug!
It's fab that it can be part of the cave and give joy to others! It was just sitting in my loft and then my man cupboard under the stairs.
Apologies that it was in worse condition than I thought but in a way it's helped to learn the art of restoring.

[tomleech]

Travel. Iron. I use it on lots of board game boxes. For tape like that, I use "goo gone" which you can find in more places for only a dollar or so. When I have black boxes like this, I use a dry erase black market to fill in the cracks, then wipe away the excess quickly. It doesn't leave a mark and it can fill it some of the micro cracks and even retain the shine. Just something you might want to try. For the dented boxes, I'd be concerned the shrink wrap will just put that dent back in the box. This is why later games came with a box inside the box, ensuring the weak outer box would be completely supported. I also used gummed tape on the inside to rebuild the corners, but I can see how using 65lb to 100lb cover stock tabs cut to size with wood glue would work as well. Also use a lot of magnets to hold things while they dry, big square ones for nice tight corners. Hope some of this helps.,

[davedobbs]

Its really nice to see the the games themselves being restored as they are every bit as much a part of the experience as the hardware itself, and for the most part forgotten about. Like the idea of the hotplate. Was expecting you just to bring out a travel iron for the smaller boxes, but I guess you've invented the game box "trouser press".

[chris_hertford]

It's funny how the more pristine they look the more they take you back to that era. Like when you opened then as a kid, nostalgia feels good!

[mtubr]

When you shrink wrap make sure you dried a LOT, or the moisture will turn into mold. You can buy some small silica gels packs to avoid that too. I do that to some of my products that stay long time inside a drawer. Gotta love these restoration videos.

[studioviper]

I'm genuinely glad that I have absolutely zero desire to own big box versions of retrogames. Those eBay prices are beyond ridiculous.

[MatSpeedle]

I've had massive success fixing snes/nes/n64 boxes using simply an Iron. Cover with a plain uncoloured cotton tea towel, gently iron with the steam on. Never had to add water to dampen the cardboard. Decent steam iron will do that for you. Works incredbly well with care and patience. Recently did this on a squished Battletanx n64 box and it's perfectly squared once again. Great tips here Neil.

[fluxoff]

At some point you'll have to resort to bookbinding techniques: to repair long tears, apply adhesiveless fabric "tape" with archival grade adhesive applied. I really like your channel and your shrink-wrap technique for literally preserving the boxes against future handling damage!

[DubiousEngineering]

I’d end up with a steamy box glued to my hands! Great work uncle Neil!

[kimdomingo]

Hi. This is very informative. I have a suggestion in removing the sticky thing. I am using a lighter fluid in removing sticky substances. It will not hurt the cardboard. I’m also using it to clean the electronic boards.

[Cassandra_Johnson]

You might want to drop some of those silica water absorber packs inside the boxes to keep any residual moisture from causing mold befor eyou shrink wrap them.

[DigitalDirigibles]

Archival paper tape works wonders, better than glue imo. Been using it to repair magazines/dust jackets, vintage/antique toy boxes etc. for years.

[glyph]

Well colour me surprised. I never thought in a million years I’d spend 20 minutes watching someone repairing cardboard boxes. But it was ruddy riveting. I remember those games and the big boxes. 👍👍 And the comment section is a tutorial on archiving processes in itself!! 👍👍

[catriona_drummond]

Retro Pixels are quite the Ebay scalper. I once saw that they were the only Ebay seller in the world to have a copy of Millennium 2.2 for the Amiga. And they had not only one they had 5. between 129 and 169 pounds. buy low, sell high I guess.