Excellent work, Noel. Here is a tip for those springs. Often with things that become too rusty removing the rust will cost you integrity. If I had a spring I worried might snap if I removed the rust I would use a product called 'rust converter'. I think it would be a good candidate for things like those springs, RF shields, etc. I use it on old metal tanks so I do not need to remove the rust. What rust converter does it is chemically alters the rust and hardens it making it stronger than the metal! You can then paint over it or just leave it bare as it stops further rusting.

i was holding my breath as you opened that case because i didn't want to breathe in that mould. then i remembered i was watching a video.

First! :) The condition of this C64 reminded me of an Amiga 500 I had once, which we literally pulled out from below manure pile/half buried in the ground already at some countryside electro-junkyard, around year 2000. This was before electronics recycling became a thing in the area. We had to put it into several layers of plastic bag just to be able to put into the car, to be able to endure the smell while getting it home. It's case was already broken/cracked at many places, its keyboard, shielding, FDD was way beyond repair, of course, but the board itself lived in the end! Thanks for taking up the challenge of saving this C64.

You: "Music: Commando, Rob Hubbard" Me: *SIR YES SIR*

That case is definitely a good candidate for a custom paint job. All of my C64s have cases good enough to want to keep them original so I've never gone as far to paint one, but over on Ms. Mad Lemon's channel she got some amazing results painting an Amiga case. Anyway, very nice work salvaging this C64 from ending up in a landfill!

Your editing has been getting better and better ever since I started watching your videos!

My jaw dropped when I saw the motherboard. I cannot believe that thing survived as well as it did.

Love seeing restorations like this! Also I love that you chose the Battro tune as the ending theme, you have a good taste in chiptunes my man

For information. Be careful - three springs are stiffer than the rest. They should be on the spacebar

Hi! I think 1083 on 6510 stands for "10th week of 1985" so early 83s too in my opinion... Nice video (as always), nice job and... I'm looking forward for part 2! 👍🏻😊

Great stuff as usual. When I was an intern in a steel company, one of my tasks was to periodically remove mainframe terminals (yes, I'm that old) from a coking plant (which, incidentally, creates a lot of coal dust and soot) for maintenance. They were so dirty that I had to wash them with a power washer and let the boards dry in a cord as if they were clothes so this Commodore would be just another day at the office for me :)

Loved this episode Noel. I can't wait for part two. Thanks and keep up the good work.

Just the video to watch while you're eating your dinner and enjoying some nice blue cheese.

A wasted case is a lovely candidate for a paint job. My first restoration was a PlayStation 1 with a very bad burn case. Y cleaned and sanded it, and painted it black, keeping the stickers and alike safe to place them back afterwards. I also had to restore the electronics. It is my PlayStation to date. I love that darn thing, it just looks gorgeous. Go for something beautiful! A red commodore, maybe?

Whenever I have to totally clean an old board like that, after I scrub it down just like you did in the video, I flush the entire board with a bunch of 99.9% pure ethanol solution. The alcohol displaces the water and then evaporates a lot faster than just water alone. It's a little expensive because after I've used the ethanol about 4 or 5 times before I'd have to distill it again and clean that up too. It's possible to filter out and clean it up, but it's not so expensive that I find it necessary to get as many uses out of it as possible.

Truly one person trash is another treasure. At first I was, it isn't that bad? But the book wrapped in a foil made me go "yyyyh" and I'm not averted to getting my hands dirty.

I'm enjoying your videos a lot, the restorations are fun to watch, great job!

Always nice to see a Commodore 64 come back from the Dead. Great Video.

Great video Noel! Very excited for the next part(s) :) I'm concerned about the traces, that will be interesting for sure.

That looks so much like it was in a heavy smoker's room. That's absolutely tragic. Good luck!

Latest information i recall learning of here on the youtubes; with retrobrighting: - HEAT makes the biggest difference. Also maybe focus your OWN artificial UV source. I found that a certain wavelength is important, as each wavelength has an enormous difference in effect. I think mine are 365nM 100W units. Four of them. in a HUGE plastic bin with PID controlled hot tub spa heater. I immerse parts in a bath to keep down blotching that you tend to get from gel. Then I hear that the plastics bromine fire retarded stuff re-yelllows plastics all over again. So I use a spray aerospace UV blocker to protect it. I did my 1541 and breadbin and a customer's C=128 to GREAT effect like this.

I have a tip for retrobrighting, you have to put some plastic foil over the cream, every 30 minutes, you need to go outside and massage the cream around and turn the pieces you are retrobrighting around 45 degrees, it will eliminate those "paint lines" you get on the case (you get those when the cream has dried up), you will get a much nicer and cleaner retrobrighted computer that is almost indistinguishable from the original factory color. Otherwise? NIce video man!

Finally an amazing job, Noel! Okay, this is a C64 from Germany, apparently. We call it "CeVi", which is a short cose form of "C-Vierundsechszig" (C64), BTW. I would like to formally apologize for the condition of the CeVi of the compatriot. :-) On one of my restoration objects I simply brushed H2O2 on each key cap, the effect was the same as yours, they are easy to whiten again. The type plates are totally sensitive anyway. If the case is only slightly yellowed, simply brushing it with Domestos is often enough. The problem is that, for example, Domestos sometimes dissolves the front special characters on the key caps. Then they have to dry thoroughly, because if you rub them first, they are gone.

Looking at the RF shield im actually astonished the motherboard has so few damages especially the underside i wonder if when it was flooded the computer wasn't face down (keyboard toward the ground) i also remember the one the 8bits guy restored with the motor oil everywhere and stuff, this one seems to be in a better shape happily :) awesome repair video !!!! keep up the good work Noel.

I need to thank you Noel, I happened to be working on my Trash C64 (yellowed, bad (but usable) video output, etc. I was considering retrobrighting it, then I looked up and saw this case, then looked back down and magically mine didn't look so bad that I needed to retrobright it anymore.

Just another great video, like we're getting used to, by now, since you keep doing better and better! But, hey, where's that vic20 you got some time ago that is still waiting to be checked up? Or did I miss something? Anyway I am totally looking forward to the next episode on this poor c64: will it ever switch on? Thank you Noel!

Best of luck with this one Noel! Looks like quite the challenge

Love your channel Noel. You are going to be very successful on here, you always leave us wanting more. 😎

Non-corroding plating on the Copper backside connections timemark 10:47 the 63% lead in solder tarnishs to black once the clear flux overcoat has been cleaned to make it conductive. There's chemical-reaction replating kits that don't tarnish the port contact fingers.

This is like the scrolls of Qumran. Everything you touch crumbles to dust. Always take care when working with old stuff like that! Wear gloves and eye protection also effective respiratory protection. Don't take it in your house before thorouh inspection and/or sanitation. Stay alert stay alive.

I don't think the tops of the keys were ever supposed to match the fronts. Comparing the insides of the caps, which are cream-colored, it appears that the symbols on the fronts were painted on. Which makes sense if you know how the double-shot method works: in order to fill in the "holes" in characters like O, A, or 6, there have to be literal holes in the inner mold for the brown plastic to pour through. And all the front symbols are full of empty enclosed spaces. Molding something like the checkerboard symbol would be virtually impossible.

Really looking forward to part 2!!! You did your best with retrobright, but it wasn't looking good from the start. I do appreciate that there are people like you out there who make the effort to restore these machines. Thanks for that! These episodes are so informative!

You did an excellent job! meanwhile, I sign up waiting to see the second part!

The C64 I'm using now at least externally looked a lot like this. But it was mostly just dirt. It was so bad that just touching it made my hands itch. After cleaning it looks like new. I didn't bother to retrobrite it since it was nearly the original color. The PCB was even dirtier, but after cleaning it looked brand new. Its only faults were 1 bad RAM chip (I replaced all since it was MT RAM) and the cartridge slot. Unfortunately because my home made PSU was using a cable that wasn't up to the task it wasn't getting enough power and I had color glitches. So I replaced the PLA and the color RAM but destroyed a trace in the color RAM by accident. So it's no longer like new. It's got a bodge. I had been using de-oxit on the cartridge slot, but it stopped working and I couldn't fix it. So I replaced it. I lifted a trace, but it's still attached. So I just soldered it to the new connector. The unit is working really well now. I even have a working SID! All the unique parts are original except the GAL PLA that I'm using. I could put the MOS PLA back in now that I know it's working, but the GAL seems like it's better for the long run since the MOS ones do die.

Nice video. Holy smokes. Seems like it was submerged at some point in time.

nice video now we have to see if that motherboard is working fine, looking forward for the next episode :D bye

I can't help thinking that the submersion method of retro-brighting would have given you a better result, but then again it was extremely yellowed.

I didn't know you could put electronics under water like that. Very interesting!. Love your videos!. Cheers from Madrid ;-)

8:42 aaahh its Commando music, isn't it? :-) such a great game! And 14:09 is very nice idea, I'll use it! :-)

when i worked as a bench tech for a computer repair store one of our drivers brought in a PC tower that a cat had been peeing into. It was in a bag, when we opened the bag the manager said no way and we sent it back. LOL

great video, good job on cleaning that board up :)

Never thought I'd see a C64 where yellowing would actually help it! ;-) Man, that is dark...

This is the first video I've seen of yours and it was absolutely fascinating, I’m really looking forward to see how it finishes up. I do have one concern, I have a serious respiratory condition and wouldn’t wish one on my worse enemy if I had one. Please be careful opening things that have fungal spores in them, I’m no KZfaq expert but maybe a mask with a voice over later? It looked like it have belonged to a chain smoker with ten years of continuous use.

Great video Noel. Cant wait for the "something special"!

You have bleached the colour out of the plastic owing to the high concentration of peroxide caused by brushing more cream onto the stuff that has already dried out. Either apply a single coat and wrap in cling film, or rinse the case between each application. Believe me, I learned this the hard way after ruining an Atari ST case in 2009. :)

Looks like those annoying RF shields do serve a purpose 😄

Sunbrite is better than retrobrite, at least on first attempts, no damage or marble effects, I did on a C64C, on the case , the color came back to original, but for some reasons, the keys are a bit reflecting the UV and are still a bit yellow. anyway they was brown on beginning, I will make a video about my trials, some days on full sun without any chemicals. You still can use retrobrite technic after if the effect is not perfect, I recommend to use in liquid, not as cream (about marble effect.)

Thank you Noel, I really enjoy watching your channel.

Can't wait for episode II, III, IV,... Looks like "The Walking Dead Breadbin" to me. Will get popcorn for the next episodes (way more interesting than some Netflix series). After looking at it, probably is not only spiders' work and dust: I would have used a Geiger detector on it too. If I clean a machine like this in the shower, my family would make me clean the shower with bleach after I finished. Another fine video from Noel. He did it again.

Noel, Where could I find this gadget for get straight the ICs pins? or the name of it to check it out.

Thanks for your video. Can you tell me where to find the pin rectifier for the IC? Thx for your answer. Regards.

Noel, I've had my best luck retrobriting using a clear plastic bin with a few bottles of the 3% peroxide from a drug store. That being said, my favorite commodore I own is a C128 is a retrobrite fail that I ended up painting the case black.

another exellent work!!!! well done!

That case looked like it had been locked in a room with a 6 pack a day smoker for years. Good grief.

This is more like archaeology than tech repair! can understand the gloves, great video thanks

Hey dude. I know it's a lot of effort but these kind of restorations where they're almost beyond saving really are the best. Just curious, can you sand plastic like that something quite low-grit to reveal a new layer?

When I first saw the thumbnail I was like "I didn't know they made the c64 with wood veneer"

At least the photos of it were honest. Stuff I've bought from ebay that had nice photos and said good condition but untested usually turned up smelling like their cat pissed on it and then had all the hallmarks of someone that thinks they know about compoooters taking it apart to attempt to fix it like all the screws missing, all the plastic clips broken off etc.

It was shocking how clean the motherboard was! They make spray can paint specially for plastic. It chemically bonds to the surface and 3 light coats will be all it takes to make a C64 any color you want. I would tin the legs of the 2 dead chips, and see if they are really dead or just bad contacts with the socket, before signing their death certificate.

“Naval Jelly” will ELIMINATE the rust in SECONDS…

For rust removal, you could just use vinegar, but don't expect things to return to original. About the retro-brightening, I saw another KZfaqr actually putting the plastic in an oven for a while, and the result looked just as good as the sun treatment. I'm doubtful that case is ever gonna look nice again though, maybe it was used in a garage or something and got oil and grease on it. Maybe painting is the best option. Those traces look pretty rough.

I'm pretty sure dried water that isn't distilled is still going to harm things in the long run

wow thats definitely been for a swim!..amazing how good the board looks in parts...and bad in others!

I wonder if you could buy new springs like these on Ebay or somewhere. And this case may be a good candidate for painting.

You may be interested in retro-briting the case in a similar fashion to how David Murray does his - large clear tub, submerge the part entirely in a water / h2o2 solution. he has gotten some very consistent results that way. You can also supplement the sun with some UV led lights when necessary

With retro brighting you get better results with clear peroxide in a clear container wrapped in foil using uv lighting.

I wonder what used to be in that ‘original PP strap’ box

It's not dead. It's pining for the fjords!

Are you not afraid of getting streaking from using the salon cream technique insead of the newer liquid peroxide submersion technique? Also, hae you thought about getting UV lamps?

You should just give the yellowed case a custom paint job. Put some flames on it!

I was not expecting the manual to be included

1:30 DO NOT OPEN, put it in the dishwasher as whole at once!🤣

I have some problem with my Commodore 64G. I think there is some problem with colormemory chip, But I am unsure, because background pf chip have lot of corrosion or something else so I think that can be one reason to error. I am beginner with electronic stuff, so I am unsure about anything.

Look like it's been put in a high humidity and sunny place, some of our old electronics did look like this, dust and rust together under 99% humidity (in my city), maybe also near the sea shore so the "salty wind" that make all metal oxidize.

Very good job. But just as a health advice: The fungus colony inside was more dangerous than the filthy outside. Better use gloves till you discart or deep clean all these pieces with mold. A mask would also be indicated also…

Nice work, can’t wait to see how this poor 64 will become 👍

Finally I found somebody else who uses hairdryer to clean boards. I have been subjected to some ridicule about it and feel very much vindicated now. Also - good cliffhanger.

never a good sign when you have to start out with a 'once i get rid of all the spiders'. :)

Why don’t you wrap your case in plastic after applying the #40? It helps ensure an even coat across the plastic. Also, a cheap airbrush station will come in handy. You can do custom paint or even mix colors to match original. Best of all, it goes on even, drys fast and you can seal it too. Nice vid!

I had a C64 that turned that color too. It was stored in a damp basement so I think the moisture has something to do with it.

When Retrobriting, consider using a storage tub with hydrogen peroxide then wrap the tub with UV LED strips, then wrap that with aluminum foil and cover.

For the Springs, use Vinegar.

Enjoyed that i have a vic 20 i need to try restore

Hi Noel, you definite need a UV flood light, I got a 60W from AliExpress, strong enough to retro-bright within few hours if hydrogen peroxide is enough. Last time I did my Apple //c chassis with cream, and found that it's not good, too many uneven area. Finally have to did it 3 times, later I found a shop with liquid form hydrogen peroxide. that I can submerge in clear water with tin foil wrapped around the plastic container, result a lot better.

I'd go for some really crazy paint job on that case -- maybe something outrageous like pearl, rainbow or chrome?

Will you put a heatsink on the VICII at least?

What a cliffhanger. I’m going to guess 3 traces will need to be repaired. For the case I have seen some really cool cases done by artistic people. One person did a ghostbusters themed case.

LOL! It's totally gross. Was really funny watching you unpack and open it.

Cool job 👍

Retrobrighting will only last for some time, I think the bad spots on the case will come back. For the keys I do the following: Get some flat and transparent bin, put some double sided glue tape on the bottom and stick the keycaps like you've already done. Instead of using that creamy peroxide stuff, use fluid 12% peroxide and just pour carefully into the bin with the caps, to submerge them. After a few hours in the sun, they will come out perfectly. You can see the chemical reaction, a lot of small bubbles will appear... Just adjust the position a bit to the sun, so they get the UV rays from all directions. But also this will not last forever, the yellowing will slowly come back. For the case, there are special spray paint colors for the C64. Removing the badges and putting some coats of paint will bring back the original look forever...

Use the submerge method for the retrobright!

Starting to wonder if people are deliberately destroying their computers just so all the KZfaqrs will buy them to fix them. I see a LOT of restoration videos.

To retrobright stuff I find the cream method with the sun very hit or miss... A sousvide + full spectrum light setup with simple h2o2 works way way better IMHO.

You should build a reflective UV light box to get more even lighting on parts you're bleaching.

Wow that thing was a bio-hazzard!!!!

A less aggressive but effective rust remover is vinegar you should give it a try, I found it working without the risk lf damaging too much the rusted part

That things needs holy water and exorcism - looks like the owner might have been a heavy smoker or would have used massive amounts of makeup...

Black mold is quite dangerous. It's considered a severe biohazard. Homes with black mold require hazmat level cleaning. I hope you bleached the crap out of that case. Heck, I would recommend a masked power wash with bleached water.

Damn...I can almost smell the mold :-O

When did men become so repulsed by dirt?