Commodore 64 Restoration and new retrobrite technique.

0:00 | Hello, and welcome back to the 8-Bit Guy.
So, in this episode, I’m going to restore

0:15 | this Commodore 64? So you might be wondering,
“Why a Commodore 64?” Well, surprisingly,

0:21 | I’ve never actually restored one before.

0:23 | Sure, I’ve restored a VIC-20, and a Commodore
128, as well as a 128D, a 116, some of the

0:32 | Commodore PC clones, and a bunch of disk drives.
I’ve also done a Color Computer 1, an Osborne,

0:40 | a Compaq Portable, a Bell and Howell, an IBM
PC-Jr along with the monitor, a Macintosh

0:47 | LC, as well as the monitor that goes with
that, a Laser XT. A Macintosh Plus, an Apple

0:53 | IIC, and so on.

0:55 | Ok, so I think you get the idea. I’ve restored
quite a few computers on this channel, but

0:59 | never actually a Commodore 64, so I guess
it’s time to restore one. This particular

1:06 | Commodore 64 along with this VIC-1541 disk
drive was actually donated to me by Edward

1:10 | Casati. And there’s a little bit of a fascinating
story there. He actually bought a used home

1:15 | and the previous owner left a bunch of junk
in some of the rooms. And, he actually found

1:19 | these two items buried under a pile of junk.
And, since he lives here in town, he actually

1:24 | offered to donate these items to me and originally
I declined, but then he said he was going

1:28 | to give them to goodwill, so I thought about
it and like “well, ok you know, I know somebody

1:32 | that would like to have these.” So, I went
ahead and took them from him and of course

1:36 | now that I’m looking at them, I see that
they need a little bit of restoration work.

1:40 | However, upon closer examination, I realized
that not only do these machines need some

1:43 | cosmetic attention, but the C64 is only partially
working. The screen is lacking a bit in contrast,

1:51 | but that may be normal for this board revision.
But the main issue is the cursor is missing

1:55 | and as you can see, the keyboard doesn’t
do anything. Out of curiousity, I tried inserting

2:00 | a cartridge game, and as you can see the game
actually appears to work, but there is no

2:03 | input from the keyboard or joystick. Fortunately,
I think this is a slam dunk case of a bad

2:09 | CIA chip, which is the chip that reads the
keyboard and joystick. The reason the cursor

2:13 | is missing is because there is also a timer
inside this chip that the kernal uses to determine

2:18 | when to flash the cursor, but since the timer
isn’t working, the cursor never flashes.

2:23 | We’ll come back to this later, for now let’s
have a look at the cosmetic issues. There

2:27 | are a lot of scuffs and dirt on this that
don’t show up really well on camera, but

2:31 | are very visible in person. And obviously,
it is missing the 6 key, and also apparently

2:36 | missing the power LED. On the bright side,
Edward noticed these pieces laying next to

2:40 | the C64 when he found them, so he put them
in a bag. This is our missing key, and unfortunately

2:46 | the key stalk is broken off down inside of
it. And, I suspect this ring and sleeve is

2:50 | what holds the power LED in place, so we might
be able to salvage that too. And last but

2:55 | not least, if we compare to another C64, it’s
pretty obvious that this computer needs retrobrite.

2:59 | So, there’s quite a few things to tackle
here.

3:02 | Next let’s have a look at the drive he found
with it. It’s of the VIC-1541 variety. These

3:07 | are less common than the matching gray version,
but work just fine with the C64. The drive

3:11 | also has a lot of dirt and scuffs on it as
well, but the more irritating part are these

3:15 | melted areas. It looks like something hot
came in contact with the drive and just melted

3:19 | it. And there are tons of these melted areas
all over the drive.

3:23 | In the past, I always assumed these were caused
by something hot like a soldering iron accidentally

3:27 | coming into contact with the case. And that
may very well be the cause. However, somebody

3:32 | recently explained to me that sometimes it
isn’t heat, but a chemical reaction from

3:36 | cables that are wrapped around it. Apparently
sometimes the rubber used for the cables reacts

3:40 | with case plastics over a period of years
while in storage, and will cause these types

3:44 | of artifacts to appear. If that is the case,
most likely it would be where there was enough

3:49 | pressure such as something sitting on top
of the drive, or in the case of the side here,

3:53 | where the cable is wrapped around the corner.

3:55 | I dealt with this previously on a Commodore
VIC-20 that I restored. I’m still not sure

3:59 | what caused it on this one, but I was able
to file it down and made it look about 90%

4:03 | better. But, it was easy to file because of
the curved nature of the VIC-20 case and the

4:08 | location of the burns. However, in this case,
I’ll need to try something else because

4:12 | it is too flat to use a file.

4:14 | I already know I’m going to need some chemicals,
starting with glass cleaner, alcohol, and

4:19 | baking soda. So, let’s get started.

5:25 | The first stage of cleaning is done, it doesn’t
look half bad. I managed to remove all of

5:29 | the scuffs and black marks. Now, let’s start
on the disk drive.

6:02 | Some of the scuffs on the disk drive aren’t
coming off with alcohol, so time to move on

6:06 | to baking soda.

6:12 | And so, that looks a lot better without the
scuffs, but we still have to do something

6:35 | about these melted spots. And for that, I’m
going to try using this sanding attachment

6:39 | for my Dremel. I’ve never actually tried
this before, so wish me luck. And of course,

6:44 | I don’t like breathing in plastic dust or
getting it in my eyes, so I always suit up

6:48 | for this sort of thing.

7:02 | It does appear to be working. I would point
out that a lot of what you are seeing in those

7:06 | vents is left over baking soda, which I’ll
clean out shortly. Also, I sort of half-expected

7:11 | this, but this disk drive needs a bit of retrobrite
as well as you can see a different color of

7:16 | plastic where I’m sanding.

7:17 | In retrospect, I probably wouldn’t use this
particular sanding attachment in the future

7:22 | as it eats the plastic way too fast. I’d
rather use something that gives me a little

7:25 | bit more time to work with it so I don’t
overshoot what I’m sanding.

7:29 | OK, so I’m done with the Dremel, and these
areas look a quite a bit smoother and leveled

7:34 | off, but they feel very rough. I’ll probably
come back and sand these by hand in a little

7:38 | bit.

7:39 | For the moment, though, I want to deal with
these melted areas on the vents. And I’m

7:43 | hoping this razor knife will do the trick.
And I do think it is working, but it’s going

7:47 | to take a little time. Let me brush all of
the debris out of here. For comparison, here’s

8:01 | what it looked like before I started with
the knife, and now after. So yeah, I’m pretty

8:06 | happy with that result. I don’t think these
vents are ever going to look perfect, but

8:09 | they are definitely much improved.

8:10 | OK, so now I’m going to hit these rough
spots with some fine sandpaper. And this is

8:16 | definitely one of those times I really struggled
to get this to show up on camera. I think

8:20 | you’re just going to have to take my word
for it, but sanding these areas by hand made

8:23 | a big difference in both the appearance and
how it feels to the touch. I can sort of demonstrate

8:28 | by showing you a before and after. So, lets
go back to this spot before sanding, and now

8:33 | after. I think you can see at least part of
what I mean.

8:35 | OK, so I’ll rinse this off a bit. And here’s
what the drive looks like now. This is remarkably

8:41 | better looking than before. But it will look
even better after some retrobrite.

8:45 | Moving back to the C64 itself, it’s time
to open it up. The C64 and VIC-20 are both

8:50 | very easy to open, with just three screws
on the bottom, and then it opens like so.

8:54 | As I suspected, the power LED was just laying
down here. I wanted to see if the LED was

8:59 | working, so I went ahead and plugged in power
to the computer. And yes, it does appear to

9:03 | work. That’s good news.

9:04 | Now, I was kind of perplexed at first why
this CIA chip looks like somebody had touched

9:08 | it recently. After all, this is the chip I
suspect is bad. So I thought maybe somebody

9:12 | else had already figured that out before it
got thrown in a pile of junk. However, upon

9:16 | closer examination of my own video where I
removed the keyboard I realized that my own

9:20 | finger had smudged that dust earlier. So,
mystery solved.

9:23 | For the moment I’m going to turn my attention
to the keyboard and get it disassembled. And

9:26 | one of the things I struggle to show on camera
sometimes is just how dirty something is.

9:32 | After all, this keyboard doesn’t look too
bad, does it? Not until I zoom in closer and

9:35 | now you can see exactly what I’m talking
about. As such, I’m going to remove all

9:39 | of the keys so they can be properly cleaned.
And unfortunately, I don’t know how I did

9:43 | this, but somehow I broke another plunger
when trying to pull the shift key off. I’ve

9:47 | never done this before, at least as far as
I can remember. So now I have two of these

9:51 | to fix. Well, let’s get the rest of the
keys off, and hopefully I won’t break any

10:06 | more.

10:08 | I always save the space bar until last, because
it’s easier to remove when there are no

10:11 | other keys next to it. Also, a word of warning,
be sure to store this spring separately from

10:16 | the rest as it is a stiffer spring just for
the space bar. And of course, this part here

10:21 | is pretty dirty, but we’ll deal with that
later.

10:24 | I need to remove this bottom PCB here, but
in order to do that, I have to desolder the

10:28 | shift lock key. This is actually pretty easy.
All you have to do is heat up the solder and

10:32 | pull these little wires out. We’ll do the
reverse when it comes time to put it back

10:35 | together. And now to remove all of these little
screws. And there we go. And I’ve located

10:41 | the shift key with the broken plunger. So
I’ll pull that out. And you can see what

10:44 | that looks like. And here’s the broken plunger
for the 6 key.

10:48 | To fix these keys, I went over to my brother’s
house. I also get to visit my PET, which lives

10:53 | in his little museum since I don’t have
room for it. The first order of business was

10:57 | to 3D print a couple of new plungers. My brother
found one on thingiverse, so there was no

11:02 | need to design one. And away it goes. We’ll
check back on this in a little bit.

11:10 | In the meantime, we made use of his drill
press to carefully drill down into the broken

11:13 | plastic of the 6 key. And now the shift key
too. And the idea is here to run a little

11:26 | screw down into the broken piece like this.
And with any luck, we can pull it out. And

11:34 | it worked! Here’s our little extracted piece.
Now time for the other key. This one was a

11:46 | bit harder to do. But, it worked.

11:53 | OK, let’s go check on the 3D printer. It
looks like it’s getting close. Also, in

11:59 | case you didn’t notice, we did a 100% infill
on this so these parts would be strong. And

12:04 | there we go, all done. Just need to pop these
off of the raft. And just a quick test fit

12:10 | for the key. Yep, looks good.

12:12 | OK, so something else we have to do is remove
these little pieces. These are actually the

12:17 | carbon contacts and they actually pop out
like this. There we go. OK, so all I’ve

12:23 | got to do now is take this piece and kind
of wrap it in there.

12:32 | And now I’ll stick the new plunger down
in there. It seems to fit okay. And while

12:36 | I have it out, I’ll go ahead and clean this
PCB with some alcohol. And now to re-attach

12:41 | it to the rest of the keyboard.

12:58 | And now to take care of this nasty dust and
dirt. There we go, that looks a lot better.

13:12 | And finally, I can start the laborious task
of cleaning all 5 sides of every key. On the

13:17 | bright side, there isn’t anything sticky
or gooey on these, so it goes pretty fast.

13:23 | Time to re-attach the space bar. I always
clean this piece of metal, and then I try

13:29 | to gently coat it with some lithium grease.
And don’t forget the special spring for

13:36 | the space bar. And there we go, perfect.

13:45 | I want to go ahead and start with the 6 key
to see how the 3D printed plunger works. Well,

13:51 | it seems to work, but I noticed it is a bit
more bobbly before, it shakes like a bobblehead

13:54 | after pressing it. Well, I guess we’ll have
to see how it works when it is all done.

13:59 | So, I always like to save the Commodore key
for last, but I ran into a problem I didn’t

14:02 | anticipate. And I guess I should have, but
I have no spring for this because the 6 key

14:08 | never came with one to begin with and so I’m
short a spring, and now I’ve got to go find

14:14 | one.

14:15 | OK, so I have this spare, ugly Commodore 64
keyboard that I’ve used for spare parts

14:18 | in the past. I’m going to go ahead and take
a key off of it so that I can salvage the

14:24 | spring. Now, you might obviously want to know
why I didn’t just go ahead and get the plunger

14:28 | out of this too if I had a spare keyboard
and I could have, and I very will might end

14:32 | up doing that. But, I actually just kind of
wanted to see what a 3D printed part would

14:37 | be like as a replacement part because you
know these parts are getting more rare every

14:41 | day that goes by, so I just wanted to see
how they work, but if I’m not happy with

14:44 | them then yeah, I might have to actually replace
the plungers from my spare keyboard.

14:49 | And so here goes the final key. Voila!

14:54 | So I need to retrobrite these case pieces,
but as you can see the weather outside this

14:58 | time of year just isn’t going to cooperate.
In fact, looking at the forecast, you can

15:02 | see it isn’t going to be better anytime
soon. Totally off topic, do you see these

15:07 | 4 weird light colored patches on my driveway.
It only shows up this way when it is wet.

15:13 | Just as an example, here’s a picture from
one of my security cameras. And if I go back

15:16 | a few days ago when everything was dry, you’ll
see it looks very different. And so I’ve

15:20 | always wondered what on earth caused this.
And I think I finally figured it out.

15:25 | So, if we go back a few days ago here I am
washing my wife’s car. And you can see those

15:29 | colored areas line up right under the car’s
tires. Well, eventually I figured out that

15:34 | it is the black magic stuff I use on the tires
to make them shine. Every time I use that

15:38 | stuff, I get a little bit on the concrete.
Heck you can see me using that like 13 years

15:43 | ago on my Eagle Talon in the exact same spot
because that’s where I always wash cars.

15:48 | And so, this stuff repels water and I think
that’s why it looks that way. Anyway, not

15:52 | that this had anything at all to do with the
C64 restoration, but I like solved mysteries

15:56 | and I thought you might too.

15:58 | In a previous retrobrite episode you can see
the contraption I came up with for indoor

16:03 | retrobriting, using a single fluorescent blacklight,
and some foil. Well, this method worked, but

16:08 | it took way longer than expected, almost a
week if memory serves. Also I had issues with

16:12 | the aluminum tape I put inside the crate,
which had a galvanic reaction with the steel

16:16 | and brass parts that were laying on top of
it, which I think hampered the whole process.

16:20 | So, I wanted to try something a little different
this time. I’m headed out to Target to look

16:25 | for a perfect sized crate for the C64 pieces.
And as you can see they have quite a few different

16:30 | sizes and shapes to pick from. And I think
this particular one here is the one I’m

16:35 | going to pick.

16:36 | You see, I wanted to build some sort of custom
retrobriting tank, but one of the problems

16:40 | I kept coming up against is I didn’t want
to have to pick a specific size. You see,

16:45 | if the tank were too small then I wouldn’t
be able to fit the larger objects in there,

16:48 | but if the tank were too big then it be kind
of a waste of chemicals and a waste of space

16:54 | when using on smaller objects. So, I really
wanted a system that was reconfigurable for

16:58 | different sizes of objects.

17:00 | I had seen this video done by Odd Tinkering
on his channel, where he wrapped the container

17:04 | in UV strip lights. I am assuming this container
was transparent to UV light, or at least UV-A.

17:10 | Anyway, it worked out pretty well for him
and this seemed like a setup that could scale

17:14 | to different sized containers.

17:16 | OK, so it looks like this crate is just about
right for the C64 case parts. So, first thing

17:21 | I wanted to do was test if this plastic was
transparent to UV-A. And the way I’m going

17:24 | to do that is by shining a UV light on this
post-it note, which is very fluorescent. And

17:28 | then, I’ll try shinning it through the crate.
As you can see, some of it gets through, but

17:33 | some is also reflected. So this isn’t perfect.
Glass might work better. But we’ll give

17:38 | it a shot. I’ll get this label pulled off.

17:40 | OK, now I want to show you this guy. Now this
is a very heavy duty UV light. These are really

17:46 | the kind they would use on a stage or something.
This thing is really heavy. The back of it’s

17:51 | like all metal. And it’s got a little stand
here, or this is also a mounting bracket.

17:57 | And this thing outputs 60 watts. Actually,
that’s actually the amount of power it consumes,

18:03 | is 60 watts. I don’t even know what the
number of lumens is, but this thing is ridiculously

18:09 | bright. So let me plug it in and show you
right quick.

18:12 | OK, so there’s actually very big warnings
that come with this saying not to look directly

18:16 | into this light when it comes on, probably
because there’s such a vast amount of UV

18:20 | light coming out of it, even though you can’t
see all of it. So, I’m going to kind of

18:24 | turn it to the side here and yeah. You can
see it lights up my post-it note pretty well.

18:33 | Let’s see how it lights it up through the
plastic. Yeah, it gets through, but I feel

18:38 | like about 50% of the light is blocked or
at least diffused by the plastic.

18:41 | You know, the other thing I want to mention
is that I can put my hand in front of this

18:46 | and feel heat. I mean, even though there’s
not supposed to be any infrared coming from

18:50 | this, there’s just a surprising amount of
heat that I can feel. I mean, that just gives

18:54 | you an idea the amount of UV power this thing
is putting out. It’s probably going to give

18:59 | me cancer.

19:00 | OK, so let’s get stared. I have the lights
suspended just about the crate. I’m going

19:05 | to fill this with hot water from the sink.
Of course, I only need enough water to submerge

19:09 | the part I’m working on. Then comes the
hydrogen peroxide. Then I’ll slide this

19:13 | under these 3 lights. I actually have six
of them, but I’m just going to use these

19:16 | 3 at the moment. And let’s turn them on.
Holy cow! It is so bright in my studio. It

19:22 | doesn’t look like it because my camera is
trying to compensate by turning down the exposure.

19:26 | But everything in my studio that is even slightly
fluorescent, is blindingly bright. Don’t

19:31 | worry, I won’t be staying in this room while
this process is going on.

19:34 | OK, so 2 hours has passed and I want to inspect
the progress. I’ve been checking on it every

19:39 | 30 minutes, but this is the first time to
take it out of the water so I can get a close

19:43 | inspection. I’m really blown away by this
because at first glance it looks like it’s

19:47 | already done. I’m going to run this to the
bathtub right quick and rinse it off.

19:51 | OK, so it’s rinsed and now I’m drying
it off. Now I want to compare with the other

19:56 | piece. I might could have actually done these
pieces at the same time, but I wanted to keep

20:00 | one half as a control so I could see any progress
that was happening, since this is a new experiment

20:04 | for me. Anyway, yeah, you can clearly see
it has worked. In fact, I’d say it’s about

20:09 | 90% done, in 2 hours no less. I’m going
to put it back in there for another hour or

20:14 | so, since the sides were just a little brown
still.

20:17 | And so here we are, one hour later. So, that’s
3 hours total in the treatment. And by the

20:21 | way, even though you can’t see it from this
distance, if I zoom in, you’ll see it is

20:25 | covered in bubbles. So this is always something
to beware of, because it will eventually float

20:29 | to the top. So anyway, I’m going to run
this to the bathtub again for a rinse.

20:34 | And I’m pretty sure this piece is done.
3 hours is probably a record for me, and actually

20:37 | faster than what I could have probably done
in a sunny day in the middle of Summer. Granted

20:41 | this plastic wasn’t nearly as yellowed or
browned as some others I’ve done in the

20:45 | past. I’d probably better compare to my
other C64 to see if it is the color it should

20:49 | be, and it looks like it is. So yeah, I’d
say the top part is a success. Now I’d better

20:54 | start on the bottom part. And here we go again
with the nuclear blast for 3 hours.

21:00 | And here we are 3 hours later. I’m going
to stick these together for a comparison.

21:03 | And at first glance they look like a good
match, but upon closer inspection I see a

21:06 | very minor difference. I don’t think anyone
would even notice I they weren’t looking

21:10 | for it. So, I’m going to call this done
as this video has taken way longer than expected

21:14 | already.

21:16 | Moving on to the disk drive, I need to take
this thing apart anyway because I knew I got

21:19 | baking soda in the vents and between the cracks
and stuff, so I needed to rinse it off anyway.

21:24 | But, I figure I can devote a few hours to
retrobriting these too. I don’t think the

21:29 | drive was nearly as bad off as the computer,
so don’t expect a huge change.

21:34 | And here we go 3 hours later. Yeah, so I can
see a small difference in the top and bottom

21:38 | shell. Not huge, though. I’ll go ahead and
do the bottom part next.

21:41 | And while the drive is apart, I’ll do a
little cleaning and maintenance in here, starting

21:45 | with some compressed air.

21:46 | And I’ll want to clean the head so I will
need to remove the logic board.

21:50 | And, as always, I’ll re-lube the rails.

22:07 | The drive is essentially done now, just need
to reassemble it.

22:16 | Now to re-assemble the C64, including this
power LED.

22:29 | And we can’t forget about this bad CIA chip,
which I’ll go ahead and remove now. And

22:33 | I have this replacement I got from arcade
components.com. It’s surprising how many

22:37 | people think I have a stockpile of replacement
parts, but I don’t. I have to find them

22:41 | from other people just like everyone else.

22:44 | OK, let’s test this thing and see if my
diagnosis was correct. Well, nothing blew

22:53 | up. And looky there! I see a flashing cursor.
Let’s go ahead and re-attach the keyboard

22:58 | so we can test that.

23:00 | And that also appears to be working. I think
we’re in business!

23:17 | So, I’d call this a pretty successful restoration
of a Commodore 64. And this is the very first

23:31 | 64 I’ve ever actually restored, even though
people think I’ve done like hundreds of

23:35 | them or something like that. There is one
thing I’m going to do, though, before I

23:38 | give this away. I’m actually going to take
this back apart, you know, off camera after

23:42 | we’re done with this, and I’m going to
replace those 2 plungers with the one from

23:46 | my spare keyboard. And even though the new
plungers actually work, I just don’t care

23:50 | for bobble-head keys, so I’m going to change
those out. It will only take a few minutes,

23:55 | and then I’m going to go ahead and give
this away, but that actually wraps it up for

23:58 | the moment. So, as always, thanks for watching!

Commodore 64 Restoration and new retrobrite technique.

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