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ST case repair

R

reenigne

Veteran Member
Joined
Dec 13, 2008
Messages
717
Location
Cornwall, UK
I bought an Atari 520STFM from ebay, but unfortunately it was badly packed (bubble wrap and brown paper only, not even a cardboard box!) and when it arrived the case was smashed into a million pieces:
IMG_20160324_155349.jpgIMG_20160324_155456.jpg

Fortunately the seller quickly gave me a full refund. The machine itself seems to work (I'm not sure about the floppy drive - I don't have any floppies for it yet). Unless I happen across a replacement case it'll never look the same again, but there seem to be enough large-ish pieces that I'm willing to have a go at trying to glue it back together (if nothing else just to make it possible to transport the machine without the keyboard falling off and flopping around).

Does anybody know what kind of plastic these cases are made out of and/or what is a good glue to use on them? I was going to use superglue (cyanoacrylate) but then I heard that it requires water to cure properly and therefore doesn't do a good job bonding smooth plastic surfaces. Also it makes a mess of acrylic, creating white cloudy patches near where the glue is applied.
 
reenigne said:
Fortunately the seller quickly gave me a full refund. The machine itself seems to work (I'm not sure about the floppy drive - I don't have any floppies for it yet).
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Atari uses standard 720K FAT-formatted floppies. So you should be able to just download images from the net, write them on your PC, and then boot them on the ST.
At least, that should get you up and running with the basic OS and apps. Games/demos are generally booters, and may have custom floppy formats, and may need to be written on the machine itself, with special tools.
I have a 1040STe stashed away somewhere, with at least the OS floppies, and a copy of Cubase somewhere. I may be able to get you up and running if need be.
 
Scali said:
Atari uses standard 720K FAT-formatted floppies. So you should be able to just download images from the net, write them on your PC, and then boot them on the ST.
At least, that should get you up and running with the basic OS and apps. Games/demos are generally booters, and may have custom floppy formats, and may need to be written on the machine itself, with special tools.
Click to expand...

Good to know. I think I do have one 720kB floppy somewhere, but I'm a bit reluctant to try it in the ST in case the drive is in too bad of a state and damages the disk - then I won't have a way to get software onto my A3000 until I get some more disks.

Scali said:
I have a 1040STe stashed away somewhere, with at least the OS floppies, and a copy of Cubase somewhere. I may be able to get you up and running if need be.
Click to expand...

That would be great!
 
You can glue the case with plastics glue like they use it for model railway houses, airplanes, ships and so on. I for example use glue from the brands Revell, Kibri, Faller, and that fixes the cases very well. You need to clean the broken place, put some glue on both halfs of the part, wait about 5 minutes, then press the parts together and fix them somehow for some hours. After drying out it is stabe like new.
 
MEK (Methyl Ethyl Ketone) is my standard go-to welding solvent for these things. Get it at a paint or hardware store, apply with a toothpick or small brush to each part, wait a few seconds, then stick them together. It's been covered in another thread.

The really good solvent glues used to use methylene chloride, but it's awfully hard to find nowadays.
 
Thanks - I'll get some MEK. It looks like Amazon UK sells methylene chloride to my area but it seems like pretty nasty stuff so I'll take a pass on having it in the house.
 
It's a shame the idiot did that to it. But chances are overwhelming every last teeny tiny part is with it, unless there were holes. Just be patient and use mek or whatever. I myself just snapped the top skinny part of my 1040stf. When dry fitting it back together, the fracture, as far as I could tell, was utterly undetectable. Something tells me it may not be so perfect if you have to soften opposing parts then jam them together. You may want to experiment on an inconspicuous area. It would be much nicer if you could first press the parts together, then run liquid solvent into the fracture.

You could in many instances just glue a brace behind the fracture and perhaps then just allow a bit of solvent into the fracture itself. You don't simply just glue broken pieces back together. You need to provide reinforcement behind the fracture, out of view. You will require some patience though and work slowly, painstakingly.
 
I have had excellent luck gluing even dissimilar materials with Devcon Plastic Welder. My local hardware store sells it. Nasty fumes, though, but maybe not as bad as MEK. No idea how available this is outside the USA [except I see it on Amazon UK].
 
tipc said:
But chances are overwhelming every last teeny tiny part is with it,
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There are a very large number of very tiny (sub-millimetre) bits. Even if I found them all, I have neither the patience nor dexterity to even attempt that jigsaw puzzle, so I'm afraid that there will be some gaps in the result.
 
When I have a case with lots of missing tiny bits, I'll first put the thing together as well as possible, using a solvent cement, then use auto body filler (e.g. Bondo) to fill in the gaps, sand smooth and paint. Your brown case could probably profit from painting at any rate--and after that, it will never fade to brown again.

The Devcon stuff, according to its MSDS looks to be more like a "superglue" sort of solution, rather than a solvent. What surprises me is that contains carbon tet, which may well be banned in the EU--it's very nasty stuff.
 
Testors has bottles of liquid weld also.

I fail to see how anything could be sanded smooth when the case is textured. Rather gummy up some of those bits with some me kind of solvent and either inject it into the gaps with a kitchen flavor injector or run some in with a tiny paintbrush. If you're really devoted and want to at least try and reproduce the texture, using something that can be pressed against a portion of the textured casing and won't stick when it dries out or cures, place that over the defective area then from the backside inject some of that gunk you whipped up. But I doubt yo're up for all that.

Maybe think about dropping your electronics into some kind of desktop case and selling or donating the plastic to some poor devoted soul. Then you'll have an Atari Hackingtosh. Or an Amigo. Or just call it the Hombre.
 
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Chuck(G) said:
The Devcon stuff, according to its MSDS looks to be more like a "superglue" sort of solution, rather than a solvent.
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No, it is not thin like a solvent or superglue. It has body, more like an epoxy. For example, you can build it up to increase surface area on both sides of a break, or fill gaps with it. The technical data indicates that the resulting plastic is basically an acrylic. But it is a creamy color.

What surprises me is that contains carbon tet, which may well be banned in the EU--it's very nasty stuff.
Click to expand...
I said it gave off nasty fumes, but I didn't pick up on the carbon tet. For sure, not something you should be breathing.

[EDIT]I don't see carbon tetrachloride in the MSDS, although there is other bad stuff in there.[/EDIT]
 
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tipc said:
Testors has bottles of liquid weld also.
Click to expand...

Read the back of those Testors things, almost all of it only work on polystyrene, stubborn as I am, I ignored that and tried it on ABS, it does not weld, at best it sticks just enough that you try pushing on it and it pops loose

they do make stuff for abs, but its mostly MEK and cost quite a bit in comparison
 
tipc said:
I fail to see how anything could be sanded smooth when the case is textured. Rather gummy up some of those bits with some me kind of solvent and either inject it into the gaps with a kitchen flavor injector or run some in with a tiny paintbrush. If you're really devoted and want to at least try and reproduce the texture, using something that can be pressed against a portion of the textured casing and won't stick when it dries out or cures, place that over the defective area then from the backside inject some of that gunk you whipped up. But I doubt yo're up for all that.
Click to expand...

I usually end up using a textured paint--perhaps not original (but then a smashed-up case isn't original either). The appearance can be acceptable to the casual viewer. We're talking about salvaging the general appearance of the original. It's not an original approach--cased made of structural foam, for example, were very often painted with a textured coating.
 
I took Chuck's advice about M.E.K. and I'm so glad I found out about this wonderful chemical. I've already had several different applications for it in the narrow window I've had it. Works like a charm for broken plastic.

I don't get why sellers are so stupid when it comes to packing. It seems to be getting worse. Everything thing I've been buying on Ebay has been arriving damaged. The last episode the seller used a thin layer of bubble wrap around the IBM Printer stand and then used flattened priority boxes as "padding." Thanks, now there's a nice crack in it.
 
In some cases, it really can't be blamed on the seller. Plastic gets old and degrades. In many cases, it just starts out bad. I had an Apple monitor at one point that spontaneously shed bits of itself even when no one was near it.
 
eBay is your best bet. I've gone in the in the past for spare bits for my Amiga 500 case and found a few sellers in Europe offering just about every little bit.

Atari's however seem to be a bit harder to find but I've already found a seller in the UK selling just the bottom section. If I was you I'd send him a message and see if he's able to source any other parts he must of at least had the top section at one stage since he has a few of these.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ATARI-ST-...248094?hash=item210004fe9e:g:kp8AAOSw3ydVvcqA
 
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