I like to keep my hobby stuff tidy. Here’s how I do it.
View-Master Basic Cleaning & Repair Kit (includes affiliate links)
Honestly, I’m not a big proponent of cleaning individual reels. It’s arduous and not worth the elbow grease if you plan to collect many reels (unless you buy one reel at a time you will get another copy of almost everything eventually). However, a Hi-Polymer Eraser is a great way to get dirt and wear to fade from the white paper reels if you want to put in the elbow grease. Be careful not to rub the eraser on the film!
As for the packets? Most are surprisingly sturdy and they stay together forever unless you choose to tear them apart. However, starting in the 1970s, when GAF purchased View-Master, the company made the insane choice to make the sides of the paper packets perforated! What!? Why? They chose chaos!
Packets from that era tend to fall apart over time. Not that big of a deal, however, depending on how you plan to store your packets. If you use little plastic sleeves (as I do), you can simply put all the pieces in the sleeve and it will hold it neatly in place.
But that’s not good enough for me, a crazy collecting person.
As you can see with the Bangkok packet above, the sides and top flap of the perforated packet had come undone.
So, let me detail how I do an invisible repair on this packet. The first step is stressful and counterintuitive. You have to further destroy it (I KNOW!).
The trickiest part of disassembly is the bottom flap since it is glued to the two side flaps. However, there are only two dots of glue holding the bottom together, so it’s not very hard to take apart. Just be careful, take it slow, and don’t rip it.
Now it’s time to reassemble. I use Create Scotch Tape applied to the insides to do this part, as described in this video:
I do the sides first, then the bottom and top. Note that I use about three short pieces of tape to attach each side because I find it easier to align perfectly. I found that the longer the piece of tape, the higher the odds I have a mishap. For example, I went with a longer piece below and — surprise! — made a mistake:
Practice makes getting the alignment easier. Be careful not to overlap the paper when taping. It should just touch at the edges.
From the outside, you’d never know I repaired this packet!
If you made it this far, be sure to smash that ❤️ button!