Watching this YouTuber restore a GameBoy Color can help you too

YouTube channel Strange tinkering doesn’t hold many surprises, other than disbelief at how good the consoles, controllers, and keyboards they restore will look when the work is done. What starts out as a broken, dirty Game Boy Color in this video becomes a bright, clean handheld fit for a Christmas gift from 1998.

The creator, apparently based in Finland, is keeping his name out of his channel, but that doesn’t mean they’re completely mysterious to fans. Subscribers often send in their water-damaged, Cheeto-finger-stained, cracked gaming devices to be repaired, and the process is satisfying and nostalgic. (That makes this channel a great stoned watch, by the way.) It seems like the person restoring the items is also a real gamer – some projects are in-depth, like the Pokemon Mini.

The in-depth knowledge about preserving and restoring sometimes sensitive materials, such as processing chips and porous plastic, is a big part of the fun of Odd Tinkering’s videos. That, and the interesting captions in English that occasionally teach you something about how keyboards or consoles are made, or how to modernize a piece of old technology that you wish you could still use.

There’s also something endearing about going to so much trouble to preserve a crappy office keyboard from 2005. Those things we use every day Doing matter. It is also clear that there is a real passion for restoration; There are many videos on the channel showing restorations of these types of antique objects rusty razor. After all, it’s about the tinker and the odditynot the items themselves.