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How to prevent resin rot damage! A case study

9K views 15 replies 12 participants last post by  tabbywmollya 
#1 ·
Hi fellow G-shock fans! :)

I want to share with you all about my day so far. My yellow Raysman Just arrived! When it arrived it was in excellent condition, with all buttons intact and g-shock packaging. Everything worked fine. I've read a few posts here about Raysman owners experiencing resin rot in the past, so I was pretty nervous about handling it. After wiping it down with a damp cloth, eveything was still okay, and I was pretty happy.

After lunch, I don't know why but I spontaneously decided to rinse my Raysman with water. :-( Sure enough, after that when I used the light button I heard a crack sound. The G button now looked like an O button :-| I tested the mode button, and it broke as well.

I let the watch dry completly for a few hours, and it seems that once the watch is dry it becomes less brittle! I think this might be because the resin must have dried up, and when exposed to water it decomposes. So lesson of the day: If you suspect a g-shock has resin rot, DO NOT PRESS IT WHEN IT'S WET! Wait for it to be completely dry, and it might survive! While I'm not sure if this is the same for all cases, but better safe than sorry right? :)

Watch Wrist Stopwatch Yellow Watch accessory


Thanks for reading!
:)
 
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#2 ·
theres a fine line in maintaining humidity, just like with cameras / leather materials that are stored in dry box at around 40-45% relative humidity.
if its too humid fungus grows.
too dry, and the rubber on the camera / leather starts cracking.

so perhaps gshock collectors should start buying dry boxes...probably one of the best investments they can make :p
 
#3 ·
Ive always imagined G resin as more of a sponge than a solid plastic but I doubt the water had much of a play in its demise. Rotted resin can seem completely fine till you apply the wrong kind of force, maybe be a hard strike or a soft tap or twist and it disintegrates like a slayed vampire lol pretty sure it wouldve happened wet or dry if it was to that point of rigamortis

the mud resist sealed buttons on these models didn’t do them any favours either because you have to get your thumbnail in there to press the actual button behind the membrane. I personally wouldn’t have touched the buttons at all, just set the module outside of the resin then leave it.

Sucks tho, looks like it was indeed in pretty good condition. Sadly tho, when I hear resin rot, I think of dw002s, original mudmans and raysmans. Its like buying an old ford, the rust comes standard lol

For discussion sake: if it was an issue with the resin drying out and becoming brittle, would it be better to store it in a jar of distilled water ........ dead historic figures style? Maybe even hydro mod them for extra protection?
 
#4 ·
DW-002's can be REALLY bad!! I had a couple of bad experiences with bezels disintegrating on me, then decided a year or so ago to go for another one! I bit the bullet and decided to strip it down to clean it as it looked quite solid, and to my amazement after very carefully getting the bezel off, (the damn things are stuck down by Casio on the body of the watch!!), it was still in one solid piece with no cracks or anything. Then, oh dear! I used warm water & a little soap and with a soft toothbrush gently began to clean the underside of it and boom, it fell into about 4 pieces!

Never bought one since, lol
 
#7 ·
It's tough for me, living near the ocean...my bezels crack all the time. Latest victim has been my dw5700 bezel (reissue model), which i will probably never find a replacement....
Thats the unfortunate thing, we live in a throw away society and G's follow that trend, they are pretty much made as disposable watches unless you can buy replacement resin.
The good news is that we are probably getting CLOSE to the point where there will be several people offering 3D printed replacement resin!

The bad news is that the news media keeps trying to tell us that we're just a few years away from the point where EVERYBODY will have their own 3D printer and magically gain the skills to create whatever we want for just pennies -- which is absolutely ridiculous. We've been at that point with CLAY for hundreds of years, but how many of us have the time and skill to craft and glaze and fire our own plates and coffee mugs and jewelry? Most of us have access to Microsoft Paint or Photoshop but most of us don't have the skills to make a living as artists, and MOST of us won't have the necessary skills with AutoCAD programs to print our own bezels -- but a few of us already do and that number will grow SOMEWHAT in the next several years!

We'll probably never get to the point where we can toss our broken bezels in a 3D scanner and tell the computer to print up a new, unbroken one, but we're already to the point where we can have someone else design a replacement bezel for a DW-5600C for us. In a few years we'll probably have more people designing a wider selection that includes more discontinued models. :)
 
#8 ·
I don't think the solution mentioned will be effective. Resin is essentially a long hydrocarbon chain, or an oil-based plastic. Eventually the hydrocarbon chains will break down and the resin will start to disintegrate. Water exposure won't significantly accelerate this process as long as it's not around water too much.
 
#10 ·
its very hot here in the philippines, i use my g-shock on a "rotation basis"... i wear one model once per day (three time a month).

1. after every use, i wash it with soap to remove the sweat.
2. i dry it... dont wipe it, just damp it.
3. then return it in a container with silica gel.... i usually use 3 packs.... i get my silica gel from medicine bottles... :p
 
#12 ·
but if u don't wipe try it, doesn't water stains/marks form on the crystal ?

I do a similar cleaning process after each wear but I do not use soap, just water. After that i use a micro fibre cloth and pat dry the whole watch (crystal, bezel and strap). I do not have any specific container with silica gel.

I live in Malaysia.
 
#11 ·
maybe, maybe not.

the biggest thing that alot of henny penny's forget is that the rot didnt occur on all Gs before a certain age, there were select models that were prone to it becuase of the resin used at the time, so even when well looked after they still disintergrate while other models of the same era have no problems at all.

out of thousands of models, theres really only a very small percentage that suffer from it (sans hard wear and weather). ive yet to see any reasonably well looked after resin from mid around the 2000s onwards suffer the same fate. either way, is 10+ years really that bad for a "cheap" "plastic" watch? damn great if you ask me and hardly "disposable" as some make them out to be. so unless youre a collector of the models mentioned above (and are a gluten for punishment) then you really dont have much to worry about.
 
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