Gocco Water Damage

About a year ago I left some of my belongings, including some of my Print Gocco supplies, at a friends place here in London for temporary safe keeping as I sorted out whether I would actually return to England or not… the process took longer than I thought (hence the year time lapse) and my friend had already moved out (back to his home country no less) but entrusted my stuff to the new tenants that subsequently moved in. Of course once I got back to London, I was excited to reclaim my things, with the Gocco stuff being the most cherished of all, especially since the future of Gocco isn’t looking too bright these days along with the fact that supplies are running tight at the moment. So you can only imagine my horror as I discovered that some of the boxes in which they were stored in had sustained a fair amount of water damage!

(as a side note, as pissed off as I was about this I really couldn’t complain as it was the risk I took knowing that the items would be out in the shed/yard with modest covering for the most part, and the fact that I was suppose to have the stuff out by this past January at the latest… so for the record I’m not mad at anyone, just disappointed with the situation. Amazingly, none of my books that were also being stored here were remotely damaged.)

I had about $750 worth of gocco supplies involved in this mishap, including custom cut paper (80% ruined), B6 screens (mostly unscathed), dozens of hi-mesh-inks (moisture damage to the boxes, but not the tubes themselves seemingly), and several 10-pack bulb sets that were infested with mold and stained from moisture damage.

*ARGH*

Bulbs with mold and visible moisture damage:

Hi-mesh ink tube box infested by mold:

Interior of Gocco screen 10-pack box:

(click images to view a larger picture of it)

From the looks of it, the only real damage was to the paper and the bulbs, as the unopened screens seemed least affected. The 60+ ink tubes I had I just wiped down with a damp cloth (soaked with soap) to disinfect the tubes from mold and just threw away their original cardboard box containers since most of them had mold forming inside. I also wiped down the screens, though they looked okay as far as I could tell.

However, about 6 packs of bulbs were definitely compromised and as a whole they took the worst of the moisture damage. I’ve never dealt with this problem before so some questions I have:

1) I’m wondering if the mildly affected bulbs are still salvageable in any capacity?

2) What would the effects be if I actually tried to use the clearly damaged bulbs (see the water stains in the photos) to flash a master screen with, let alone the effect on the Gocco kit itself?

3) How do I clean the surving bulbs from mold residue without damaging them further, specifically the bottom of the bulb?

And lastly, 4) how can I tell if the inks themselves have not been compromised by the moisture damage?

If anyone has any advise, insights or general thoughts to share about this I’d love to hear ‘um! In the future, I’ll made sure this stuff is properly stored in an air-tight container as to not repeat the same mistake twice. D’OH! to say the least…

Popularity: 7%

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...