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Whitening yellowed plastic?

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Whitening yellowed plastic?

Postby NuclearConvoy » Wed Jan 31, 2018 8:19 am

Hey guys,
Sorry if this is in the wrong part of the forum and feel free to move it. I have been trying to find out if there is a way to whiten slightly yellowed plastic. I have seen some techniques on how to do it online but they all require that I submerge the plastic in some chemical bath type deal for lengths of time. The figure I want to whiten (All white aerialbot limb from Combiner Wars) has stickers and other paint applications so I was hoping to do spot whitening as it only has parts that have yellowed (I kept it in a bad place apparently...) I'd prefer not to sand it as that would likely lose the glossy finish. I'd prefer not to have to buy a new one too...
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Re: Whitening yellowed plastic?

Postby Jelze Bunnycat » Wed Jan 31, 2018 11:32 am

Motto: "The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance."
Peroxide is used for yellowed plastic yes, but the tested figures were mainly G1 era. Newer figures may pose some difficulties due to the different composition of the plastic type. I think I read that someone tried it with Classics Ultra Magnus, but the results were... pretty much less than stellar to say the least.
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Re: Whitening yellowed plastic?

Postby blackeyedprime » Wed Jan 31, 2018 11:45 am

Motto: "Me Grimlock, you slag."
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Not so sure but I would suggest looking into methods used for restoring old yellowed NES/Snes consoles if that is of any help.
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Re: Whitening yellowed plastic?

Postby Emerje » Thu Feb 01, 2018 9:05 pm

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JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:Peroxide is used for yellowed plastic yes, but the tested figures were mainly G1 era. Newer figures may pose some difficulties due to the different composition of the plastic type. I think I read that someone tried it with Classics Ultra Magnus, but the results were... pretty much less than stellar to say the least.

I wonder if they did it right? If they didn't expose it to direct sunlight/UV light then it wont work. I've also seen that it isn't necessarily the chemical itself that is needed for the reaction, but the gasses released. To prove this I saw a video where an ozone generator is used to pump ozone into a sealed container with a yellowed plastic keyboard key cap and then exposed it to sunlight with great effect on its own.

People do report that peroxide doesn't effect stickers so that's a plus. I definitely wouldn't trust "retrobright" on them since it's a paste.

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