Restore Yellowed Plastic

Thought I'd share my experiences with de-yellowing plastic.

Some of you may or may not be aware of a RetroBright which is a formula created by a smart chap named Merlin which is a chemical cocktail to bring that old yellowed plastic back to white.

I wont go into detail here you can just read about it on his site HERE

Essentially the formula is as follows

1/2 pint (200ml) Hydrogen Peroxide, 30% strength

2 level teaspoons of Xanthan Gum

1 level teaspoon of Glycerine

1/4 teaspoonful of Oxy laundry booster

1 teaspoonful hot (not boiling) water

Pfft too hard I say. Another clever chap found using off the shelf Cream Peroxide Jerome Russell Cream Peroxide 40 vol 12%. will do the same thing.

No idea if you can buy it in Australia so I just bought it off ebay. His site is HERE

In a nut shell all you do is take your yellowed Computer/Console/Handled rip the guts out of it then give it a good clean(IMPORTANT), then with the proper safety gear (gloves) you use a brush to paint the Cream Peroxide on, wrap the case in plastic then stick it out in the sun for a few hours. You will probably have to repeat the process a few times to get it back to original.

I've done a few old hand helds and did this Oil Panic earlier today.

Before

After

This whole front and side was yellowed

I've done 3 applications in this case and may do a 4th but I reckon it looks great.

I think you'd probably get even better/faster results using a UV lamp.

nice work

 

curious does it effect the plastic at all much Ie risk of making it brittle ect :unsure

I don't think so mate, its only peroxide. Seems to be a lot of people using it and no side effects that I've read so far.

Assuming that was the oil panic you bought from me, that is an amazing result.

 

I need to do that to a PS1 I bought.

 

Great thread.

The very one :)

Just a quick update. Decided to do one final treatment today this time just the one and tightly wrapped in cling wrap and left in the sun for about 6 hrs.

Not sure if you can tell the difference from the first pics but for me this is about as perfect as you can get (other than the scratches on the faceplate) :D

Stoked.

its some sort of metal. I've though about using Novus but I didn't want to risk removing the writing.

I'm not bothered by it, the yellowing annoys me more than a few scratches.