How To Restore Yellow/Discolored Plastic Caused By Smoke?

Discussion in 'Transformers Toy Discussion' started by xion14, Jan 20, 2019.

  1. xion14

    xion14 Well-Known Member

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    I wanted to test out re-whiting plastic that's yellowed on a few old Transformers from Beast Wars/RID and other toys I've gathered. The thing I was wondering was what's the differnece between something that's yellowed do to age/light and something that's yellowed do to smoke?

    I have at least 2 toys from over the years that have stunk of nicotine, seemingly yellowed by it; neither of them were that old when I found them. But I'm not sure if the reasoning for they're yellowing is very different than that of something that's yellowed due to just age/light. I was wondering if repairing things damaged by cigarette smoke required a different fix.
     
  2. IceBearPrime

    IceBearPrime Well-Known Member

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    Ive had good success with the peroxide trick, I dont know the difference of yellowing types however or what I dealt with.
     
  3. Purple Heart

    Purple Heart Some other time..

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    I usually just give them a soapy bath in the sink and let them sit for several hours. That usually washes the grime off.
     
  4. xion14

    xion14 Well-Known Member

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    How long have treated things lasted for you? It seems that depending on how it's done, that trick results in the plastic re-yellowing faster/easier. I wanted to give it a try, but I'm not sure if that method applies to smoke yellowing.

    I've been trying that and on a few spots it cleaned up some dark marks. But on most of the other damaged areas it seems to be that the actual plastic color changed. I'm just not sure if the color damage smoke causes is treated the same way as normal yellowing. Since I think the method it yellows might be differnet.
     
  5. Motor_Master

    Motor_Master Lets the balls touch

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    To get rid of the nicotine/cigarette residue, try cleaning them with Awesome cleaner. They sell it at dollar tree and it works great to get rid of residue from cigarettes. Then give them a good bath in soapy water. Any fading that's still present should then be taken care of using the peroxide trick

    Long story short, my mother in law and brother both smoked heavily in the house. When my wife sold the house, she sprayed awesome on the back of the front door and on the main air intake vent cover for the central heating system, which literally looked like it was rusted it was so bad. You could see the residue just running down the door and when she was done both the door and the intake vent cover looked brand new.
     
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