Taiyo

[emmadog]

http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com/
there's the link that explains the process. basically some dudes in germany figured out how to reverse the actual process that causes yellowing in ABS type plastics. ABS is used in everything from computer cases, gaming consoles, pachinkos, etc. the yellowish brown element bromine is added to ABS plastic during manufacture and as it is exposed to UV light, the bromine breaks free of it's chemical bond and yellows the plastic. so the retr0bright method uses hydrogen peroxide, a very small amount of oxy clean type detergent, and the sun or a UV lamp to force the bromine back into its chemical bond. in the process, the plastic goes back to it's original color or very close to it. it's an easy and cheap process to do and can be done by making the solution and submerging the parts or thickening the solution to a gel and painting it on the parts. the link above explains it in detail and has some amazing before and after pics of vintage computer cases, game consoles, etc.
i've done it quite a bit now and i use a UV lamp combined with a container wrapped in mylar to reflect the rays back on the plastic as much as possible. tin foil works well too. for small parts i just make the liquid version and submerge the parts.
i wasn't planning on doing it for this machine although a couple of parts had yellowed quite a bit. what made me do it was the fact that the machine is in excellent shape and after disassembling some parts for cleaning, i could see the original color on the rear of the the parts that weren't exposed to UV. having the discolored parts on a machine in otherwise great shape seemed out of place and i already had experience with the process. it took about 30 hours to get the parts to where i was happy with the outcome. anything is better than how they were and the white parts are very close to the original bright white and the blue plastics improved quite a bit but not as much as the whites which is typical from what i've seen. i didn't do the upper plastics that frame the upper part of the cel or the lower piece that covers and numbers the lower 16 pockets. i also didn't do the variouse white pockets on the cel itself-the score doubler pocket, UFO, and the two "sun" pockets. i may in the future though.