Salon Care 40 Whitening

[Wayne-Ooo]

I was wanting to whiten up some of the plastic pieces on my Circuit Racer and started to do some research. I have always heard of using Retro Bright, but never really knew anything about it. From what I found, it's not something you buy, but something you mix up and soak the piece in it.

Doing some more research, I came across using Salon Care 40 volume creme. (From Sally Beauty) You brush it on and wrap the piece in plastic wrap, or a zip lock bag, to keep it from drying out and place in in the sun. I was pretty happy with the way in turned out. It was under $7 for a 32oz bottle and I used maybe 2oz total.

You done have worry about getting it on the colored plastic pieces, it doesn't effect them.

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[jasonlujan]

a great find - thank you! i've been using 180 sandpaper on my white pieces to get rid of the yellow...I'll look up this item

[emmadog]

i used retrobright years ago and had good success with it. lots of threads on it. if you let that stuff dry on colored plastic pieces it will cause blooming which is a whitening of the colored plastic and is irreversible.

[Moparformances]

nice results

[machgo]

Saw that Salon 40 process on Chip Channel, a youtube tin toy car and truck restoration channel. He also had what looked like a home made tank for cleaning/whitening parts in hydrogen peroxide and UV light--he wired the tank (appeared to be a white bucket of some kind) with LED UV string lights.

[sparky kilowatt]

Resurrecting an old thread rather than starting a new one.
I'm using this on white parts, but has anybody tried this clear plastic parts? I've got some very yellowed parts, Novus 2 shines them but doesn't remove the yellow, I'm tempted to try some Salon 40 but don't want to damage the parts because they're the only ones I've got.

[Wayne-Ooo]

I use it on clear parts. It doesn't work as well, as if the parts are white. But, it does clear it up some.

It doesn't damage the piece in any way, that I have seen. If the clear piece has other pieces in it, like support pieces, the butt ends remain a yellowed color. There is no way for the Salon Care 40 to contact it.

Here are some photos of a jackpot cover I did. It's hard to tell in the photo, but it did clear it up some.





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[sparky kilowatt]

I use it on clear parts. It doesn't work as well, as if the parts are white. But, it does clear it up some.

It doesn't damage the piece in any way, that I have seen. If the clear piece has other pieces in it, like support pieces, the butt ends remain a yellowed color. There is no way for the Salon Care 40 to contact it.

Here are some photos of a jackpot cover I did. It's hard to tell in the photo, but it did clear it up some.

Thanks for the reply Wayne-Ooo, I wet sanded a couple of pieces today, way too much work and took way too long, I'm going to try some Salon 40 next.

[takethecastle57]

Sheesh , what happened to "Keep it Original" ?

Back in 1977 I was very happy with my Castle Royal Pachinko with the 9 VDC battery running the lights and using steel wool to polish my brass nails and having to hand encapsulate the bass nails with a clear coat varnish .

And also keeping the pachinko balls clean with 90% alcohol and a soft clean cloth .

Listen to me reminiscent about the good old 20th Century like a true old man .

[sparky kilowatt]

Sheesh , what happened to "Keep it Original" ?

Back in 1977 I was very happy with my Castle Royal Pachinko with the 9 VDC battery running the lights and using steel wool to polish my brass nails and having to hand encapsulate the bass nails with a clear coat varnish .

And also keeping the pachinko balls clean with 90% alcohol and a soft clean cloth .

Listen to me reminiscent about the good old 20th Century like a true old man .

The particular machine I'm working on belongs to a family member, when they bought it many years ago (unbeknownst to them) the previous owner had greased anything that moved with white lithium grease which is now orange, hard and nasty. The grease seems to have penetrated the plastics, whites & clears aren't just yellow, they're orange with black, so wet sanding and Salon 40 won't completely fix it, but will at least make it presentable.

[takethecastle57]

Yes, I learned early on in the 1970's that to only polish the pivot points for true ,smooth operation .

[emmadog]

best results are obtained using a UV light in conjunction with whatever hydrogen peroxide as this results in the reversing of the chemical process that causes the yellowing in the first place (the fire retardant bromine "coming out of solution" and migrating to the surface). using the creme version will inhibit the amount of UV light that gets to the plastic.
as far as clear plastic, i'm just guessing but maybe the process is not as effective because it's not ABS plastic or bromine was not added during manufacture, or???
you can most definitely permanently discolor plastics by doing this if the solution dries out. it's called "blooming" and i've dealt with this before.

[UncleToyBox]

Just about everything in this thread is a better option than the previous owner chose with the Gundam machine I just picked up.
My machine has brushed on paint that I can only guess was trying to address yellowing plastic. The paint affects the action of the knob a little so it's not as smooth as my other game.
Now, I'm in the position of either playing it as is, which still works, or figuring out how to dismantle the whole thing, strip the paint, and then try whitening the plastic.

I will likely play it for a while before being annoyed enough to tear it down and make it better. The recommendations in this thread give some great ideas that should help restore the plastic once I get the paint off.

PaintedParts.jpg

[machgo]

Simple Green or Castrol Super Clean will strip that paint without harming the plastic. I can find that in my local Walmart.

After stripping, save the used cleaner--it's still good!

[sparky kilowatt]

Before & after Salon 40 with 4 - 5 days of very low UV index sunshine. I did do a little color sanding beforehand on a couple of spots that had the orange lithium grease stains.

[UncleToyBox]

Being impulsive, I've jumped into this with both feet.
Doing a bit of research, I've discovered there are a ton of different 40 vol developer creams available at the salon store for a good price. The 40 vol indicates it is 12% peroxide, which is what does all the work.
You could just get peroxide without being in a cream and submerge the parts entirely in a vat of the stuff, exposing to a UV light source.
While the sun is free to use for the UV light source, that doesn't help when the nights are so very long here in the great white north.
I use a 30W nail curing light I got cheap from somewhere to cure 3d prints.
These results are from a 5 hour exposure using the light setup as shown. Totally worth the time in my books.

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