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Old 4th Jul 2018, 4:11 pm   #4
The Philpott
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Join Date: Aug 2016
Location: Colchester, Essex, UK.
Posts: 4,081
Default Re: Restoring the whiteness to yellowed plastic.

With an ABS vauxhall indicator stalk aged by sun, heat, sweat, grime, (originally black in colour but oxidised to mid brown with patches of ivory) I confidently abraded it to remove the damage only to find it was way more than skin deep. This switch went out of production years ago so being in working condition it needed to be retained whatever it looked like. Giving it a final light sand I gave up on abrasion and overcoated it with black touch-up can acrylic.

It goes against the grain to be doing this (and time will tell on the durability) but the finish is certainly very good. It seems that with certain degraded plastics, if the friable surface is removed the grainy under-layer forms a superb bond with such paints. A new use for an existing technology..? (But try it on a test piece first)

Dave
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