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Baddon

Vanquish yellowing rims back to white??? How

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Hello all,

I have heard about adding Hydrogen Peroxide to "bleach" the rims. MOST I can find is a few days in sunlight.......

Its N.Ireland and winter so sun is in short supply. I have a bottle of 9% Hydrogen Peroxide but what strength solution for how long.

Can anyone help? They are vintage wheels and I don't want them to collapse - it is for a vantage Vanquish for display only.

 

Thanks in advance.

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Personally, I'd paint them. White primer under white paint and clear on top. Any scratches will be white because everything is white, and painted plastic looks so much nicer than bare plastic.

Paint will also protect the plastic from UV.

Bleach is a fairly aggressive substance and might do nasty things to plastic. Particularly old plastic.

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I use 12% peroxyde hair cream. It usually only take a few hours in direct sunlight for the parts to be good enough.

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55 minutes ago, Baddon said:

Hello all,

I have heard about adding Hydrogen Peroxide to "bleach" the rims. MOST I can find is a few days in sunlight.......

Its N.Ireland and winter so sun is in short supply. I have a bottle of 9% Hydrogen Peroxide but what strength solution for how long.

Can anyone help? They are vintage wheels and I don't want them to collapse - it is for a vantage Vanquish for display only.

 

Thanks in advance.

On youtube The 8-Bit Guy deal with this stuff for his restoration. Take a look.

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How off-white are they?

I believe the vintage Vanquish wheels were more cream than white anyway.

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3 hours ago, Peter_B said:

How off-white are they?

I believe the vintage Vanquish wheels were more cream than white anyway.

The rest of the rim when you remove the rim is pretty clean, while the part that is visible once the rubber is on is not so.

 

Was thinking about running through dishwasher first.

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Repainting is the only way to make it white again. I've had the same problem with my old FF01 wheels and the rear spoiler of the Corolla WRC body. They've turned yellow already in the last 2 decades. So I sanded them with a fine grit and repainted them. 

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Another vote for painting.  

I have a very old spare body for my Grasshopper.  It's all yellowy with age.  I fear I might make them brittle if I bleach, so my plan is to paint it white. 

I'm not going to prime it, I'll just paint white.  The original color wasn't "snow white."  It was slightly off-white.  So, if a bit of yellowy color were to be seen through the white paint, it wouldn't be a bad thing in my book.  

 

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Painting is not happening. 

I am lazy

I dont have the correct paint

I am not great at ANY painting never mind anything I want a decent finish on.

I am SO LAZY

near enough will do for me. They actually come up much better than expected after I ran them through the US cleaner and took a tooth brush to them.

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i'd paint them either spray or brush. if you say they are only for display the your not in a rush to get them white again so just order the correct shade you want.

i would never trust the method you want to use as it could make them brittle or make the surface ruff/uneven.

i have the same problem with the wheels on my honda city turbo shelfa i have got the paint for them but when i was at tonys tamiya parts i got a new set but i aint put them on yet.

but if you do want to go down that root then would a heat or uv light/bulb work for the peroxide stuff you want to use

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I've seen lots of videos on youtube for using hair products to whiten all sorts of objects. Not tried it yet but I have some old nitro parts I have been saving to experiment (spoilers, mirrors, wheels etc). Before the SS was re-released I dyed a bumper black that still looks great to this day.

Over the Christmas period I will do some experiments and report back.

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I'm going to be using 6% Hydrogen Peroxide liquid with a teaspoon of Oxi Clean. This will be mixed, the parts added and then put in front of a UV light source. I have some rare Tamiya Calsonic Rims that have yellowed, some 1/8 scale H parts (spoiler and mirrors) and a Willys Wheeler front bumper. This process will work for smaller parts. For large parts its recommended to add Xanthum Gum to make a gel and paint it on rather than immerse. The Hydrogen Peroxide solution can only be used once so the gel can be more cost effective.

This yellowing happens thanks to a flame retardant called bromine in old ABS plastics. When exposed to UV light, those bromine molecules can destabilize and leech through to the surface, causing the plastic to turn yellow (or even brown if left long enough). Modern plastics have improved the chemistry so this process doesn’t happen, but older Tamiya plastics aren’t so lucky.

This process isn't new and in fact computer and video game restorers have been doing it for a long time with it now being used to restore white trainer (sneaker) soles with the same effect. 

Over Christmas I will run some trials, take pictures and report back.

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