Retrobrite, put that shine back in your yellowed plastic

[Dark Jaguar]

http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com/

This is very interesting. This is a formula someone has found which chemically removes the oxidization from plastic. It does not put a coat on it, or alter the plastic fundamentally, it just reverts the chemistry back to how it was before all that oxygen yellowed or browned the plastic.

It isn't being sold, it can be made yourself using the listed ingredients. The results this shows are very impressive. I wish to make some of this myself for a few things I own, most notably my SNES. The top half is yellowed, the bottom half is not. Apparently the batches of plastic originally used came from two different factories for each "half".

[A Black Falcon]

My SNES is fortunately not yellow, so I don't think I need this... I do have a few slightly discolored carts, but nothing bad enough that I want to use that stuff on it.

Yeah, I'm kind of fortunate with the system...

I know that other white plastic things can also discolor, and have heard of discolored PC Engines, Dreamcasts, white Saturns, etc., but my DC is white, and I don't really have other white systems (other than the Wii, which is too recent to be affected of course; who knows long term).

[Dark Jaguar]

The Wii has a glossy coat on it, so it will likely last a lot longer. Check out that site, it'll restore pretty much anything made of that sort of plastic. It doesn't "bleach" the system, just restores the original color. The SNES will come out grey, not white. Likewise, an old Apple II will come out beige.

As it stands, I don't have much I'd need this for, but having the materials around for a batch seems like a smart move in any case. I'll certainly do it on that one plastic component of my old SNES though. Probably the rest of it too, to be sure the colors match up.