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Removing Yellowing from Plastics - Part 3

Unknown_K said:
I guess every beat up and yellowed computer is now going to be new never used on ebay with this cleaning method.

Come summer when we have perfect sunlight and I am out grilling or doing yardwork daily anyway, I will try the outdoors spray on method (since it only takes a few hours to work) on my 1040 ST that is yellowed. I do have a mac IIfx case that is yellowed and could use a cleaning but I would have to rip out all the metal thats rivited into the case for that to work (or the peroxide is going to corrode it).

Anybody going to bother documenting what the cases look like 6 months to a year after the cleaning to see if they are yellowing again?
Click to expand...

Not new never used, just looking better than the rest, and without mentioning Retr0Brite !

Do what I do: get your drill, a drill bit, and then buy some rivets and a pop-rivet gun - if you're going to do it, do it right !

I'll take photos again in a year, provided I'm still alive - once you get past 50, who knows what's going to happen when?


PS: who wants to buy a brand new, never been used TRS-80 dot matrix printer? LOL
 
It's funny, you know; the usual suspects that sell hardware on Fleabay for top dollar don't seem to have found this yet, mind you, I haven't gone out of my way to tell them.....;)
 
I don't think people who are mostly into trading would bother with all this chemical stuff and have processes take hours of time. Many of them tend to be on the level of checking if something boots up, and that's it.
 
carlsson said:
Many of them tend to be on the level of checking if something boots up, and that's it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, a whole bunch of them lie about it too !
(sorry we're off topic, but I couldn't resist as almost every machine I've got off Ebay is supposed to boot, but doesn't)
 
carlsson said:
I don't think people who are mostly into trading would bother with all this chemical stuff and have processes take hours of time. Many of them tend to be on the level of checking if something boots up, and that's it.
Click to expand...

I agree. Many of them are traders that just want a quick turn-around with little effort. Many of them don't even bother to clean the machines properly or photograph them in an appealing manner!

Tez
 
Mebbe someone should advertise a de-yellowing service? They send you the brown VIC, (or just the case) and you send them back a pristine-looking one. You can sell services on e*ay, can't you?

--T
 
Good luck getting anybody to pay for your time and experience in cleaning a VIC20, it would have to be something rare and expensive that is worth many times more on ebay in pristine condition compared to working but yellowed and ugly. I don't think the hobby is at that point yet, give it another 10 years when the price guides have color charts for plastics and grading scales.

I tend to strip and clean anything I get that will be a part of my collection, but I would not do the same thing for others even if they paid me. Its just the difference between what you do for fun, and what you would put up with for a job.
 
Really! Would end up like my ONE shift working in the car wash. I was the guy standing downstream of the big blowers, with the towels. At least 3 times that day, my size 14 tennis shoes got trapped under the wheel of the slowly dragged car. Not a problem, just don't move, wait for it to roll off of your toes. Man, I loved that job (NOT).
 
Just a thought. Note that I didn't intend to do it myself either, but there's always someone, somewhere. Perhaps that guy in China who's squatting over a coal fire all day, melting the solder out of pc boards for 70 cents an hour might see it as a great job opportunity.

--T
 
I'm trying the de-yellowing on my first Mac 512K parts.
I'm not sure how they're supposed to look, as I've never had a Mac 512K before.

Look at this before photo of the keyboard.
Is the spacebar supposed to be a different color from the rest of the keys? (Krye's spacebar on page 8 of Part 2 seemed to be a different color as well)

Mac kbrd - comp.jpg

In this photo, I've de-yellowed the keys, but the spacebar came out much lighter than the rest of the keys.

Mac kbrd - comp1.jpg

Now here's the inside of the spacebar - it's much darker than the outside after de-yellowing.

Mac kbrd - comp2.jpg

And is this the color the keys are supposed to be?
They've changed color after being processed, but I don't know if they've been de-yellowed enough, too much, or just right.
I haven't seen these sorts of colors on anything else.
Are Apple products that different?
 
Lorne,

I dunno what it is with spacebars but they seem to often be made of a different plastic. That was the case on my two Apple IIes and my Commodore SX. Regarding the Apples, they looked the same as yours, were harder to de-yellow and ended up quite "streaky".

Check out my original C-SX keyboard before de-yellowing. Now that is weird!...LOL. Luckily the treatment bought it back to the same colour as the other keys.

2009-02-04-sx64-keyboard-before.jpg


2009-02-04-sx64-keyboard-after.jpg

Tez
 
The keys were probably moulded one one machine using one batch of ABS, with the spacebars being moulded on another. Differences in moulding temperature, ABS composition or amount of flame retardant all could have contributed to this effect.

I've even got a scientific discussion going on about Retr0brite on the French forum system-cfg.com. My French isn't too brilliant and I can't keep up with this at the moment, I need reinforcements!!

:lol:
 
@ Fneck

The guys here think I'm speaking Greek when I talk about science already, without the discussion being in French as well!!

:lol:
 
Merlin said:
The keys were probably moulded one one machine using one batch of ABS, with the spacebars being moulded on another. Differences in moulding temperature, ABS composition or amount of flame retardant all could have contributed to this effect.

I've even got a scientific discussion going on about Retr0brite on the French forum system-cfg.com. My French isn't too brilliant and I can't keep up with this at the moment, I need reinforcements!!

:lol:
Click to expand...


Je suis un Canadien, mais de l'ouest, ansi mon francais c'est ne pas bon.

You're on your own mate - you started it ! :)
 
And I'm from Ontario. We don't talk to Quebec LOL

The (long unused) French they taught us in high school was, fortunately, Parisean French and not whatever the hell they speak in Quebec.

Try BabbleFish, it would be interesting to see what you get :)
 
@ Lorne

Je suis Anglais; si je suis honnête, mon Francais est un peu la merde.

Au moins je ne pense pas seulement crier plus fort, comme les touristes d'Anglais....;)

:lol:
 
Druid6900 said:
And I'm from Ontario. We don't talk to Quebec LOL

The (long unused) French they taught us in high school was, fortunately, Parisean French and not whatever the hell they speak in Quebec.

Try BabbleFish, it would be interesting to see what you get :)
Click to expand...

I remember voting to let Quebec leave. 51 to 49 % to stay? That was a rigged vote if ever there was one.

Quebec french is like American english - not quite what it should be.

I just found out that Microsoft Office Word 2007, does translations. Copy what you need translating, paste it into Word, click on the Review tab, and then on translate. It takes only seconds.

I don't know how well it translates, but it translates better than I can.
Here are some examples:

French:
J'ai juste découvert ce Word 2007 de Microsoft Office, fait des traductions. Le copy de ce que vous avez besoin, et le collent dans le Word, clic sur l'étiquette de revue, et alors sur traduisez. Cela prend seulement des secondes.

Swedish:
I som precis ut finnas, att Microsoft Office uttrycker 2007, gör översättningar. Kopiera vad du behöver, och klistra den in i uttrycker, klickar på granskafliken, och därefter på översätt. Det tar understöder endast.

German:
Ich fand gerade dieses Microsoft Office-Wort 2007, tue übersetzungen heraus. Copy was Sie benötigen und kleben es in Wort, klicken an den Berichtvorsprung, und dann auf übersetzen Sie. Es dauert nur Sekunden.

 
Lorne said:
I som precis ut finnas, att Microsoft Office uttrycker 2007, gör översättningar. Kopiera vad du behöver, och klistra den in i uttrycker, klickar på granskafliken, och därefter på översätt. Det tar understöder endast.
Click to expand...
For your knowledge, that is 50% gibberish and 50% understandable. I'll try to make a word by word translation:

"In as precisely out be found, that Microsoft Office expresses 2007, makes translations. Copy what you need, and paste it in in expresses, clicks on reviewtab, and thereafter on translate. It takes supports only."
 
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