Cleaning Yellowed Lego Bricks

Discussion of general LEGO topics
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Papy.G
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Re: Cleaning Yellowed Lego Bricks

Post by Papy.G »

Well, I dug up a 25 years old bottle end of Hydrogen Peroxyde (30 volumes/9%) and ran a test, only with sunlight, it's quite nice, I'll post some pictures later.

The liquid option can be taken, just putting it TAED in Peroxyde, but it will last less time.

I noticed that some white bricks seems to be more or less white than others, and some bricks can be irreversibly sunburnt, will see with TAED if it is improving, or it nothing more happens.
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Re: Cleaning Yellowed Lego Bricks

Post by bmicq »

Hi everyone. I too had a bunch of 25-30 y/o bricks that yellowed. I used the Retrobright recipe and it worked flawlessly. I designed a website http://www.legorestoration.com for lego users that includes all the materials and procedures I used to remove the yellowing. I posted pics of the progress. I followed the original solution Merlin made with a slight variation on oxidizing solution.
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porschecm2
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Re: Cleaning Yellowed Lego Bricks

Post by porschecm2 »

Interesting site, and quite helpful. Thanks for posting that. :)

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architect
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Re: Cleaning Yellowed Lego Bricks

Post by architect »

I agree that it is a well put together site. You may want to change the domain name. The LEGO Company has taken legal action against sites with lego in their name.

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Heir of Black Falcon
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Re: Cleaning Yellowed Lego Bricks

Post by Heir of Black Falcon »

Whoa! That is a neat site you have made... At the moment I am in the middle of a long move but I may have to try this.

Do you know if the print on the bricks will come off with the method you used?

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Seasian
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Re: Cleaning Yellowed Lego Bricks

Post by Seasian »

I read somewhere online that Oxyclean (I think thats what its called, the stuff that Billy Mays sells on those infomercials) works extremely well too.
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Re: Cleaning Yellowed Lego Bricks

Post by bmicq »

Glad you guys like the site. I will take renaming the site into consideration. Thanks for pointing that out to me. I have tried the solution on a few bricks that were pained, like a black grill on a gray slope and the black didn't fade. I need to do more runs soon on a variety of different bricks.
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Papy.G
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overexposure issues

Post by Papy.G »

I had some overexposure issues, mainly with round shields that got almost white, just bathing in Peroxyde for 1 week outside. I wonder if that happened because yellowing was too intense it burned the surface colour itself, and if it could happen with TAED paste too?
Or perhaps Colour regularity used to be less consistent in the old days that we'd love it to be.
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Ye Olde Republic
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Re: Cleaning Yellowed Lego Bricks

Post by Ye Olde Republic »

I have an interesting update to this topic. This new idea is not for the faint of heart however! Some of you may see it the same way I do; the yellowed white bricks are ruined anyways, so what the heck.
For quite some time I've been using this polishing kit to remove printing from tiles. It's far quicker than brasso and waaaay less work.
Image
I tried sanding on my heavily yellowed white bricks (this brick was almost the colour of proper LEGO tan!) with one of the mid-grit films and in just a couple of passes, the yellowing started to go away. The materiel removed can be measured in microns so I for one, am fairly comfortable using this process. I'll get some before and after pics up soon but for now I'm going to enjoy my Sunday morning pot of coffee.
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Re: Cleaning Yellowed Lego Bricks

Post by Sir Nelson »

Ye Olde Republic wrote:I'll get some before and after pics up soon but for now I'm going to enjoy my Sunday morning pot of coffee.
Look forward to seeing your photos. I have used Nevr-Dull for years, and it works quite well on removing print from pieces, but I've never tried it for removing yellowing. To my knowledge, it does not work to that end, so your finding is interesting.

I'm curious to know if anyone has tried the Sculpey process?
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