Retr0bright Support Thread

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Hi Guys,

I am new to all this retr0bright and have to say the results are great.

I have managed limited success when using 40vol cream peroxide mixed with oxy and left out in the limited welsh sun :)

Now as winter is coming I have bought a uv blacklight bulb so i can continue my whitening in the coming months, however.....

I purchased a UV bulb from ebay that stated it was 365nm ultraviolet, i have tried using this with some cream peroxide 12% 40 vol i bought from ebay but there seems to be no changes taking place, I have tried 3 different 10 hour retr0brighting shifts and nothing :Doh:

Is the bulb I purchased any good?? Or does it not emit enough UV as I read that I needed 320nm. Another possibility is that I have some really cheap and nasty peroxide that aint up to the job!

Thanks for any help provided as I currently have no ideas. I thought I would ask here before I go spending more money.

Cheers
 
Is anyone having the yellowing return after a while? I had an badly yellowed Atari 65XE get yellow again after several months.
 
@ TjLaZer

That's the thing with this reaction; it's reversible, and that means both ways. We usually recommend that people coat the trated plastic with a satin-finish acrylic lacquer, to seal the surface and prevent oxygen reaching it.

No oxygen = no reaction = no yellowing. :thumbsup:

I recommend that you give the case a quick mild second treatment then lacquer it.
 
Oxygen Peroxide 200 VOLUMES (enough to make a bomb, if you are a terrorist...): R$35,00 (that's ~£12) a 5kg gallon (5L);

Tap water to dilute to 40 volumes (1 part peroxide, 4 parts tap water): ask the water company, but I think it's next to nothing;

Safety glasses (one from a motocross helmet does the job, taken from the biker brother): depends... free if your biker brother don't catch you using it...

Safety gloves: R$6,00 (that's £2 for you UK guys:p) in the nearest market/grocery shop. Nothing, if you are the cleaning maiden. If you buy a large unit, give it to the cleaning maiden after the use.

Use apron, safety gloves, helmet and looks like Dexter: PRICELESS!
adult-deluxe-dexter-costume.jpg
 
Here is a possible Australian source of a ready-made product that works like Retr0brite gel:

White King Oxy-Lift in wash liquid gel.
http://www.pental.com.au/our-brands/laundry-care/white-king

http://www.whiteking.com.au/common/pdf/White King Oxi-Lift In-Wash Liquid Gel.pdf
According to the MSDS, it contains about 8% hydrogen peroxide.

I suspect it does not contain TAED, if it did, it would most likely have a terribly short shelf life. It is a clear, blue gel, about the consistency of a 'personal' lubricant <ahem>.

I tried some last summer, on a very hot sunny day, and here is what happened:

As I suspected there may have been no TAED, I added a small quantity of an oxy-booster, (half a teaspoon, mixed with a little hot water to form a paste, and then added it to half a cup of the gel). I tried two yellowed computer blanking plates, with & without the TAED. The gel was spread on half of the plate for a before/after comparison.

I could detect no difference in effect between the two mixtures, but I should add it was a scorching hot sunny day (38C!), with extreme UV, so the TAED may have been superfluous in those conditions. But otherwise, the gel worked very well. The samples below were exposed for 90 minutes.
 

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TjLaZer said:
Is anyone having the yellowing return after a while? I had an badly yellowed Atari 65XE get yellow again after several months.
Click to expand...

Yes. A 1541-II is slowly turning back to yellow (and the Retr0Brighting process costed me more than ten euros). Is the laquer noticeable when applied?
 
I actually have ona A-500 with no yellow noticeble because he was for many many years not used and well stored.

How can I prevent him from going yellow now that I'm starting to use him ?

And where to buy that " satin-finish acrylic lacquer" ?
 
Hi

I'm about to retrobrite my apple IIe and Atari 800. Got quite a bit of ingrained dirt I can't shift from the apple case, but I see the inside
is coated in a black carbon like paint, aquadag (?) ( Or whatever it's called)

Will that survive a pretty hot dishwasher ? Pics attached. Nice bright day today so the yellowing doesn't look that bad in the sun!

My next question is re dashboard protector stuff to stop UV fading afterwards. But the 'Armor All' looks like it comes up shiny and waxy after applying. Has anyone used it and can confirm if its matt or satin, or actually as shiny and /or waxy as I fear?

cheers!
 

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I've had a bit of an odd result using retr0bright...


Dzo3E.jpg


Both of these were done at the same time, with the same batch of retr0bright.

Seems that one has had the plastic 'attacked' a bit and has that white ashen effect all over it while the other is perfect.

I was using a 12% peroxide cream but it doesn't include paraffin or terpene, in fact I've used it on other parts without problems. I carefully cleaned the mice before I applied retrobright. The white stuff doesn't wash off either.

The internals of the mice were both completely different so I'm guessing one was much older than the other, not sure which one though. So maybe there's some difference in the plastics used that reacted more strongly?

Any way to fix this?
 
@DonutKing

That top mouse cover is showing classic signs of 'blooming'. ABS plastic is like human DNA, in that no two batches of the polymer are ever the same.

To fix this, you are going to need some Acetone or Methyl Ethyl Ketone, along with a means to gently spray it onto the surface. What this will do is slightly de-nature the surface, soften the polymer and allow the 'bloom' to blend in with the remaining plastic.

You do need to be very careful and just 'float' a fine mist of solvent onto the surface, without runs.

MEK is commonly used as a cleaner for solvent welding PVC pipes, so a local builder's merchants or superstore should have it.
 
Thanks for that. I bought a bottle of acetone today which promptly leaked in my bag, and choked half my coworkers :P

I take it the acetone will weaken the plastic and may cause further problems down the track?
 
Not if you use it sparingly. It sort of 'solvent welds' the surface, removing the 'blooming'.

I don't know about choking your co-workers, I'd have been more worried about burning the place down! :wooha:
 
Merlin said:
I don't know about choking your co-workers, I'd have been more worried about burning the place down! :wooha:
Click to expand...


Some days I feel like doing that anyway!

(hope my boss never sees this lol :P )

anyway here are the results of the acetone treatment

id7sx5.jpg


The left one is the acetone treated one. I tried to use a garden atomizer spray bottle unfortunately it spat out a few drops a couple of times. I suspect I may have used too much acetone too but I needed to spray quite a bit to cover all the white bloom.



The acetone worked pretty well to get rid of the bloom but it sort of ruined the texture of the plastic. I got a bit of Kitten Liquid cut and polish for use on my car, and after some vigorous rubbing it came out pretty well. It's not a perfect match for the original item, its a bit shinier and feels a bit slicker but I think you'd be hard pressed to notice if they weren't side by side.

Overall I think its passable, the small splotches on the mouse buttons are pretty hard to spot with the naked eye, the camera really shows them up...

the acetone darkened the plastic a bit again, more beige than the other one. I don't know if I want to push my luck with a weaker mix of retrobright, I might just leave it as is.
 
I posted the other day about the black paint inside my apple ii. Tested it with water and.. Comes off so I won't be dish washing it :(

I do have one more question while I'm waiting for Friday ( forecast to be sunny) - is it so important to mix it up in a blender? Will mixing it by hand in a bucket be ok? I ask as naturally the wife doesn't want me near her blender with this stuff and also the fear of it going everywhere and maiming all nearby is quite high.

If I mix the oxy in hot water first, then add the glycerine and then the peroxide, then the xantham, is hand mixing in a bucket ok?
 
It's fine, but prepare to spend a lot of force mixing the ingredients.
 
as a brief update, all going well ish, 2 sessions so far, and now used up the 1 pint quantity of retrobrite I made up. 5 hrs of sun and shady light for the 1st day, washed it all off and reapplied this am: had 3 solid hours of sun today, left outside and turned regularly over about 6 hrs.

small but very even improvement after the 1st day I think.

more marked improvement today, but as I didnt reapply gel and left the cling film on the pieces all day theres a good number of waves and streaks (of less treated areas) where the gel wasnt left thick enough.

No matter, I bought 2 bottles of developer so I'm taking it slow, and will do another session in a few days and will be sure to reapply a bit thicker and give more attention/ re-application during the day.

My big lessons so far then are:

Keycaps: lots and lots of cut up bits of blu-tack to stick them down is a life-saver, makes it so much easier to apply and wash off. And, next time I'll give myself MUCH more space between keys, really space them out onto multiple trays. I'm treating apple 2 and amstrad 6128 keys, I would be better off if I gave myself twice the space between keys next time.

Big pieces; atari 800, apple ii & bbc cases; need to find a better solution than applying gel, wrap pieces themselves in clingfilm. Really need a massive bowl to put them IN then apply the shrinkwrap to the bowl, not the cases themselves. But where to find such a big thing quick and cheap...

More in a week's time!
 
What about those whitening toothpastes? Has anyone tried with those? I think at least some of those are based on chemical reaction.
 
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