Candy cabs - How does one restore the plastic's brightness?

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Candy cabs - How does one restore the plastic's brightness?

Post by rewrite »

This isn't an immediate project for me, but I was browsing threads on here and saw some really nice, REALLY white New Net City cabinets. My Net City's got the aged yellow plastic business going on, like old computer cases, or SNES/SFC get. How does one go about fixing that? I'd love for mine to be bright, sparkly white!
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Re: Candy cabs - How does one restore the plastic's brightne

Post by EllertMichael »

Google "retr0bright" ;)
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Re: Candy cabs - How does one restore the plastic's brightne

Post by rewrite »

EllertMichael wrote:Google "retr0bright" ;)
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Re: Candy cabs - How does one restore the plastic's brightne

Post by EllertMichael »

AteThePrincess wrote:
EllertMichael wrote:Google "retr0bright" ;)
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Not if it feels right. :fastlove:
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Re: Candy cabs - How does one restore the plastic's brightne

Post by rjosal »

Ah, I've been waiting for an excuse to post this pic. I took apart my Impress for retr0bright a couple weeks ago. If I were to do it again, I'd definitely take ALL of the electronics out. The pieces that were just plastic were so easy to hose off. The results were satisfactory, considering I only had it out there starting in the afternoon.
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Re: Candy cabs - How does one restore the plastic's brightne

Post by copados33 »

IMO, the best way to eliminate yellowing from candy cabs is "avoid buying cabinets made of plastic", what all of this "retrobright" methods never tell you is that removing yellowing will make the plastic more brittle and it will crack over time.
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Re: Candy cabs - How does one restore the plastic's brightne

Post by Rossyra »

Quite a lot of reports of it turning yellow again too if you look for them.
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Re: Candy cabs - How does one restore the plastic's brightne

Post by rjosal »

copados33 wrote:IMO, the best way to eliminate yellowing from candy cabs is "avoid buying cabinets made of plastic", what all of this "retrobright" methods never tell you is that removing yellowing will make the plastic more brittle and it will crack over time.
You have broken candies from retr0bright? I've tried your method as well. I have successfully not bought a plastic cab. I do that almost every day. Have I eliminated yellow from a candy cab? Looks like no. Also, yellowing is not restricted to ABS. Check out the paint on your coin door.

What *would* be helpful, is some more firsthand reports of retr0bright results, especially the negative results everyone is keeping to themselves with the hope that more people wreck more rare computers and candy cabs.

And yes, what you retr0bright will yellow again at the same rate as it did when it was brand new. I'm going to eat dinner tonight even though I know I'm going to have to again tomorrow.

The alternative to all this, of course, is covering it up with paint. It's my personal preference to keep things original if you can. There's several good threads on AO about the painting process.
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Re: Candy cabs - How does one restore the plastic's brightne

Post by copados33 »

What coin door? what are you talking about?, I have never tried to retrobright any of my cabs.

And yes, yellowing is caused by the anti-flame compound found on ABS and plastic based paints.
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Re: Candy cabs - How does one restore the plastic's brightne

Post by rjosal »

copados33 wrote:What coin door? what are you talking about?, I have never tried to retrobright any of my cabs.

And yes, yellowing is caused by the anti-flame compound found on ABS and plastic based paints.
I mentioned doors because even on a plastic cab, they are usually metal, and usually yellow just the same as the rest of the cab. So buying a non-plastic cab doesn't guarantee you won't see yellowing. I've retr0brighted a few things, and some of my friends have too, all with great success. From my experience I haven't seen any negative side effects, but I would really like to hear about everyone else's experiences.
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Re: Candy cabs - How does one restore the plastic's brightne

Post by copados33 »

I see, well, getting rid of yellowing from a metal part of the cab is easy, one can just sand it down removing the old paint completely and painting it again with P.U. (is the same paint used to paint cars nowadays) and a gel coat, 21st century paints don't have the same anti-flame compound found on old plastic hardware.
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Re: Candy cabs - How does one restore the plastic's brightne

Post by rewrite »

copados33 wrote:IMO, the best way to eliminate yellowing from candy cabs is "avoid buying cabinets made of plastic", what all of this "retrobright" methods never tell you is that removing yellowing will make the plastic more brittle and it will crack over time.
Care to share some proof on retrobright degrading the plastic's quality?
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Re: Candy cabs - How does one restore the plastic's brightne

Post by copados33 »

Just google "retrobright SNES consoles", since is one of most common consoles prone to yellowing hence lots of people trying to "restore" its whiteness, you will found that in some of this cases they complain about a "grey dust" coming of the plastic before start cracking, and is not an SNES plastic issue only, it happened to "lukemorse" after retrobrighting the monitor bezel from his SNK candy cab.
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Re: Candy cabs - How does one restore the plastic's brightne

Post by rjosal »

I tried that, but couldn't find anything. Got a more precise link? My retr0brighted snes looks great about 2 years later.
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Re: Candy cabs - How does one restore the plastic's brightne

Post by rewrite »

copados33 wrote:Just google "retrobright SNES consoles", since is one of most common consoles prone to yellowing hence lots of people trying to "restore" its whiteness, you will found that in some of this cases they complain about a "grey dust" coming of the plastic before start cracking, and is not an SNES plastic issue only, it happened to "lukemorse" after retrobrighting the monitor bezel from his SNK candy cab.
I also can't find anything. Lukemorse (at least under that name) isn't a user on here according to the user list, but I found some youtube videos by him, read through every comment he posted in all 3 parts of his whitening experimentation videos, no comments about it deteriorating...

I like my cab. I like my cab a lot, and if using this stuff on it is going to harm it then I will pass. But honestly you just seem to be coming across as a nay-sayer who can't back up that this stuff is bad for plastics... I'd like to believe you, but you're making it hard...
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Re: Candy cabs - How does one restore the plastic's brightne

Post by bagheera369 »

For retrobright results, check this thread at KLOV.

http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=170276"

Zitt goes over the use of Retrobright, clearly shows the results, and continues to own the cabinet without issue as far as I'm aware.
We discussed the cab at the last Texas Pinball Festival, and the possibility of him reproducing parts.

Of course, he has the benefit of a Texas summer sun to work with, but if you have bright sunny days, it seems to do the job.

Good luck everyone.
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Re: Candy cabs - How does one restore the plastic's brightne

Post by copados33 »

Too bad. I didn't took any pictures of the Famicom consoles and the PC case front cover that I retrobrighted a few years ago, albeit my method is a bit different, I do not make a gel/paste mixture, I just sink the parts on a big tupperware with a few gallons of 100" peròxide under the sun for a few days, and I have been doing this years before all of this "retrobright" craze, I didn't knew that there were different ways of preparing that retrobright mixture.

I'm just telling my own experiences with retrobright, do what you want but I know that this has not only happened to me, btw my native language is spanish.
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Re: Candy cabs - How does one restore the plastic's brightne

Post by rjosal »

A few things

*) If 100" means 100% peroxide, that's stronger than what retr0bright is usually made with. I use 40vol which is only 12%.
*) if you didn't add oxy it's not quite what retr0bright is supposed to be. The way I understand, oxy is a key ingredient. Glycerin and Xanthan gum are just thickening agents to make a gel.
*) UVC light is what's needed for it to work, not days of heat. I wonder if a "few days" in the sun has harmful side effects. Everything I've ever done or seen done only took one day. I can imagine two I suppose, but not more.

So I think your experiences only might only loosely correlate. I will certainly keep it in mind as the years pass and I look back on my projects. In your experience, how long did it take before you noticed the problem?
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Re: Candy cabs - How does one restore the plastic's brightne

Post by copados33 »

Yes, by 100" I mean peroxide 100 volumes, and by "few days" I mean days under the sunlight which has UV rays, those 2 are the only key ingredients in retrobright, nothing else.
Last time I used this method was in 2002-2003 with 3 yellowed Famicom consoles, and it was also around that time when I first read about whitening plastics using peroxide, on a spanish arcade related forum that was taken down a few years ago http://www.marcianitos.org"
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Re: Candy cabs - How does one restore the plastic's brightne

Post by rjosal »

I guess I would just say that this is probably evidence that using greater than 10-12% peroxide may be harmful, as described on http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com/Problems+and+Pitfalls" although they didn't encounter the dust problem. They also recommended against leaving it out for too long and that the TAED contained in Oxy provides a good catalyst to get the job done quickly. Also too much heat can be a problem. I'm not sure if using the lighter peroxide + Oxy *won't* cause the problem, but it should at least be muted if it does. I'd be pretty surprised though.
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