Getting the yellow out?
 

Does anybody know of a good way to clean up video game systems (or other plastic hardware) that have been "yellowed" or am I just out of luck? I'm getting a very nice toy in the mail this week that was originally white but was listed as "slighty yellowed, as most this old are" and was just wondering what I could do to clean it up (if possible).

You're SOL.

When plastic goes yellow (like with the Super Nintendo) its the plastic itself, not something on it.

The best you can hope for is either painting it or buying another one.

I think it's a good idea to hit the pause button and get the yellow out at least every couple of hours each gaming session.

That's.... that's just awful.

I was going to make an asian joke, but this tops anything I could hope to come up with.

Damn. I don't think it's TOO bad (the pictures looked pretty good) but I've got that collector's mentality of wanting something in the best possible condition.

OK, maybe this will help. I saw a tip for getting the yellow/rust stains off of a sink. basically you get a paper towel wet with bleach and 'stick' it on the side of the sink. eventually it takes out the stain. Maybe this will only work with ceramic and could ruin plastic. Im not sure how bad bleach is for plastic.

some reference: http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf500711.tip.html

I soaked my top-loading NES in bleach after it sat in fire-rubble for 3 months and it didn't seem to do any harm to it. Although that wasn't for the aged-plastic yellow look; it was for "I'm covered in dirt-and-soot" look so bleach may do nothing at all (but add some extra shine to it).

Thank for the link! :up:

More than one of those suggestions involves placing in direct sunlight. *looks outside* Christ we've got plenty to go around.. I'm just not sure how comfortable I'd be leaving a $230 toy out in the sun.. and of course, Murphy's Law has decided that my apartment's balcony is covered by enough trees to keep sun from every getting there.

Sunlight fades everything over time (just look at any old car dashboard). The heat/humidity might hurt it. The UV light is what fades things. Can you keep cool air blowing on the unit while the sunlight does its thing?

If that's the case, just take it to a tanning parlor!

I have an old reptile light bulb ($60 'mercury vapor bulb') and that thing put out WICKED UV rays. You put your hand under it and you FEEL your skin get irritated--not HEAT, but the UV rays boring into it!

I got an interesting response elsewhere:

Acetone or thinner will turn plastic into goo.

If you want to go the route of removing the top layer, why not sand it gently with some fine sandpaper.

Yeah it seemed a little risky to me too. I've got some more information coming in though from a mailing list that deals specifically with this system; unfortunately I can't access the sites from work but apparently there are several suggestions and solutions on cleaning them up. If I get something to work I'll post it in case anybody here has an SNES they'd like to spruce up, since it was the most notorious US system to yellow-up.

What is the system you've imported?

Don't you mean what hasn't he imported. ;)

http://pixyjunket.aorange.com/userpics/random/duo-r.jpg

:hump:

Well, it came today.. sort of. I have to wait until tomorrow to pick it up at the post office. Torture I tell you, pure torture. After some snooping around this seems to be the best sounding method.. it came specifically from a forum dealing with these and more than one person reported success with it. Hopefully I can stop playing it long enough to do the cleaning!

oooooh nice! Doesn't look that yellow to me, but then again maybe its the lighting in the picture. Do you have Dracula X too?

I assumed that's not a picture of the one he received given that he posted it before posting that his was at the post office waiting to be picked up. :D

Unless it's the ebay picture of the one he ordered.

Nope, that's mine (supposedly) but it wasn't from eBay. The controller was in worse condition (but less of a concern as I've got the black and orange controller from my other PC-Engine). I'll take my own picture when I get it so I can have "before & after" pictures. From all the discussion on the PC-Engine forum about various cleaning methods nobody had pictures to show off the results. It's been a rough day knowing that thing is at the post office and it's going to be really tough to put it down to go for my daily workout; I've been wanting one for YEARS but have always held off due to the cost for such an old system.. but one of my client's whose site I'm building offered to pay half of it for the work I'm doing and I took the offer.

You're right, but damn if I'm not incredibly anal when it comes to this stuff. Whenever I get a stack of NES games from eBay or the flea market the first order of business is taking out the isopropyl and Goo-Gone™, making the contacts shine and getting the case to look as new as possible. I've picked up discounted games before because they had writing or stickers on them and resold them for two-three times more after being clean up.

Oh, and I'll be on the look-out for Dracula X. It's worth every inflated dollar it goes for.

I still have the US version of that. They made it black instead of the white so the color change isn't that bad.