Sunday, April 9, 2017

How to clean old yellow plastics

So I found myself in the position to need to return to former white glory some old plastic bits that had become yellow over time, even though didn't sit in the sun.

So thanks to the following write up I managed to do just that.
I bought some Hydrogen peroxide 12%. "Cream Peroxide 40Vol" from a hair saloon supplier for about 12 euros delivered, put the gel on the plastic bit wearing a glove, put it in a sealed transparent plastic bag and let it steam under the heat of an IR lamp.

Since it is winter and the sun is at a premium this time of year, and not wanting to wait till summer to do it, I used a Blacklight lamp, which for some reason blew up within 30 minutes from the start of the experiment and didn't do much during that time. Afterwards I let the item all night under a fluorescent lamp, which also didn't seem to do much about it. Eventually I tried the heat IR lamp and within 3 hours, the item was becoming visibly white. Since the gel in the bag was visibly evaporating on the surfaces of the bag as droplets, I don't know if the heat is more of a catalyst than UV radiation.

All I know is that it worked!!!

1st application.

Although the difference is striking, in close inspection, there was some residual colouring almost as camouflage patterns. Not very obvious, but it was there. In any case the end product was much better.

About fake power tools

I have been looking for some cheap power tools, and was surprised by some Makita prices on ebay. So I was sceptical about the quality of such tools. I was also looking at some Bosch hammers and after seeing some genuine ones





I spotted this obviously fake tool




To the seller's credit, he didn't try to pass it as a BOSCH Hammer tool, however its almost identical !

Unfortunately on Ebay, most sellers selling cheap makita drillhammers do not have an actual photo of the item, but generic ones not allowing to make a judgement about authenticity before actually buying and receiving said tools.