My LEGO Technic De-yellowing station (no sun required)

[vaxlt]

Hey guys,

I thought I would share my current de-yellowing station setup as someone might find it a bit comical. For the past month, I have been restoring my LEGO Technic 8480 Space Shuttle. Besides fixing cables that disintegrated, re-ordering new stickers, replacing cracked cogs, and finally on the last step - removing ugly yellow ting from white and some grey bricks.

As you may know, the usual process is to do it in hydrogen peroxide and sun - but tough luck as I live in the UK and starting to believe that sun is a mystical thing that does not exist. But since we only need the UV light - I have replaced the sun with UV LED's. I was considering bulbs, but LED's seem a lot better solution as they consume less power and produce less heat. If anyone is planning to do something similar - make sure to get UV-A light, as we need roughly 390nm waves to simulate the sun.

I found the use for the bag of fake LEGO bricks I had laying around and building a contraption to hold my LED strips in place - works like magic. I realised that if I blast light from top and bottom, it should speed up the process.

So far results are fantastic - it takes roughly 24 hours to remove the yellow tint altogether. In between, you need to shake the box, but I leave it running overnight in my cupboard without any issues.

I forgot to take photos before so have nothing to compare with, but results are phenomenal - whites look as new.

By the way - some LEGO bricks create a cool effect if you beam UV light on them:

[allanp]

This is something I need to look into doing also, thanks for sharing. What solution are you using? 

[MAB]

Using a UV lamp is not really new. The old Retr0bright articles over the past decade referred to UV through sun or a UV lamp. Lamps were used for many of the control experiments, since you can repeat experiments for a known light intensity. Similarly with the trans neon parts glowing, it has been known for a long time.

[vaxlt]

58 minutes ago, allanp said:

This is something I need to look into doing also, thanks for sharing. What solution are you using? 

3% - seems to be enough

MAB - I'm not saying its new  Just wanted to share my janky setup.

[1974]

Do you have a link for the light fixtures you're using?

Cheers,

Ole

[vaxlt]

30 minutes ago, 1974 said:

Do you have a link for the light fixtures you're using?

Cheers,

Ole

Sure, got them from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07MFS6XCR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[1974]

Thanx mate

[TTFrA]

Hi all,
has anyone experience with the long-term effect of bleaching white parts with H2O2 solution?
I have bought a second-hand 8480 set and intend to work on the white parts (only, not with stickers) to make it more present-able ;-)

• How long will the effect last?
• How will the treatment affect the properties of the parts?
• How will the treatment affect further yellowing of the parts?
• What is a simple set-up for the process?
  (my plan is to put the solution into a sealable glass container, fill it with parts and put it into the sun or under a plant lamp, shake every now and then and see what happens)

I am neither a chemist nor a material scientist, but as an engineer much of what I have read on this topic falls short of giving satisfactory explanations for the impact of the treatment. Many thanks for any feedback and suggestions and happy holidays!

[Johnny1360]

There is a thread about this somewhere about this already and a chemist actually tries to explain it all. I'll see if I can find it.

I do like that setup too, looks like it works good vaxit.

Edited December 6, 2021 by Johnny1360