jcsnook wrote:
Have you tried blasting old plastic parts yet? I hear that it brings old sun dried and faded plastic parts back to life.
I've got a set of old RG400/500 mirrors that are weather beaten and faded, and would love to see them restored to their former beauty so I could use them. They look sad now.
PM me if you think you can help.
I've got a set of old RG400/500 mirrors that are weather beaten and faded, and would love to see them restored to their former beauty so I could use them. They look sad now.
PM me if you think you can help.
OK Jim, thank you for sending those, that was an interesting thing to experiment on. For those of you playing at home, Jim sent me two mirrors from a Suzuki Gamma, not quite unobtanium, but scarce. They looked like 30+ year old plastic mirrors sometimes do: faded, crusty in spots, etc.
I ran some tests first using a set of old Napoleon mirrors from my hoard, played around with a few techniques, arrived at a good gentle process that would peel off the cruddy stuff without screwing up the surface or obliterating the lettering (not present on the Suzuki mirrors). The "done" mirror of my Napoleons is to the right.
Masked Jim's lenses and the threads...
Ran them through the blaster, then a treatment of peanut oil (really!)
...and tomorrow they will be on their way back home to Jim.
Conclusion?
This works well, I'd say these are a solid B+. Tons better for sure. Using the vapor blaster gently I can resurface the plastic and remove the greyish oxidization and crud effectively without distorting or changing the texture if I work slowly and carefully.
It still needs some type of dressing when finished. I used peanut oil because I think it's the best, many guys love Mother's Back to Black.
I think these are also a candidate for a light broiling with a heat gun to flash the dyes and plasticizers and restore the black color that way, but I wasn't feeling like I ought to use that particular technique with these
. I'll probably do this when I need to. It's a good alternative when paint isn't going to do enough with the crud. Thanks for the suggestion Jim, and look for these in your mailbox in a few days.
Best,
Nils
