How To: restoring w/ retr0bright - an alternative to Seaglow

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mackiv
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How To: restoring w/ retr0bright - an alternative to Seaglow

Post by mackiv »

I'm posting this thread just as an FYI to the OTWS fam since I hadn't seen it on here before. This product called retr0bright(or retrobrite) was originally made for vintage computer and gaming consoles that have yellowed or even browned, but hey, seaglow was orginally for boats right? :P All of the information below is not mine and this is just the intro and the recipes.(visit this original wiki for before/after pix!!!!!!!!!!) :


The “Retr0bright” Project

By Merlin, of AmiBay, English Amiga Board and Vintage computer Forums (among others)

How to deal with the “not-so-mellow yellow” of old computers and consoles

Anyone who has dug their old computer or console out of the cupboard or loft for some retro gaming will probably have noticed that it maybe hasn’t worn too well with the test of time. The plastics these machines were made of is called ABS and to make it flame retardant (just in case it catches fire after a marathon session) the plastics manufacturers added chemicals that caused the plastic turn yellow or, even worse, brown over a long period of time.

It was originally thought that the yellowing was permanent and that the only solution to this was to paint the plastic in its original colour and cover the problem up. However, a chance discovery was made in March 2008, by The CBM Museum at Wuppertal in Germany (http://www.forum64.de), that immersing parts in a solution of Hydrogen Peroxide for a few days could partially reverse the process. This was initially taken up by the Amiga community in Germany (http://www.a1k.org) and the idea eventually found its way to the English Amiga Board (http://eab.abime.net), where a madcap collection of chemists, plastics engineers and retro hackers managed to perfect this concept and put it on steroids, with help from other forums.

Dave Stevenson from Manchester, UK, aka 'Merlin', the chemist behind the project, explains. “I came across the use of peroxide in July 2008 when Kristian95 told us over at EAB about what people like AmigaGTI were doing with it over at a1k.org. I was intrigued by this, as I am a former industrial chemist. I am also a plant Safety Manager by trade and, purely by coincidence, around that time I read about a dust explosion that had occurred in the UK with a chemical called TAED, which is the booster in the ‘active oxygen’ laundry products.”

“This got me thinking, and after some really 'full-on', serious chemistry discussions with other EAB members, like Rkauer in Brazil, who is a plastics Engineer and my good friend Zetr0 from Kings Lynn, Norfolk, UK, who endured endless phone calls from me, we wrote some epic threads on English Amiga Board about the possible causes of the yellowing and eventually we arrived at the theory that it was the Bromine in the flame retardant that was the cause. We also knew that Ultra Violet light was another major factor. Having identified the culprit, the next stage was to try to develop and perfect a means of treating the plastic and reversing the yellowing quicker, without causing damage to the plastic. Being a former industrial chemist helped me tremendously, in understanding what was going on at the molecular level and to develop a treatment process to reverse the effect.”

“The problem was finally cracked in late July 2008 with a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, a small amount of an “Oxy” laundry booster as a catalyst and a UV lamp; we believed that this could do the job in hours instead of days. Proof of this concept was demonstrated on EAB by Tonyyeb from Hull, UK, Chiark from Leeds, UK and myself. The original test I did as proof of concept took two hours, as opposed to up to the five days it took for the original tests at CBM and a1k.org. We were on to something!!

Making the Retr0bright Gel

SAFETY WARNING!!!
You are warned that hydrogen peroxide is very nasty stuff and can cause severe chemical burns to skin and can also cause blindness if splashed into the eyes, if handled incorrectly. Usually, you can’t buy stronger than 12% over the counter, as this is the maximum strength sold to the public and is used to bleach hair. If you want to try this, I would strongly suggest that you wear goggles and gloves to protect yourself.


Merlin's Original Recipe

The original magical "Retr0bright" gel mixture that was found to work is:-

1 pint (500ml) Hydrogen Peroxide, 10 to 15% strength (40 vol) (available from hairdressers' supplies, e.g. the 'Sally Beauty' franchise in the UK)
2 heaped tablespoonfuls of Xanthan Gum (available from health food shops or online)
1 level teaspoonful of Glycerine (available from pharmacies)
1/4 teaspoonful of "Oxy" laundry booster

Add the Hydrogen Peroxide and Xanthan Gum to the blender or liquidiser. Mix on high speed for 5 seconds. Add the Glycerine and mix for a further 5 seconds. Let the mixture rest for a minute then mix again for 5 seconds. A smooth, non-drip gel should have formed. This gel can be put into a dark coloured jar or tub (e.g. a coffee jar covered in tape) and stored, as long as you DON’T add the “Oxy” until you are ready to use it.



Lorne's Variant Recipe

Lorne at Vintage Computer Forums prefers to use stronger Hydrogen Peroxide and his variant recipe is below.

1/2 pint (200ml) Hydrogen Peroxide, 30% strength
2 level teaspoons of Xanthan Gum
1 level teaspoon of Glycerine
1/4 teaspoonful of Oxy laundry booster
1 teaspoonful hot (not boiling) water

In a very small ceramic or plastic bowl/dish, dissolve the Oxy in the hot water. Lorne found that the Oxy doesn’t want to dissolve in the paste/gel very well – this premixture of the Oxy fixed that problem. While the Oxy is dissolving, mix the Hydrogen Peroxide and Xanthan gum in the blender for five seconds. Add the Glycerine to that mixture and blend for another five seconds.
Let this mixture sit for five minutes.Blend for another five seconds.

Just before you apply the gel, thoroughly stir in by hand, the dissolved Oxy/water mix.

Tezza's Arrowroot Variant Recipe

Tezza at Vintage Computer Forums came up with a variation of the original recipe, based on another starchy food thickener called Arrowroot. Also, Tezza's recipe doesn't use glycerine. Trials have found the arrowroot-based paste dries out more quickly than the Xanthan gum/glycerine mixture in the recipes above and requires more frequent re-application. However, Arrowroot tends to be easier to find than Xanthan gum and is a workable alternative where this is the case.

The addition of glycerine may held to slow the drying processes but Tezza has not tried this at the time of writing.

Tezza's recipe is listed below. Note that Oxy-Magic could probably be replaced by any "oxy-type" laundry activator.

1/2 pint (200 ml) Hydrogen Peroxide, 6% strength (available from most Pharmacies as a hair bleach or antiseptic)
2 heaped tablespoonfuls of "White Crest" Arrowroot
1/5 teaspoonful of "Oxi-Magic" laundry booster (to be added to the gel just before use, like the original recipe)

If you use Arrowroot, you will need to heat the mixture. Don't worry, this is safe to do. Tezza suggests warming the mixture up in a microwave oven for about 45 seconds, based on a 750 Watt microwave oven, you may need to adjust the timings based on the wattage of your microwave. He strongly suggests that you do this in 15 second bursts and check the consistency after each burst. It's ready when is appears as a gel. Sprinkle in the Oxi-magic and stir vigorously with a spoon. This will also help thin the mixture so it can be brushed on.

Foaming when adding Oxi-Magic is related to how hot the mixture is and the concentration of peroxide. Usually the foaming is mild but if ithe mixture is hot and higher concentrations of peroxide have been used, the reaction can be vigourous. It would pay to let it cool first.



Other Gelling Agents

Other starchy thickeners such as corn starch, guar gum or even wallpaper paste may work. If you find another thickening agent that gives good results for you, let us know via the discussions tab and we will add your recipe to the Wiki.

Other Ingredients

If you decide to try other ingredients which have not been mentioned here, please be aware that you are out on your own and we cannot be held accountable for the results. Hydrogen Peroxide can react violently with some materials and you are strongly advised to do some reading around and research first. The recipes stated above have been thoroughly tested and are safe to prepare as long as the instructions are carefully followed.

If buying hydrogen peroxide from a pharmacy or hairdressers, check to make sure it has no other additives. All you want is diluted hydrogen peroxide (typically 3% to 12%). Additives may lead to unpredicable results. Lorne has tried a hair bleach product and he found that a solvent called terpene was present in the list of ingredients; when this was tried there was some evidence of the product attacking the surface which was particularly visible on dark coloured parts. A picture of the problem is posted in the Problems and pitfalls section.

PROBLEMS AND PITFALLS

What Could go Wrong?
As with all experimental processes, there are things that can (and have) gone wrong along the way. Here are some of the things that could creep up on you or that should be avoided.

1. Is a stronger peroxide solution better ?

If you are thinking that if 10% peroxide and a tiny bit of Oxy is good, I could add a stronger peroxide and get a better result, right? The answer is simply No!

This is a process where more isn't better; we are deliberately keeping the peroxide strength on the weaker side, so that the bromine molecules are favoured by the peroxide over the polymer; If you use very strong peroxide or add loads of Oxy, one of the side effects you might see is where the polymer gets attacked and turned to the hydroperoxide, usually by attacking the free butadiene bonds. What you will see is that the plastic takes on a white, ashen-looking "bloom" that unfortunately is permanent. This cannot be fixed and should be avoided.

This is a picture of an Atari 800 case which is showing signs of the white "bloom"; look carefully at the textured surface and you will see what I mean.

Here's another example. Fneck of system-cfg forums found that the buttons of an Amiga mouse suffered from slight 'bloom' after treatment. This may have been due to over-exposure to the Retr0bright mixture and is another reason that we say that you should check on your parts regularly. This slight bloom may be masked if an acrylic lacquer is applied to the buttons, more severe cases may not be masked so easily.


2. Can I add heat to help with the reaction?

This can be quite dangerous; All reactions produce heat and this is no exception; by applying heat you will accelerate the reaction, however you are running the risking of distorting of the plastic. With heat there is always a danger of warping the plastic, particularly on large, long or thin parts, so please, just be patient; the results will come to you.



The photographs above show one of Lorne's trials on his Osborne case. Lorne lives in Arizona and the temperature of the tank of liquid he had these parts immersed in reached 60 centigrade!!

If you live in a hot climate, either pick a cool day or do it on the night shift with a UV lamp that won't raise the temperature, as long as you keep it at least 18 inches (45 centimetres) away from the parts being treated.

3. Label fade on keys and cases, and uneven discolouration of keys.

During long periods of treatment, some label fade on keys and cases has been recorded. This doesn’t appear to be a serious problem but it would not pay to leave cases and keys de-yellowing for long periods of time without checking on them.

Some highly discoloured keys seem to be just too far gone for even this treatment to work 100% effectively. Rather than discolouring evenly, they eventually develop lighter streaks.



Both label fade and key streaking are noted on Tezza’s blog, during his treatment of the Atari 130XE (key label fade) and the Apple IIe Platinum (case label fade and key streaking).

4. Use of Hair Bleach products on dark coloured parts.

Lorne found a hair bleach product that originally looked promising on beige parts, however, when this was tried on dark blue coloured parts that had turned almost black, it was noticed that the surface had changed as shown below.

The best guess as to the chemical in the hair bleach that caused this is called Terpene; this has chemically etched and denatured the surface slightly. If you wish to try a hair bleach product, please stay away from any that appear to contain solvents or chemicals such as terpenes.

5. Allowing the paste to dry out in the hot sun

Even with low concentrations of peroxide, on some plastics it seems a bleaching effect may occur similar to that in 1. above, if the paste is allowed to dry and the plastic under treatment is exposed to the hot sun for long periods. The observation is detailed in this reportfrom Tezza. A cool humid environment and a UV fluorescent lamp will avoid this.

i would also like to add sum youtube videos of this product in action.

alot of people are getting the results they want from seaglow, from this product, even tho they've tried seaglow. Heres a quick vid illustrating as such
http://www.youtube.com/embed/pikcO3vgq44

here is a recipe and sum b4 and afters. these guys use sea glow as well but seem to get better results from this:http://www.youtube.com/embed/LoOIGdnCqsI

heres another easier recipe that was mentioned in the comments of the recipe above:http://www.youtube.com/embed/6Xd2p1O6P5s
Last edited by mackiv on Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How To: restoring w/ retr0bright - an alternative to Sea

Post by mackiv »

oh and i would just like to add, ITS NOT A GOOD IDEA TO LEAVE YUR SHOES IN THE SUN!!!!! A UV LAMP WILL WORK 10X BETTER AND WON'T RUIN THEM!!!

ive got sum og jordan 5's and some beat up vans that im going to do test runs on. I'll post the pix/videos when im done!!
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Re: How To: restoring w/ retr0bright - an alternative to Sea

Post by JesseC »

Awesome, Thanks man!
Looking to buy:
.Blends Sk8 Hi in black, 8-9.5 would be accepted. If anyone here has a pair I will trade serious heat for them.
.007 Grime Slip On's (Claw, not the Skull version)
Will pay healthy prices for these. Shoot me a PM.
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mackiv
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Re: How To: restoring w/ retr0bright - an alternative to Sea

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Np! Im all about diy projects.
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Re: How To: restoring w/ retr0bright - an alternative to Sea

Post by DJGuamstyles »

Me too! I can't wait to try this on my Vs, and a few others as well. Thanks for sharing this!
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Re: How To: restoring w/ retr0bright - an alternative to Sea

Post by KURUPT »

yep looking forward to seeing the videos
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Re: How To: restoring w/ retr0bright - an alternative to Sea

Post by mackiv »

Just baught my materials. All at target, except the uv lamp, that i got at petco for $13. Just as a heads up, u want a uva bulb not a uvb. Uva rays penetrate deeply while uvb rays heat and tan(less heat the better). Some reptiles need uva rays from the sun(or these bulbs) to live healthy so they can be found at any place that supplys pet or reptile equiptment. The bulb I got was blue since the oackage claimed blue tint blocks the least amount of uv(a) rays. It was also 120 watts because thats the highest rating.
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Re: How To: restoring w/ retr0bright - an alternative to Sea

Post by DJGuamstyles »

Sounds easy so far!
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Re: How To: restoring w/ retr0bright - an alternative to Sea

Post by mackiv »

Just a lil update....its proven to be a lil harder than neccassary to aquire a pair of yellowed/oxidized shoes, so im still lookin. If any of u out there got any vans that are yellowed and worthy of being restored that you can either donate or accept a modest donation for, please reply here or pm me. thank u
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