"Oranging" On FX-10 Chassis?

[morrisey0]

I have an assortment of FX-10 chassis that I am looking to break down into builds. I knew my best [new] chassis was pristine outside of some orange spots on it. Its like some spots of dried up Coke. I looked at some of the other chassis, and noticed this seems to be a theme on them. Probably 4 of the 7 tubs I have have some sort of oranging to them. The spots may be something different because they are spots and not lines, and it feels like I can feel the spots(maybe in my mind), whereas the lines seem imbedded.

Just wondering if anyone has any experience with these, or some advice in regards to removal / cleaning.

[Toaster]

Although I don’t have much experience with FX-10’s and haven’t personally tried this process out on parts, I saw some videos on YouTube awhile back about using UV based LED lights and hydrogen peroxide baths.

https://youtu.be/AVNHC4td7MQ

I can say that soaking parts in bleach, for me at least, didn’t work, it turned a set of old white RC10T arms I had whiter but they became almost brittle?

[TRX-1-3]

I believe that may be ABS plastic. Pretty sure. I don't think the hydrogen peroxide technique will work. If it were me, I would try wet sanding (at least the linear browinsh stains) with the finest grit paper I could find and then maybe some plastic polish if the finish needs blending. My next thought before I did anything would be if wet sanding would then make/restore the surface color to a brighter white than the rest of the tub. Then you would have a clean spot problem.....you might explore wet steel wool (the fine stuff) light scrubbing as well. You could test out some of this on your worst chassis then glove-up and go surgical on the best one.

I know the sand paper and steel wool sound crazy but I've seen and have used them to restore plastic lenses/headlight assemblies on cars before. Also might try a toothpaste and a soft cloth first on those brown lines.

[morrisey0]

I have had decent success with hard white plastics and Salon Care 40, and was planning on treating multiple chassis with this technique. But that is only, at best, going to bump the overall whiteness up a notch or two on the teeth whitening scale. The orange spots / lines would still be present.

I may have to use this dilemma as my introduction into real plastic polishing. I have sanded plastic RC parts down to ~600 grit just to create a uniform surface, but have never tried to go really smooth, and no where near a shine. I have resurfaced many a plastic headlight lens over the years, so I love that analogy, and may need to approach these chassis as if they were headlights.

[TRX-1-3]

600 grit or higher. I've used 600 grit on I think polystyrene 1:24/25 static plastic muscle car models (exclusively '67-'70 Mopar A, B, and E body cars if anybody is wondering, as I also have a very limited focus on those). It leaves a satin finish. So just experiment with it. Wet sanding though I think is an absolute must.

[morrisey0]

Had a little time to experiment, and this is one of the results.

The left side of the right chassis has been sanded from 500-2000g, all wet and pretty quickly. The left chassis is "new" but obviously aged.

Results are that it took 500g, maybe 600g, to cut through the initial layer of all of the orange / yellow coating. This would include putting in just a little more effort on the severely oranged portions. The results are 90%+ of factory, and completely acceptable from 12" away. It is that last 10% that I need to work on, and that is the part that makes it shine just a bit.

And no, there is no way I am going to sand the inner portions of the tub to lighten them up! That would appear to be complete torture! As far as making 90%+ results, that is only going to end up on the sides that can be seen. I know, call me lazy.....

[jwscab]

You might want to look into how the guys that have old PC parts rejuvenate them. It's a peroxide paste I think. That shouldn't hurt abs as much as it does nylon(which does get chalky).

Otherwise yeah the manual sanding and polishing is the alternative.

[Dadio]

That's a good result

[morrisey0]

Well, the first chassis turned out better than expected giving that I had to sand out the spots on it that I still don't understand. All of the flat spots were sanded and polished, and all of the low spots got a Salon Care 40 Creme treatment for about 8 hours (4 each side), and I am 90%+ happy with the results. The outer portions of the tub had a bit of a shine to them stock, and I got it pretty close. It actually reflects better than it shows in the pic; my auto-focus just decided other things were more important. The next chassis is going to be more of a challenge. And then the one after that, even more.

[RC10th]

I've had good success peroxiding white Clodbuater wheels, I don't know what material they are made out of but it worked great.

I've also always wanted to give a vibratory polisher a try for old plastics.