RC10Talk - The Net's Largest Vintage R/C Community

Ok, I have been looking at the pics of many members cars, very very impressive a lot of nice work. and yes I am jealous of many of your collections. Anyway the question I have is almost every single picture I have seen it looks as if the white nylon parts are brand new, very white and clean. I am scrubbing mine clean and they look much better but they still have a little yellow tinge to them from being 20 years old I am assuming. Is there something that you can do to help get rid of that or is it that you all have just been able to get a hold of brand new parts?

So is there a whitening secret? Crest whitening strips? hmmmm I would appreciate any suggestions.

thanks again

guy

well, this is most probably the most frequently asked question among the newcomers to this forum, yet nobody ever went with an efficient solution (or maybe it hasn't been disclosed yet). It mostly seems than you must first get lucky either finding used parts that haven't suffered too much (mud, grease, oil...) and scrub them with a good detergent with very good results or... buying new or NIP parts and replace the bits as you find them. Make your own opinion searching the general forum, there are plenty of un/successful threads about that subject Stay white

leave soaking in hot soapy water + scrub to death + leave in bleach for 24-48 hours + leave soaking in hot water again + scrub again = whiter than white parts (as long as the parts are in good basic condition like Asso_man! says)

and the bleach wont make them brittle, I was worried it might?

Reg recently mentioned Oxi Clean and hot water..... that is something I haven't tried, but I am very interested in trying it out myself.

blksheep214 wrote:and the bleach wont make them brittle, I was worried it might?

as long as you're using regular household bleach and not industrial bleach then its fine.

But the real secret (and easiest) is to slightly over expose your pictures, most but not all whiter than white cars will be photographed in this manner, some inadvertently

Nice, I'll keep that in mind when I start photographing, maybe I could just use some photoshop as well...

No photo shopping necessary, just have a play with the aperture setting / bracketing and unless your parts are banana yellow you should be surprised with the results

Compare these two shots the top one is slightly over exposed and appears much white, the bottom one is slightly under exposed but a more accurate account of the same car it's no miracle solution but I think you can see the difference.

mrlexan wrote:Reg recently mentioned Oxi Clean and hot water..... that is something I haven't tried, but I am very interested in trying it out myself.

The TQ10 that I picked up from scr8p is perfectly yellowed and is my new test car for whitening--right side as is, left side
a multiple step whitening--it'll be two weeks--then before & after pics will be up (if it works!!)

That is crazy I cant believe that works so good!!!

I bow to the masters

That thing's still pretty darn white synergy haha. Nice car. Here's an example of 2 NIP parts... one is bright white and one has yellowed showing it's not always due to use and oil etc.

Now I dont feel so bad, mine cleaned up pretty good so far but Im still going to try that bleach trick on them. They just sold some new A arms on E-bay, they were NIP, they went for $36.00, makes me glad I dont have to buy too much.

Didn't associated use 2 different types of plastic for some of their parts? The yellow had a more girty feeling and the white was a softer nylon like the battery cups. I noticed this a few years ago when I was sanding down some front arms. One became smooth while the other became rough.

Regards,
highwayracer

I think essentially the yellowing is down to UV exposure.. hence used parts are always more yellow as they spent time out in the sun being used and whiter NIP stuff often lived in the cupboard or in a box.. Well, that's my theory anyway!