YOU'RE YELLOW! VF-25F turning all sorts of colors

[Valkyrie Driver]

Perhaps it's because I don't keep my toys in direct sunlight, but None of my White Valks are showing any signs of yellowing (knock on wood). 

[Double Spy]

This is depressing, whats the point to collect its its a timer to be faded. I should just sell everything and look at pictures, safer!now!!!!!!!!

[SpaceCowboy]

Hey, even the Mona Lisa is falling apart.

Enjoy things while they last.

[ArchieNov]

Seems I was mistaken. I took a closer look at my YF-25 again and it has very slightly yellowed. It's hardly noticeable unless I look for it. I am now fairly convinced that keeping my valks in their boxes causes them to yellow much faster, as I've had much older valks out on display that haven't yellowed at all.

Guess it's time to rearrange my display.

[spacemanoeuvres]

That’s bad news for me; I’m a closet collector lol

95% of my figs are MISB. I just don’t have anywhere to display them at the moment. 

[SpaceCowboy]

It's light and oxygen reacting with the plastic.  Just because you keep them in storage doesn't mean they won't yellow.  It has to do with how much bromine they are mixing and what they mixed with it, and how long it takes for the bromine to surface, how much light and oxygen it is exposed to, what the temperature of storage is (heat accelerates).  At least that's my understanding.  So I wouldn't take them out of the closet thinking that is going to make it better.  Maybe just open the box to circulate the air, in case it is chemicals that the plastic is giving off that are adding to the reaction. 

An example:

I bought a old G1 Jetfire off of ebay (not the one I restored above, but a different one.  You can tell that it was mainly in robot mode, because where the backpack was up, the area below the plastic was whiter than all the other parts, because it wasn't getting as much light.

[ArchieNov]

In my case, the parts that are yellowing were consistent across all valks. Light wasn't the issue since they were in the box. For example, it always affects the nose and cockpit area, but not the bottom of the cockpit around the area where the landing bay doors are. On the bright side, the yellowing is mostly in the same degree so it doesn't look that terrible.

In contrast, all my valks on display haven't yellowed the slightest bit, despite some being a few years older than the ones that have yellowed.

Maybe more heat built up since they weren't in the open and/or the gasses that were being released couldn't dissipate and thus sped up the yellowing of the plastic.

In any case, I'll be keeping all my valks with predominantly white color schemes out on display for now.

Edited December 19, 2017 by ArchieNov

[Double Spy]

We should be vacuum sealing the MISB boxes? Sealer bags that fit Arcadia sized boxes might be hard to come by and expensive

[no3Ljm]

2 hours ago, Double Spy said:

We should be vacuum sealing the MISB boxes? Sealer bags that fit Arcadia sized boxes might be hard to come by and expensive

Expensive? Hmmm. Since vacuum sealing might help keep the MISB toy minty fresh why worry about expensive sealer bags? You want your toy to last forever, right? 

 

[Lolicon]

Doesn't everyone want to be buried with their valks so that future archeologists thousands of years from now can enjoy mint valkyrie toys? 

[SpaceCowboy]

Amber.  You really want to encase them in amber, preferably as soon as you can.   

[linitrofe]

 

[CHAVAKAISER]

It seem that it is working! 

[CHAVAKAISER]

Upgrade

[Acteon]

My original Chogokin VF25 suffered the same fate, but the Renewal has survived the ravages of time. It is a nasty business given the cost of these things, but in a world of white Valks we're especially vulnerable ;_;

[CHAVAKAISER]

And!!!!

[Ridden001]

This happened to my 25F.  I'm going to disassemble it and try my modeling at what would essentially be a modern high complete model at that point.  

[slaginpit]

On 7/25/2017 at 10:02 PM, davidwhangchoi said:

there are some snes that never yellowed and some that had certain parts yellow while the tops unaffected. it's been documented:

here's quote from Nintendo regarding the yellowing or some and some don't"

  

and further info:

looks like Bandai has the same issue.

 

Havent they outlawed flame retarded chemicals as being toxic and it causes cancer

[slaginpit]

Never mind the yellowing. My VF-25 Mikeal completely disintegrated before my eyes and I never transformed it and only displayed it in plane mode. It was forever in the cabinet and I wanted to transform it. Hence I do not purchase Valks anymore unless there is some special one and I would only buy used. I am assuming a lot of the 3rd Party Transformers and some Metal Builds will end up like this.

[big F]

I have a part built Hasegawa VF1 kit, its been that way for at least 7 years the wings and body got painted but the nose section is only painted inside, its gone yellow.

all the unpainted plastic thats spent the last few years in the box is fine. So most definitely the uv got to it here.   

[Lolicon]

On 1/14/2018 at 8:24 PM, CHAVAKAISER said:

And!!!!

So this method is safe to use on paint/tampo printing? I have a first run Hikaru 1J I acquired secondhand where the white is starting to fade and yellow, and would like to rehabilitate it if possible.

Edited March 5, 2018 by Lolicon
spelling

[no3Ljm]

Now I'm curious to use this method on my Beagle 'Stick' figure.

 

[Lolicon]

On 3/5/2018 at 12:05 PM, no3Ljm said:

Now I'm curious to use this method on my Beagle 'Stick' figure.

I'm gonna try it on that yellowed Hikaru 1J I have since there's enough damage to it that I'm relegating it to the spare parts bin. If I can whiten up just the nose section, then I can transplant it onto my newer, whiter Hikaru so it'll have a rainbow canopy. 

[SpaceCowboy]

From my first whitening experiments, I then decided to take a G1 Jetfire and transform him into a VF-1S.
I bought a yellowed G1 Jetfire for about $30.  I bought a set of armor for a bit more ($50 maybe?)
Before:

Edited March 26, 2018 by SpaceCowboy

[SpaceCowboy]

After:

[SpaceCowboy]

Pro-Tip - don't do the whitening during one of the most cloudy February's you can remember. 

[Slave IV]

Nice job!

[dafob]

I've also had fantastic results whitening all of my G1 Jetfires w/ Developer 40 hair gel (hydrogen peroxide).  Stupid me couldn't wait until summer so I did this over a few partly cloudy days in the fall.  I would highly recommend waiting for the long summer days.  One minor thing I did notice was that it seemed to slightly wear down (lighten) the red stripe on the chest area. 

I need to whiten some Yamato 1/48's but for whatever reason I'm too chicken to try on real [i.e. expensive] Valks..

Edited March 27, 2018 by dafob

[SpaceCowboy]

Nice!  One thing I did this time to help me remember how to put it back together was to take a piece of cardboard, and open up Jetfire so that he's stretched out as much as possible.  Then, as I took out the screws I pushed them into the cardboard in the same configuration he was laid out in.  It made it easier to remember which screws/springs went in the leg, and which leg, etc.  Also since they were pushed in, they didn't roll around.

[SpaceCowboy]

One thing I still haven't figured out, is how to disassemble the tail piece.  I took the two screws out of the bottom, but couldn't figure out how to separate the fins from the rest of it.  I could pry it a bit, but I was afraid of breaking the plastic. 

[dafob]

2 hours ago, SpaceCowboy said:

One thing I still haven't figured out, is how to disassemble the tail piece.  I took the two screws out of the bottom, but couldn't figure out how to separate the fins from the rest of it.  I could pry it a bit, but I was afraid of breaking the plastic. 

The tail piece can be tricky.  I have 4 Jetfires and 2 of them just fell apart after removing the two screws.  But the other two required more work.  You have to take a flat tool (like a plastic scribe used to disassemble laptops, or an Exacto blade if you're feeling adventurous) and wedge it loose at the point shown in the pic.  But like you said, be careful.  One of my Jetfires was probably left in direct sunlight over long periods of time so the plastic has pretty much degraded to the point where the slightest pressure and the plastic cracks/breaks.

[SpaceCowboy]

Okay, that's what I figured.  In my case, it looked like that tab/grip was nearly fused to the under carriage.  I'm not sure if the previous owner glued it, or if over the years it had simply bonded with the plastic or what.  In the end, both times, I've just soaked the whole back assembly in H2O2 without bothering to disassemble it further.  Painting the tail fins is a pain this way though.

[dafob]

So after going through this post I was inspired to finally try the whitening on a Yamato figure (after whitening a few G1 Jetfires).  I used Developer 40 Hydrogen Peroxide Hair Gel.  But I didn't want to experiment on any of mine so I picked up a cheap, damaged & yellowed 1/48 VF-1A:

 

The yellowed figure next to a white VF-1J for comparison:

 

Disassembled the figure in preparation for the Developer 40 treatment:

 

The back panel and wings after one full day of sunbathing.  The chest plate is untreated in this picture for comparison.

 

The final result:

 

It's still not as white as any of my original pristine figures but still very passable for display purposes.  And especially since the junker figure only cost me $75, this experiment was totally worth it.

 

 

 

Edited April 13, 2018 by dafob

[Shizuka the Cat]

14 minutes ago, dafob said:

So after going through this post I was inspired to finally try the whitening on a Yamato figure (after whitening a few G1 Jetfires).  I used Developer 40 Hydrogen Peroxide Hair Gel.  But I didn't want to experiment on any of mine so I picked up a cheap, damaged & yellowed 1/48 VF-1A:

 

The yellowed figure next to a white VF-1J for comparison:

 

Disassembled the figure in preparation for the Developer 40 treatment:

 

The back panel and wings after one full day of sunbathing.  The chest plate is untreated in this picture for comparison.

 

The final result:

 

It's still not as white as any of my original pristine figures but still very passable for display purposes.  And especially since the junker figure only cost me $75, this experiment was totally worth it.

 

 

 

How do you go about applying the gel? Do you avoid applying onto the red and black painted portions of the plastic?

[dafob]

10 minutes ago, Shizuka the Cat said:

How do you go about applying the gel? Do you avoid applying onto the red and black painted portions of the plastic?

From my own experience, the H202 does seem to affect some paint and not others.  On my jetfires, I noticed it lightened the reds. 

Most of time, the solution is applied using a Q-tip directly on the plastic and over the paint.  But for certain areas where I don't want the paint damaged (like the chest area in the above example), I cover the paint w/ tape before applying the H2O2.  I then put those treated pieces in a sealed ziplock bag (to prevent drying/evaporation) and leave the bags in direct sunlight.

Edited April 13, 2018 by dafob