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My line of thought on plastic oxidation is not all about plastic oxidation, it is more about how many layers of wipe on quick shine polishes, or waxes there are on top, the best of them usually only last look good a month or two, and oxidize, UV radiation just cooks them, and turn almost any colour plastic milky colour or light gray,
Think about this, please, a or any vehicle is made he sits around waiting to be sold, you come to buy it and a dealers detail, he sprays a quick drying polish on the plastic, and two months later the polish oxidizes, so you wax it, that last a month, so you armour all it, or wax, a further month and more trouble, please consider when you buy plastic garden furniture, it last one and half years before you start seeing any UV effects, or at least a year, ??. Another case in point is plastic garbage bins, they sit in the sun for 2 years they stay bright and shiny, on average depending how much they sit in the sun, in certain conditions where garbage bins are only placed in sunlight a few hours, to be emptied, then placed back under and into a nice cool big building, no indirection radiation, only cool conditions, that plastic stays bright and clean 4-5 years with a regular light clean by maintaince dep of the building,, , and even the humble plastic biscuit barrel has a allot of years life span and shine in the kitchen, there is a clue there, house hold kitchen plastic like biscuit barrels ,Tupperware lasts and look great for years,
So my focus is on removing oxidized polishes first and then checks for plastic oxidization. Sometimes it appears to me that many layers of oxidized polishes have actually protected the plastic from any UV damage, and or wear damage by 40 years to the pattern,
Anyway, this is how I cut down on sanding if you are using sanding as a method of removing oxidised build-up, ,
One method i use is , I take the plastic whatever, lets say a badly oxidized mudguard,, I would then look around for a plastic container or stainless steel container that the plastic panel fits in, My focus is on having a container just a little bigger than the plastic body, I just want to cover the plastic body, or whatever it is, with water, using as less water volume I can, then place that container in a warm area, maybe on a sheet of tin and good sun just to keep it warm, then drop in half a cup of Caustic Soda, ( drain cleaner ) ( draino ), and leave it for 2 days, after two days I would think it would have taken me a day of hard sand paper rubbing to finish, so I would throw in a another half coffee cup of Caustic and put the lid back on, and think that cost me ? Nothing for the water, plus a few dollars for the caustic, = $3.00, as opposed to $30.00 in sand paper, ?, 20 setting up the caustic tank, as opposed to hours of rubbing,
Guys, a little warning to the new guys who have never handled Caustic Soda before, please always add the crystals to the water, never ever add water to the crystals, if you do, and you are holding the container, it will defiantly burn you, or someone else, no need for hot of even warm water, just let it get warmed by the sun and soak for days, also works good in drains,
After another 2 days I would pull it out expecting to find that the caustic has completely softened anything that is attached to surface of good plastic , then using a stainless steel scourer pad , it has to be the s/s scourer pad, not steel wool, please remember not steel wool, as soon or if I find the oxidized materials that are not really soft, like water soaked chalk, I will throw it back in the caustic for another 2 days, the soft white gunk just strips off, with minimal pressure on the s/s pad, as I come to the good colour plastic, with really no pressure, even gently, I would fast polish the last of the oxidation off, ready for compound buffing, all done, the s/s scourer pad will scratch, these scratches can be buffed out pretty easy, or you can go from the s/s pad to 1800 to 2000 wet sand buffed out pretty easy, interesting point here is, I have not removed any good plastic then necessarily like sanding, ( I am loading pics of the s/s scourer pad, and tools I use, there is a knife that I use to scrap the soft stuff off, I use it on a 90 degree angle, to scrap, please note the blade is curved, and does not leave scratches like a razor blade, please remember I have 17 years experience, new guys please stick with the s/s scourer,
At this point if youre interested and have not fallen asleep, I should mention that soaking plastic in caustic works great on plastic with patterns pressed into it from the mould when it was made,, please note I have now stopped referring to flat bike plastic like bike mud guards, and now referring to vinyl and Pressed patterns plastic like car seats, and the matching pressed or injected plastic kick panels, wind lacers, rear vision mirrors, dash and glove box faces, rear dog leg plastic trims, pillar vinyl , and most uv damage chain guards, and black or gray mud guards off bikes, I my self have cleaned hundreds of car interior trim parts , mainly Australian ford muscle car, 1968-1971 Gt, Gt Ho,Gs, ) Black ,tan, blue, red, but I have never been able to do much with white, forget white plastic of this vintage, also plastic that has 2 or 3 layers of coloured plastic are unrepairable at this time, if the top layers are worn away badly, but hey, if you got the money, I can do it,
So I have large 2 plastic drums with lids, which take 10 sets of wind lacers, 20 kick panels , 20 plastic dog leg covers, many dash and interior small parts all go in the plastic drum, then I cook all them up at one time, please note the 2 following methods of cleaning or removing cooked oxidation off, 1 wind lacers, ( wind lacers have thousands of small, 1/16 x 1/16 x 1/16 hole pattern pressed into the plastic by the mould, these holes are often full of built up waxes and or polishes,) which by this time is soft oxidation, to get into and to the bottom of the small holes, I use a large wire brush, NOT JUST ANY WIRE BRUSH , I go to the hardware with lots of wire brushes, and rub each wire brush on the back of my hand, the softest one that does not break or scratch my skin is the right brush for plastic, please note wind lace plastic is softer plastic then injected kick panels, or vinyl , so I wire brush the wind lacers pretty hard and fast, about 10 mins each wind lace, clean as a whistle, patterned kick panels and vinyl are the opposite, gentle swirling rubbing motion with the soft wire brush to get all the all the gunk out of the pattern grooves is easy and quick, takes about 12 mins for a kick panel, for someone with 17 years experience, including a quick light buff with the s/s pad, or even a light buff over the high spots,
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