Whiten individual pieces - or a whole set ?

Gomjaba

Hi Guys, 

I am new to ordering from Bricklink and I must admit - I was a bit naive to think used merely means ... used ... not yellowed to death .. It is quite impressive to see that a bag of say, 50 identical items, have essentially .. 50 Shades of Gray (see what I did there). 

As I don't intend to build a colorchart with all shades of gray (my build will be 99.95% Light Bluish Gray) I am struggling as to what to do now. 

I have 2000+ pieces right now and tried to clean them using Hydrogen Peroxide (3%) in UK sun - I have given up a week in as there is no change. And I think it really isn't the weather yet. 

So the main question really is - would you just wait for weeks to come until the weather is right, hope you can find a UV lamp - or maybe just build the set and put the whole built set in a tub to actual progress ? 

The latter obviously would mean the inside will likely stay stained as it is - but given it is a display model - I wonder if it makes more sense to just chuck the whole set in a bucket (Assuming I can get over the OCD knowing the insides are yellowed). 

Any thoughts ? 

Keilup

See if any of these help you.

https://forum.brickset.com/discussion/497/brick-discoloration-due-to-sunlight-smoking-and-methods-to-restore/p1

https://forum.brickset.com/discussion/28806/the-case-of-the-yellowing-white-bricks

Gomjaba

Thanks. I do know the method. It was question about single pieces Vs. Whole set. Will check again in case I missed that in those threads (which I have seen before). 

Pitfall69

Single pieces definitely. I've been doing this for many years and have had a lot of success just doing individual pieces. 

Gomjaba

Yea just chucked all my sorted pieces back into a large bucket (only lost like 6hrs of sorting lol) - I couldn't bear the fact that the insides may be still tinted ..

jason1976

I managed to clean a lot of yellowed pieces successfully last summer - it took me a while as due to having to live in London I only had a window sill to put a container with pieces in hydrogen peroxiden on, but it can be done!

Gomjaba

Yea that's my problem. UK sun is ..... Sub .... Optimal. 

jason1976

From memory, it wasn't too sunny on at least one of the days I did it, and I did have to reposition the container as the sun moved, but it worked.

I think I've got some before and after pics around somewhere, I'll see if I can find them tomorrow.