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Take it apart, wash it with a soap of your choosing in warm water. I like using old toothbrushes for the really dirty stuff. Just make sure you take it easy on the printed/stickered parts. I only really wipe the stickered parts off with a damp cloth with a tiny bit of soapy water.
I've also had luck sealing up really smelly instructions in a plastic box with some cedar chips in it.
He stated that with ABS plastic it is the "B" in ABS... or Butadiene in the plastic that absorbs the smoky smell. Unfortunately his solution for removing the smoke easily isn't exactly a household solution. He suggested that keeping the LEGO in a vacuum chamber for 24 hours would remove the smoke smell from the LEGO.
However... since vacuum chambers seem to be confined to laboratories... that's not a practical solution.
The washing as Jwsmart just suggested is probably your best bet. Also... you might want to put the LEGO on a towel and have an oscillating fan running back and forth drying the LEGO parts... as well as moving all the parts around a little in the drying process. When LEGO dries... it can leave waterspots... so quick drying is the optimal solution.
If only we can send the bricks to space! Ha ha!
Anyway... the whole idea behind the smelly soap is not necessarily to eliminate all the odors from the LEGO, but to replace the smoke smell with a smell you don't find offensive in the short term - or is at least less offensive. Eventually (within a few months of just being in open air) that smell will go away too, and you'll be left with bricks that don't smell enough to bother anyone, unless you stick them up your nose.
And generally, I don't recommend sticking them up your nose at all...
I'll also second Istokg's comment about drying them quickly - leaving them submerged for a while is fine, but leaving them in a big damp pile is a surefire way to make sure they develop other, equally unpleasant smells. I typically spread them all out on a towel, and make sure they're nice and dry before I sort them or pack them away for storage.
You may also want to avoid things that work via a chemical reaction. There's another thread on this forum about whitening LEGO that mentions Oxy Clean. So make sure you test it out on some spare bricks before you risk your fire station.
I tried it a while back on a whole load of old bricks that I played with as a kid. It took the sheen right off them - they now look dull and appear to have a white-ish, opaque coating.
I think the best way to clean up smelly and/or dirty bricks is the "soak-in-warm-soapy-water" method as suggested by jwsmart and madfor... .
Any suggestions for removing stickers and sticker-glue residue without the use of aggressive chemicals?
Thanks for the sticker/residue removal tips. Hadn't thought of WD40 coz it stinks (and certainly hadn't considered peanut butter - crunchy or smooth?). Need a solution though - I buy a fair few used sets and many of them have damaged or wonky stickers that definitely have to be replaced with new ones before I put the finished set on show.
Be careful rubbing though as you can start rubbing the top layer of plastic right off and then it will always appear foggy.. I use VERY little of the Polishes, but it does a decent job...
Now the other thing that seems to work a bit to help LEGO parts recover from a drying process like polishing, eraser marks (for scuffs) and perhaps even if they sit is a soap with a bleaching agent too long you can try to use WD-40 to reinvigorate the color and feel of the parts, BUT be sure to thoroughly wash the part in water in order to get the WD-40 off, same with the polishes, as most time you will use this on the sides of bricks, but the polish can also get on the studs themselves, so I believe you will want to ensure clean parts for your kids to play with.
Worked like a charm, although there were some water/soap-residue, but that was easily removed with dry cotton pads (for makeup removal). I've since used the combination of salad spinner and air drying with great succes.
The instruction booklet still stinks though ...
Or buy that family member a pack of nicorette :-)
I have to say, though, I would be much more concerned about health than Lego. Maybe you and some other non-smoking family members could band together and convince the smoker to do so outside (or better yet, not at all)!
I know that I had a bad experience with someone that tried to use dryer sheets on LEGO, but they still reeked of smoke, so I had smoky LEGO smelling of reeking dryer sheet perfume..
Not a nice combo.
NEVER use OXYCLEAN!!! As far as parts turning yellow, I have only had mild success in using hydrogen peroxide.
Btw, I only smoke when I'm on fire :)
I ended up with some real yellowing on the Space Shuttle sets I acquired.
http://www.bricksetforum.com/discussion/439/discolourationfading-of-bricks
Also, while we're on that topic, here's an interesting tidbit about yellowing:
I'm just figuring out why half of the pieces on my plane are yellow and the others not?
sidenote on yellowing: A friend of mine built a Lego theater some 15 years ago, and he has never torn it apart (we are talking about 6,000 bricks for the whole thing, and mainly in white brick). It has a wonderful patina now, and I've spotted about 4 to 5 specific shades of white on the exterior walls of this build. It is actually quite pretty.
I see a lot of my white 2x3 slopes (like what is on the airplane pic above) as a bit yellowed, or different shade than most other similar white slopes I have (i.e having the same 'texture'), it is a bit bizarre.
I always have a hard time matching the colors of Airplane parts from a lot of old LEGO because you really want to keep the shading with similar bricks/slopes and not have the type of issues seen above (but to a lesser degree)
I have found Novus No 2 Polish takes out minor to mod surface scratching (works great on Trans clear parts like windshields and I think WD-40 seems to renew the luster on to plates/bricks (just make sure you wash the parts thoroughly after using either).
I had the same problem with 2 ebay purchases. The first I washed and scrubbed but it didn't help. So I left it beside my collection in an open box... Guess what: 6 month later the sets didnt smell.
So when I got the medival village set stinking heavy smoke I left it in an open flat box in an alright-ventilated place... 6 month later. No smell!
Demands patience but little work or chemicals! :-)
@icey117 Like you say, time will take the smell away. The ABS plastic absorbs smoke particles in the air. If the air is smokeless, the particles in the ABS will diffuse away. If you want to speed this up, put the bricks in a vacuum. Brings the process down from months to minutes.
I think I'll try this today and see if it works. I just got a huge lot of SW sets off craigslist and my heart sank when I walked into the woman's house. I practically wanted to ask her "do you smoke cigarettes, or do you EAT them?!"
I have been lucky to get LEGO lots where smoke has not been the issue, at least so far.. there are a couple I have yet to really delve into yet.
Please let us know your results when you get them :-)
I Have been fortunate enough to not run into many issues with smokey LEGO.. whether it is because I avoid lots that also appear to have really yellowed brick, or what, but so far so good.
In all cases it seemed to remove 80% of the smoke smell. As one fellow above mentioned, a six month "air out" cured the bricks of the smoky smell, and this method seemed like it did about five months work.
Definitely repeat the minute long vacuum treatment more times for larger sets. The #7250 only seemed to take two treatments, whereas the #7259 took five.
Seriously, good luck.