Discoloured Plastics? Use Brasso!

KittyKate

My mum saved an old (20+ years!) musical phone for my cousin's new baby and gave it to my uncle. Though it was originally cream, it had discoloured with age to a murky brown colour everywhere apart from where the phone sits.

My uncle said not to worry, I'll get that good as new - he rubbed it with a soft cloth & brasso! It works on oxidisation (hence why it cleans metal). It works on all white/cream plastics (including old looking light switches) and is perfectly safe (obviously for kids toys wipe over with some warm water & dry).

It's so nice that a toy that I played with as a kid (I'm 25), my nephew did (he's 11) and now my new baby cousin will - and it's good as new thanks to brasso

Peem

What a fantastic tip

I didn't know this. Many thanks

lolarentt

KittyKate wrote: »

My uncle said not to worry, I'll get that good as new - he rubbed it with a soft cloth & brasso! It works on oxidisation (hence why it cleans metal).

Close! It's the plastic surface that has degraded - Brasso is an abrasive and will grind/polish off the top surface to expose the new undamaged material below. Same with brass, you're eroding the surface, which is why old brass door name plates that have been polished for years are barely readable. It will only work with relatively hard plastics. It's used in the plastics industry to polish out defects in mouldings in hard plastics like acrylic - you may find this useful if you have scratched or scraped the rear lights clusters on your car. These are made of acrylic (PMMA) which is the hardest plastic material there is BUT you can polish out scratches scrapes etc with CAREFUL use of Brasso.