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Retr0brightening a Granite Keyboard - Printable Version

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Retr0brightening a Granite Keyboard - rbz - 08-22-2020

I recently picked up a RT6856T off eBay for a good price but it was pretty yellowed so I decided to try to retr0bright it. This would be my first time doing this so I looked at the original formulas and process as outlined on the original retr0bright page but after a bit of Googling and too many YouTube videos I found multiple people just using professional hair developer cremes or liquids to accomplish the same thing as they are usually ~12% hydrogen peroxide. 

The success of the retr0bright really seems to come down to a good % of hydrogen peroxide and UV / heat to promote the process. 

The creme like the original retr0bright process would be applied directly to the surface and then covered by clear cling wrap but some people warned that unless you get it evenly coated the part or go out in and kinda squish it around during the process you may get blotchiness and uneven results. The clear developer is liquid and people seemed to have success just submersing the part in a tub with developer + water mix covering the tub in cling wrap and setting it out in the sun for awhile.

I decided to use the Salon Care 40 Volume Clear Developer since the keyboard was fairly large and I didn't want to worry about blotchiness in the results. I used a storage bin that I had in my garage and dumped in the 32oz of the developer and added water. I weighted the parts down so they wouldn't float and set it out in the California sun.

                   

While the keyboard plastics were being brightened I decided to give a good clean to the keys and the base keyboard since it was pretty dirty and grimy. I pulled all the keys and cleaned them in a dish soap + water solution in an ultrasonic cleaner. I also decided to coil the extremely long keyboard cable to help keep it manageable for the limited desk (or floor space) I have for the SGI at the moment.

           

Overall I am really happy with the results. I believe that I diluted the solution with too much water as after about 6 hours in the sun the plastics were still a bit yellowed, but still a big improvement, so I ended up setting them out in the sun for a second day and the results were much better. I believe with a less diluted solution a single day would have sufficed.

       

RE: Retr0brightening a Granite Keyboard - JohnnyJohnny - 08-22-2020

I did this on my 9500900 keyboard when I bought it, using the original recipe, and it worked great. I left mine out all day in the sun before rinsing everything off real well. No blotchiness at all. Would highly recommend this approach to anyone with yellowed plastics.

RE: Retr0brightening a Granite Keyboard - rbz - 08-22-2020

(08-22-2020, 09:21 PM)JohnnyJohnny Wrote:  I did this on my 9500900 keyboard when I bought it, using the original recipe, and it worked great. I left mine out all day in the sun before rinsing everything off real well. No blotchiness at all. Would highly recommend this approach to anyone with yellowed plastics.
I have heard that over time it will start to yellow again, how long ago did you do yours and have you noticed any yellowing?


I just threw an old yellowed power strip into the bin and put it out into the sun to see how well it works on beige/white plastics and in just 2 hours its back to a bright white. Pretty amazing how this works.

RE: Retr0brightening a Granite Keyboard - weblacky - 08-22-2020

Thanks for posting this. I plan on doing exactly the same thing with a couple of those same granite keyboards plus some very valuable vintage SGI Iris 4D keyboards in beige that have turned totally burnt corn yellow.

My employer has a very large ultrasonic stainless steel tank that also has a huge built-in heater. While I don’t think the ultrasonic is really going to do much for whitening I do think I might use it a little bit to see if I could clean the keys better, before beginning the procedure.

My plan was also to use the water + heat submersion technique but attempt to heat the system to around 150°F and use the same salon care 40 volume clear liquid to dilute the 12% H2O2 to about 5%. Since were talking about 60 gallons + of water I have to find cooking racks and drying trays to pack the tank full of stuff...I’ll likely only get one shot.

One question for you, I can’t see well enough in your final pictures, how much of the “granite speckles” survived? I see the gray color, but I don’t really see the black specks. Did those survive?

For me, most of the one’s I need to do this to are beige and the really bad granite slims are so bad, I’d not care if a stripped away the black tones. Just asking since you’ve already done this.

Thanks

RE: Retr0brightening a Granite Keyboard - soviet - 08-22-2020

that keyboard look great Biggrin.

RE: Retr0brightening a Granite Keyboard - JohnnyJohnny - 08-23-2020

(08-22-2020, 09:31 PM)rbz Wrote:  
(08-22-2020, 09:21 PM)JohnnyJohnny Wrote:  I did this on my 9500900 keyboard when I bought it, using the original recipe, and it worked great. I left mine out all day in the sun before rinsing everything off real well. No blotchiness at all. Would highly recommend this approach to anyone with yellowed plastics.
I have heard that over time it will start to yellow again, how long ago did you do yours and have you noticed any yellowing?

It's been over three years now and no yellowing so far, so I've been pretty happy.

RE: Retr0brightening a Granite Keyboard - rbz - 08-23-2020

weblacky Wrote:One question for you, I can’t see well enough in your final pictures, how much of the “granite speckles” survived? I see the gray color, but I don’t really see the black specks. Did those survive?

The speckling definitely softened on the front where the yellowing was much worse than it did on the back side but even on the back side the darker speckles did soften as well, just not as much. 

I tried to do a few comparisons of before and after, but note the lighting conditions are different and the after pictures seem cooler in color than they do to the eye. As you can see the back label also bubbled a bit and the "typed" model number text lightened up quite a bit but the "printed" label like the box and SGI logo still look crisp. The ripping of the label was me unfortunately poking the label while it was in the water by accident, before that it wasn't ripped.

           

I used an IR thermometer on the first day it it looked like the water was ~120F. The speckling softening may not have been as bad if I was able to get the results I wanted in a few hours, or if the hydrogen peroxide concentration was higher and water temp was higher. I would probably suggest doing a test run if at all possible, esp if some of the targets are rare hardware. 

I have heard people using a sous vide to heat the bin of solution and using UV lights to do this indoors to get a more controlled environment as well.


(08-22-2020, 11:15 PM)soviet Wrote:  that keyboard look great Biggrin.

Thanks! 

(08-23-2020, 12:21 AM)JohnnyJohnny Wrote:  It's been over three years now and no yellowing so far, so I've been pretty happy.

Good to hear!

RE: Retr0brightening a Granite Keyboard - weblacky - 08-23-2020

Thanks for that info, as much as I'd like...not enough resources for investigating to perfect this, I'll just have to sit there and monitor it.  I'm lucky to have access to a precision heated/controlled tank setup (that's THE reason people don't use the submersion + heat technique for anything bigger) that is nearly the size of a hot tub and it's stainless steel and designed for cleaning anyway (also 3000W of ultrasonic goodness...told it can remove skin from your hand in some instances).  Also even if I add the entire bottle of developer, at that water volume I'll have to make sure I reach like 3-4% concentration.  So I definitely won't be using 12% centration straight.

However I'm unsure of the time, the heated technique happens a lot faster.  I know the 8 bit guy said he did 4 hours...I think that's too long, I've heard that you need to be checking it every 20-30 minutes or so and when you're very close to the color you want, you take it out and even after washing it, it will continue to brighten a little bit.  Just like cooking, I think it needs to be removed just before it's done..because it will keep cooking before it's served.  I'm obviously counting on the worse stuff taking longer.  

Also the 8 bit guy didn't realize his keys (except the space bar) aren't ABS, while his cases are!  So the heat is a variable that's not known.  Though ABS softens at a much higher temp, I don't think I need to push that.

The yellow I have to tackle it much worse than yours (see pic, other attached pic is a different KB/MS set that also needs treatment).  

   

The rest of the stuff it not so bad, so I will monitor and takeout things as I see the progress.  We have a wash station and a tunnel dryer, so that's where things will be heading.  I certainly don't want to over do it, so I'm going to likely under do it and tackle again on a small scale.

My boss is a generous person, but using that much water, electricity, three stations, and not making any money...it's pushing it.  I've convinced him as part of our restoration services we may want to offer this a as business service (since I've found zero business advertising to brighten plastic, we already have the equipment to do it anyway), so we can maybe do it a few times...but not one after the other (likely a month apart or so).

I'm more worried about when to say stop.  These weren't ever prue white, they were some kind of off-white.  Since I don't really have a perfect example, it becomes subjective.  So my goal is to try to get it good enough where I don't see yellow. I have access to a sampling colorimeter, but I don't have much to compare against...

RE: Retr0brightening a Granite Keyboard - Raion - 08-23-2020

CB_HK has keyboards he could cross-compare on.

RE: Retr0brightening a Granite Keyboard - soviet - 08-23-2020

Using the heat method for small parts like keys i got overdue in the heat + time department like you mentioned.
Got the keys from a commodore 64 very white but the space bar (different plastic) bend like a banana.
Also got to extra white on the keys of an amstrad cpc 6128+ the keys got so white that they looked like ghosts !, also the space bar bend.

So i learned to drink less beer during the processes and pay more attention Tongue