Restoring Yamaha Bar Controls

2_DONE_THE_TON

2_DONE_THE_TON

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Hey guys!

I´m currently in the process of stuff I want to restore over winter and ran into a problem.
I want to strip and repaint my bar controls of my Yamaha RD.
But how do I go about the plastic push buttons and switches that are already slighlty faded?
Will polishing paste do the trick?

Thanks in advance!
 

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They look in pretty good shape. They were not painted to begin with. I wold just use some Armor all to brighten them up.
 
I have special plans with them.
I will remove the stickers (which are ugly as F) and let a good friend engrave the letters dirctly into the cast aluminium.

Just checked ebay and yambits for switches...really expensive and/or not available.
 
You can also bring back colour into plastics by heating them with a heat gun. I've done this quite often on panels, but you might want to be a bit more careful if you try it on switches.
 
I wold just use some Armoral to brighten them up.
Click to expand...

Armoral might work Ok on the plastic, but don't use it anywhere near a surface that you later want to paint. Armoral contains silicon, and paint will never ever stick to any surface that has been touched by silicon.
 
hillsy said:
You can also bring back colour into plastics by heating them with a heat gun. I've done this quite often on panels, but you might want to be a bit more careful if you try it on switches.
Click to expand...

I might try this, thanks for posting this.
 
hillsy said:
You can also bring back colour into plastics by heating them with a heat gun. I've done this quite often on panels, but you might want to be a bit more careful if you try it on switches.
Click to expand...

Hey hillsy thanks for the tip!
that means just slighlty heating up the surface and then letting it cool down?
 
Ryan Stecken said:
Hey hillsy thanks for the tip!
that means just slighlty heating up the surface and then letting it cool down?
Click to expand...


Sort of. It's a bit different for every type of panel though. Best thing for you to do would be to grab an old plastic inner mudguard and experiment. As you heat the plastic you will see the colour come back into it. You have to make sure you don't heat it too much in one spot or the plastic will bubble up or melt.
 
First thing I'd try would be some car interior refresher. (in German: Cockpit Spray) I generally prefer "Armor All" over "Nigrin".
 
Armor all is not advised. It accelerates the fading due to the silicon which works as a magnifying glass on the plasticizers. The film on a car windshield is the stuff I'm talking about. It's your dashboard migrating to your windshield.

There are better products to protect plastic like Vinyex. Heat works. I've read you can boil plastics to bring em back.

I've had great success on greyed chalky car bumpers with black shoe polish. No joke it's the only thing that lasted and years!

The kiwi brand stuff with the sponge applicator is what I used.
 
Be careful if you're going to heat the plastic. I don't know if it works an all plastics, I've heard it doesn't. Don't know for sure though


Sent from my iPhone using DO THE TON
 
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