Dinky Toys TOS Enterprise Restoration

[ARMORMAN]

Restoration Project: Dinky Toys U.S.S. Enterprise.
Phase 1: Make the upper primary hull white again...
Acquire Retro-Brite plastic whitener.
Spray liberally on plastic surface. Place in sealed ziplock bag. Place in sunlight.
Wait.
Success.
Now, on to Phase 2: Fixing the saucer section...

 

[micahrogers]

Good job restoring the plastic to white, but is it more brittle now?

 

[THE DC]

I appreciate your efforts in restoring this you.

When I was a wee lad, I wanted one of these, and one of the companion toys; the Klingon Battleship. They both fired orange discs, as I recall; a child's dream combination of appearance and playability (this was before the era of plastic pervasive and electronically imbued! Not long after the era of playing with sticks!!!).

Seeing this brings back those memories and my wish on Christmas of getting the pair from Santa!

But Santa brought sticks...

Keep up the good work. I plan to follow your thread!

 

[ARMORMAN]

The plastic is 50 years old. It was brittle to begin with. I've not noticed any degradation of it beyond what I started with. If it does go south, plan B will be to put all the pieces back together one more time, scan, and 3D print a replacement.

I had to purchase new "photon torpedoes," and replacement decals but it had the shuttlecraft.

 

[Revell-Fan]

COOL! I regularly check Toy-Polloi on Youtube and am always fascinated by his restorations. Those toys from days past were meant to be what they were: toys. As a result of that they were designed and built to last and survive the most dangerous mission (children's hands, dog's teeth, Ertl truck crushing Terminators ). However, it is a real miracle that they have survived till today considering they are not made of a longer lasting material like metal (and even that begins to rust one day). I heard reports of brightened plastic yellowing again after some time, so you might have to repeat the process. I have some yellowed items as well and consider airbrushing them instead. My Vintage Hoth Luke is complete and in pretty good shape (he even smells like in the old days ) but he has got some blue spots on his trousers which I will address the same way. I like your backup plan of using the old model as a template for a new one made of a "fresher" material.