Some vintage gadget enthusiasts have come up with a home-brew chemical gel that can be applied to yellowed plastic which restores it to its original colour. This wonderful sounding product’s called Retr0bright.

“We have now proved on several forums that plastics yellowing can be completely reversed in hours without damage using our mixture.”

There are a number of recipes on their Wiki. Thankfully all of the chemicals involved are easily obtainable (at least here in the UK) and all are safe apart from Hydrogen Peroxide, which is the main ingredient in hair bleach and is to be treated with respect. Be sure to wear gloves and goggles and work in a well ventilated room.

I was initially concerned about any chemical solution affecting the printing on the case, but then I saw this Lego piece in the Retr0Bright gallery, which is painted. The paint appears unaffected by the process:

Although the Problems and Pitfalls page on the site does show some examples of label fade, the printing on the PS-F5 is generally of good quality with a heavy black ink, so hopefully this won’t be too much of an issue, especially if the Sony’s not too yellowed, and therefore doesn’t require many applications.

There are other examples in the gallery with stickers and paint too, all of which suggest that it should be safe. Something I’m not sure about is whether the smoked transparent plastic on the front of the case would need to be removed prior to applying the gel. Maybe masking would be safest, attempting to remove the glued in smoked panel may cause breakage.

I’d like to give this a try, but would really appreciate it if anyone out there has a spare case (or piece of case, ideally one with some printing) for their PS-F5 that they’re willing to experiment on and report back to the site so I can let everyone know for sure that this works on our Sonys and is safe.

“There were an incredible number of people at first that said this was impossible – that was until they saw the pictures, then tried it and proved it for themselves. The usual reaction was ‘No way!’ then ‘WOW!!’.

Need a new or better stylus for your Sony PS-F5 or PS-F9? Patrick Radzewitz has researched the options and written up his findings which are now available on the new Styli Page. Thanks Patrick!

Sony PS-F9 Linear Tracking Portable Turntable Vintage – eBay (item 270529575845 end time Mar-12-10 13:15:07 PST).