Hello Lego Experts,

I just recently acquired a set of a Lego city which is bought circa 1986-1992, and one in 1996 from my relative. There are a total of around 8 buildings and many other assortments of vehicles and minifigures and all of them are intact.

The only thing is the road plates which have some "melted" skid-marks due to these vehicles on the roads which have stationary for almost 15-20 years. I think it is a permenant damage already, but could I use a bit of a sandpaper to flatten these melt-marks?

Plus, there are yellowing on the white Lego sets like the fishing boat, which I can't seem to get rid of even with wiping with damp cloth. I planned to use chemicals on it but I just skipped that idea.

Any great opinions on refurbishing old Lego sets?

To remove the yellow use Retr0Bright.

You mean the rubber from the black tires "melted" onto the baseplates?

If it's not printed, I'd try a cloth with alcohol.

EDIT: And yes - retrobright works wonderfully, and even faster with oxyclean.

Edited August 17, 201212 yr by fred67

Good tip that Retr0Bright!

Since we're on the topic of refurbishing... I find that built sets over long periods of time collect a lot of dust (when not covered obviously)... and sometimes even the dust gets a little bit of mildew (not a big deal for ABS). So you go out and buy a used set off of someone and it looks quite "used"....

I sometimes take the top exposed bricks and mainly large plates, immerse them in water, take some liquid hand soap, and an old very used soft tooth brush... and scrub gently horizontally back and forth in both directions over the plates or bricks. Then I do it diagonally. After rinsing them off, I towel dry them, and if necessary use a fan on them afterwards (in case you have a lot of parts).

Sometimes cruddy old parts look almost brand new after this process. It's amazing sometimes to find what you think are grungy old used parts, and by just cleaning one roof (or part that would collect dust) and finding that what you bought as used... is in much better condition than you originally thought!