Riverfront Stadium seat back help

[ajb39oh]

I just bought a green plastic seat back that had been in Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. It's faded. Any ideas to restore the look? I tried PlastX and gor some improvement. The guy i bought it from said to take steel wool to it and wax it.

[BlueZero]

Re: Riverfront Stadium seat back help

Do you have any photos of it?

[ajb39oh]

Re: Riverfront Stadium seat back help

Not yet- i just got it today.

[Mr Mustang]

Re: Riverfront Stadium seat back help

im thinking it's going to be one of those real "soft" plastics, but easy to scratch. if it's out of a historic stadium like that, I might just not mess with it, adds to the character, and I dont often say that sorta thing

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Riverfront Stadium seat back help

The faded portions are where the pigment in the plastic has lost its color. If you want to restore the color you need to find a way to remove the faded portion to reveal fresh pigment that has not faded and you need to find a way to do this that leaves the surface looking good.

Same idea as presented here,

What it means to remove a scratch out of anything...


Some plastics don't lend themselves well to being abraded with the end result looking good or looking original.

Picture would help, we need to know what kind of plastic it's made out of, it's it's like an ABS plastic then it doesn't lend itself well to being abraded with the end result looking good.

[Murr1525]

Re: Riverfront Stadium seat back help

We used to have a green plastic patio table that had faded, gotten a bit of a chalky look, etc. Just to try things out, I cleaned it then put some ASD on it. Actualy brought a lot of the color back....

Probably a different type of plastic, but maybe worth a small test spot?

[MrCub96]

Re: Riverfront Stadium seat back help

I know this is an ancient thread, but I have searched everywhere for tips on how to restore a sunburned plastic stadium seat and have found very little, so I wanted to let you know what has worked for me. I have some plastic seats from the old Met Stadium in Minneapolis. By my guess they date back to the 1970s; the place was torn dowm in 1985. They were then used in another outdoor ballpark for about 30 years. The result was a serious case of sunburn--what were once blue seats were white and chalky. Someone advised me to sand them with superfine sandpaper. I can confirm that is exactly what NOT to do. Instead get the seats clean with some cleaner designed for plastic car trim to remove surface dirt. Then lay down a layer of Meguiars Ultimate Black Plastic Restorer. I have had success with letting it sit overnight and gently buffing it off by hand the next day (spraying water on it if necessary). Do this a few times until you think the plastic is well moisturized. Then go back over it gently with a coat of the trim cleaner and a 0000 steel wool pad. Never use sandpaper and never push too hard in one place (the seats I did had only a veneer of blue--they were primarily molded in green) and don't touch the plastic with steel wool unless everything is wet. Don't try to do it all at once; work on it for a while and then lay down a layer of the Meguiars Ultimate Black. Repeat this cleaning and restoring until you are happy with the results. Hope that helps; if all else fails plan to paint the seat or to laquer on a collage of baseball cards or something. It's still a seat back from a stadium which is pretty cool anyway (IMHO, of course!)