Maintenance And Care

[Vraiment]

With the recent buy of some old sets that I found in some lost store my passion for Bionicle came back. So I came back to my house to check my old Bionicle and some Lego sets and I found out they have some problems and I want to take them back to their glory days, any recommendations?:

• [*]The ones without tubes or cans are dusty, the ones with tubes or cans have the tubes or cans dusty, and the dust is in parts hard to get in, should I wash them with water? or use compressed air?[*]When I was child I came up with the idea of paint some mask and a McDonalds Matoran, now I HIGLY regret it[*]As it's expected I lost some pieces with the past of time, any idea to recover them -taking in count I live in Mexico-?[*]Some set are decolored 'cause they used to past some a lot of time under the sun, this is the one problem I see HARD if not implossible to fix

Well, that's all the problems I have, any extra cares you give to your sets?Thanks BzPower

[Ehlekdude]

1. I always wash my sets, works fine (unless they have stickers). However, after that is done, dry them with a towel, don't simply leave them to dry themselves, as that way they can get water stainds on the plastic.2. Have you tried simply washing the paint off or scrubbing it until it comes off? If that doesn't help, maybe use turpentine, but as I'm not sure about the safety of that, make sure to try it on some scrap plastic to make sure it won't damage it.3. BrickLink would be a good place to buy missing parts.4. Sorry to say it, but I'm pretty sure there's no way to return colour to those.

[Ballom Nom Nom]

Yeah, washing parts off is generally the easiest and most effective way of removing dust that I know of. I'd definitely recommend that.~B~

[Dralcax]

1. I always wash my sets, works fine (unless they have stickers). However, after that is done, dry them with a towel, don't simply leave them to dry themselves, as that way they can get water stainds on the plastic.

Water stains? Do they come off easily? I have an MOC that I left to dry by itself because the greebling made using a towel very difficult.

[Ehlekdude]

Oh yes, very easily, it's enough to simply rub a towel or something on it and it comes off. I only noticed these on flat surfaces, such as the top of a Technic connector or side of a normal brick.

[Vraiment]

1. I always wash my sets, works fine (unless they have stickers). However, after that is done, dry them with a towel, don't simply leave them to dry themselves, as that way they can get water stainds on the plastic.2. Have you tried simply washing the paint off or scrubbing it until it comes off? If that doesn't help, maybe use turpentine, but as I'm not sure about the safety of that, make sure to try it on some scrap plastic to make sure it won't damage it.3. BrickLink would be a good place to buy missing parts.4. Sorry to say it, but I'm pretty sure there's no way to return colour to those.

Thanks for the recommendations, I'll try to get my sets -along with my brothers'- clean and like new and upload photos of them.

[Nuparu1995]

Sometimes I lightly dust mine, but a couple years ago I took two days to gently wash the ones that were sturdy enough in my bathroom sink. After that, lightly towel them and lay them out to dry. The dusting does help, though. Other than that, for parts, if you have a bin of spare parts, look through that, or ask around to friends if they have any spare parts you could sift through.