Something of an experiment.

I happened to notice some fading of plastic items in my kitchen area due to sunlight exposure and was wondering if it could be applied to the the new color of the Ultimate chess set I just picked up recently. I just want to tone it down a little not much but I'd though I'd give it a try since I've seen the results my kitchen shears developed as they were in the direct path of sunlight through my windows on my kitchen rack. As you can notice the color fade of the orange handle on the shears I'm was thinking perhaps I could get a similar result though not as progressed as the shears. I will place the light armies outside to bask in the sun for some time and see how it goes on a day to day or week to week basis rotating the board 180º daily accordingly. I just hope the pigment used in the Ultimate's plastic composition isn't color fast. I'll post after pictures if I see significant results to let members know of my findings. The pictures show how the sun faded the handles from orange to a very light almost bleached out version of the original color. If I can get half that result I'd be fine with the outcome.

Take it from a chemist -- it's very common for the colors of polymers (plastics) to fade when exposed to ultra-violet light over time.  The color is usually imparted by a an organic dye, and these tend to undergo chemical reactions (break down) when excited by UV.  This fading might be avoided if UV-blockers are mixed into the polymer blend (or painted on the surface).  But I've never heard of chess sets produced this elaborately.  It would make sense for the giant outdoor sets.

@Yenny-Leon: The fading of the shear's handle occurred only with a couple of hours of direct sunlight each morning that my area was cloud free perhaps over the course of 9-12 months. In the manner in which I'm conducting this little experiment I think I will see at least a 30-50% fading leaving the pieces exposed for about a month up to 8 hours daily in direct sunlight. I will monitor this progression daily and thank you for your insight on this subject.

getting them to fade evenly all round will be the hard part

Yes that's a true outlook, but I tend to rotate the board they're on 180? every 4 hours on clear sunny days usually around the noon hour where the sun is at it's highest point in the sky. I start them basking in the sun @ 8AM and finish up the day @ 4-5PM. As I've stated it's just an experiment but any little help from nature to "lighten" up the color a bit is welcomed.

An alternative method to lighten the pieces would be soaking them in clorox bleach.  Either straight (5% hypochlorite solution) or diluted.  If soaking for extended periods, the solution would need to be replaced every day since the active ingredient breaks down gradually once exposed to air and light.

Sounds like a good idea as well but wouldn't the corrosive properties of the bleach also corrode (breakdown) the adhesion of the glue joints of the joined half pieces along the seams, thus making them come apart in the long run? I think I'll definitely pass on this method and go with the natural way as I've first stated.

Very interesting.  Did you leave a set out for a control group?

In actuality all of my sets of the light armies are on the board, so I believe you could say they are as a whole, "a control grouping". Since the experiment will be a month long why not take the advantage of having all of them fade to a lighter color all at once instead of trying to achieve the same results over a greater period of time with just a few sets in a controlled enviornment. I have two replacement pieces that are left in their original color that had slight issues but those pieces will be my comparison tools to see the amount of color depletion the sun baked pieces will develop .

There you go.  I'll be interested to see if you get a color fade.  Good luck.

Much thanks Bill.

True that bleach would attack the felt glue.  This would be a piece sacrifice, nyuk, nyuk.