I have had thousands of my figures go brittle over the years. While taking some photos yesterday one of my missile launchers crumbled in my hands. Museums have the same problem
with plastic items in their collections. I have studied the problem for
decades and have a few hints but no real answers. A few years ago I wrote to about 15 manufacturers of soft plastic figures and received either no answer or a denial that the problem exists with their brand of figures. Esci and Airfix seem to have been the worst for me, along with some very old, more than 50 years old, Tim Mee and MPC figures.
My collection has
been stored in my garage or in my home for 50+ years. Two sets of
figures in the same box, and one set will crumble and one will be fine.
That tells me it was not the environment, but the figures themselves.
One set of figures made in Hong Kong and another set made in the UK, and
ten years newer, and the Honk Kong set will be perfectly fine when 40
years old and the UK set will crumble at 30 years old. That tells me it
is not a quality control issue. I have been told that some sets have
chalk / clay and similar products put in the plastic as filler because
it's cheaper than plastic and keeps the price down. I know that can be
done with resin products because I have been to the companies that sell
resin and used such fillers in casting resin myself. So that tells me
the filler issue is plausible.
Plastic left in direct sun will be
exposed to UV and will change color and get brittle. I have seen this
with many products, my army men were kept in boxes inside drawers, so
essentially no UV exposure, so that's not their problem, generally. My
figures were stored in Southern California for 50 years in an attached
garage, in a chest of drawers, inside plastic food containers.
Temperature ranges from 40f to 85f the vast majority of the time even a
smaller range. So I don't think temperature is much of an issue.
If
you open a box of brittle figures they will often have a chemical smell.
I believe the plasticizer is off gassing from the plastic. If you
take brittle figures and boil them in water they will become soft again,
as long as they stay hot. Once they cool they are brittle again. I
suspect if you could obtain plasticizer you may be able to boil the
figures in it and restore them, but that is just a theory. I don't have
plasticizer nor do I know how to to get it.
Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog with 30,000 photos of my toy soldier collection of Roco Minitanks, Heiser Models, Fidelis Models, Airfix and Pegasus figures; and 54mm & 60mm plastic soldiers from Tim Mee, Elastowit, BMC, MPC. Be sure to follow Bunker Talk. Email at BunkerMeister45@aol.com. Get merch at: https://www.redbubble.com/people/bunkertalkwar/shop
14 comments:
It’s because the items are probably made from Thermosetting plastic which is known for being brittle. There are two types of plastic the other being Thermoplastic.
I've dealt with this problem and to repair a broken 54mm figure and it then starts breaking up in your hands is awful. Airfix, like Cherilea and Lone Star (UK) added chalk into the plastic supposedly to make it easier for the paints of the time (1960s) to adhere to. I now coat all figures in PVA glue -some people use a varnish- before and after painting. Should be no problem on un painted figures. Vehicles I have only metal ones so no falling apart. Good luck!
Thanks Simon I did not know that. But I find it hard to image that the same company, Airfix, would use two different plastics for the same set of figures, would they?
Bunkermeister.
Terry, most of my figures are unpainted plastic. It's very sad to lose a little plastic guy to this plastic rot.
Bunkermeister
Happened to me too - I had all my childhood guys stored in my parents garage - when I went to retrieve them in 1985, after buying my own place,and did the ceremonial "pass and review" on my kitchen table, they started crumbling in my hand - the WW1 French guys were the worst, but all the sets (maybe 25 in all) had the same problem.
Yet, my "Giant" brand ww2 Germans, that were considerably older, were (and still are!) perfectly fine!
banzai that's so sad. We are told all the time that plastic is forever and I wish it were so for our beloved soldiers who don't even last a generation.
Bunkermeister
Too true; on the other hand, sets I've bought since 1985 all seem to have stood up pretty well; haven't seen any crumbling on those yet, and they are over 30 years old now
I am hoping the newer plastics won't break up. But I have tens of thousands of older troops that have fallen apart and many more that I worry about.
Bunkermeister
Mike
They were not made to last a generation. They were made to be played with and lost and run over by the mower.
But it is sad all the same. Take heart that most of your guys will be there to bury you. ��
I plan to be buried with the collection so in 5,000 years I will be exhumed as Emperor of Kentucky.
Bunkermeister
Hi,
I found this thread whilst researching why SOME of my sixty-year-old Airfix soldiers snap at the slightest touch. I'm no avid collector or manufacturing expert but I've found that it's only the soldiers of a certain colour plastic that this phenomena seems to affect. Each boxed set of soldiers whether it be 8th Army or US Paratroops or British Infantry came in a different base colour and the "broken" ones suggest they're that colour all the way through. I always assumed, naively, as a child, that they were just painted different colours but it would appear that each colour plastic has differing constituents.
Unfortunately I don't have any original boxes, hence all my collection has been housed in exactly the same way - "zip-tied" sealed plastic bags within a sealed metal tin. The only reason I got them out of the loft was the fact that I am documenting the whole of my childhood toy/comic/book collection so that my children and grand-children can see at a glance what I own once I have departed this world (hopefully a few years yet!!)
Hi Dave, thanks for commenting. I post every day so come back! Airfix changed the color of the figure sets from time to time. So for example the Airfix Cowboys have been dark chocolate brown, red/brown, and cream/yellow colors. The dark chocolate brown don't seem to go brittle. These are the oldest of the sets. I suspect that Airfix when they first started operations were using the best plastic, with lots of plasticizer and no fillers. I suspect as oil and plastic got more expensive they added fillers and cut back on plasticizer which in turn caused the figures to go brittle. I have had green figures go brittle also.
Thanks for reading.
Bunkermeister
Thanks for this Bunkermeister. It's very intriguing though I'm not losing any sleep over it - such is life. I did revisit this topic today (no particular reason other than it is interesting and I had a few minutes to spare).
Whilst browsing the internet I came across this web-page, which you may well have already seen, but just in case; it's a book on modelling and collecting Airfix toys and contains some fascinating information. Apologies on the length of the link but you should be able to cut and paste it.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VVCQDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT67&lpg=PT67&dq=brittleness+of+airfix+soldiers&source=bl&ots=QdlFSpK7T1&sig=ACfU3U2zMxN9MbhZhw02rXSRl2GktV_QrQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj_udH27pX0AhXUR_EDHSCsD0kQ6AF6BAgVEAM#v=onepage&q=brittleness%20of%20airfix%20soldiers&f=false
Good luck with the blog and your hobby.
Regards,
David Taylor
Thank you Dave Tayor for the link. Interesting I did not know about Airfix being a big toy making company. Living in the USA I don't ever remember seeing any of their toys, just toy soldiers and then model kits.
Much of my figure collection is over 30 years old and many thousands of troops have been lost to brittleness. Figures I expect to play with into retirement that are now gone, often out of production or too expensive to easily replace.
Thanks for reading!
Bunkermeister
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