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Other Stuff => General Wargames and Hobby Discussion => Topic started by: Daeothar on January 24, 2025, 05:09:35 PM
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I just came across this clip and found it too relevant for us miniature collectors not to share.
I'm sure there's a more accurate term out there than Plastic Corrosion, but the phenomenon looks pretty serious nonetheless. Anyone heard about this? Could this become an issue with polystyrene given enough time?
video link (youtube) (https://youtu.be/gdP__MLMRE0?si=Xpe_F6TSuuxVb3nI)
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The loss of softening agent has been discussed in other modelling circles for some decades now. It mainly affects those soft plastics, notable examples being toy car tires and the vinyl covers of 1990s Patlabor model kits which were quite notorious for the issue.
The loss of softening agent makes the plastic more brittle, obviously. It is also commonly found in old plastic toys, although some types of plastics seem to be more susceptible than others. I don't recall exactly where I read it, but hard polystyrene seems to be more susceptible than, say, ABS, e.g. comparing plastic kits from 1970s manufacturing runs to Playmobil toys from the same era, which my nephew is now still playing with 40 years after my brother and I did.
Essentially, it will affect any type of plastic, be it a thermoplast, an elastomere or a duroplast, if it contains any softening agent, including polystyrenes and resins.
I experienced both myself, and I tend to replace vinyl and rubber accessories by more resilient materials, e.g. plastic, metal or resin components. Another variation is the direct contact of rubber or vinyl to other plastics, which may lead to the soft part deteriorating due to softening agent dissipating from the hard plastic and attacking the soft (had that on a Solido Panhard armoured car, where the quite rigid vinyl tires turned out almost as soft as bubblegum).
It's quite noticeable with those plastic soldier type figures made of soft plastic, which are turning quite brittle now.
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I've got some of the very earliest Airfix figures. The British Infantry Group are still as bendy as ever, the Germans snap like dry twigs!
On a happier (???) note, all my fifty year old Napoleonics, bend like fook and shed paint from sword and bayonet...
as good now as the day they were born!
:'(
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Even if it does..I'm not overly concerned about plastics going brittle in 40-50 years time. That's more than enough service.
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I had some Zvezda plastic Gauls that were maybe 15 or 20 years old and they crumbled under my fingers when I rediscovered the boxes of them and started to examine them before painting. But the Airfix Ancient Britons I had from around the same time were still pliable and in good shape.
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Ça plane pour moi. ;)
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Does anyone know whether acrylic paint (or enamel, for that matter) effectively seals in the softening agents that can be lost over time, or do the chemicals pass through it, too?
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Ça plane pour moi. ;)
You are really showing your age.
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Leaching of plasticisers is well known in plastics, as is UV degradation.
In normal use I can’t see our figures suffering overmuch, especially if they are made from decent quality material and kept in ambient conditions. Keeping them in warm areas such as lofts may speed up leaching as it is temperature dependent. Leaving them in sunlight for extended periods of time may increase degradation as well.
As to longevity, I recently disposed of a tranche of old Airfix and Matchbox kits I had from my youth, and despite being a good fifty years old they were as good as the day they were made. The old Airfix PVA figures I disposed of at the same time were also fine, though a few, ACW grey jobs, had become brittle. I think the brittleness may be influenced by the pigment used to colour them.
Recycled material may well degrade faster due to the reprocessing conditions experienced by the vinyl, so perhaps the Zvesda figures are made from that.
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Interesting?
Whilst I cannot claim any deep knowledge of the injection molding of plastic models, I did do a fair stint working with high voltage cross-linked polyethylene and rubber type cable insulations as well as other types of injection moulding materials.
Yes plasticizers can leach out, and the plastic structure can degrade as antioxidants are used up over time and then a thing called chain scissions occurs, this breaks the cross-linked strands holding the plastics form together (which is what makes it a thermoset plastic).
But I don't know if the hard plastic and certain other PVC models are even thermoset plastic. The fact they can be heated and bent slightly (or a lot) argues against this.
From that mentioned above in this thread, I feel its a mixture of the anti-oxidants being used up simply by time/heat/UV for the brittle models and some plasticizers coming out for the slimy and paint damaged ones.
My guess this is going to be a much, much worse issue for the 3d printed stuff in the far future though?
My 2P from more of an alchemist than a chemist ;) :D
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My old Airfix ancients all went brittle, as did my ESCI Zulus, but the even more antique ACW figures are fine, as are the WW2 and as were the Napoleonics. So seems to be a matter of chance.
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I got out my Airfix British and Zulus to paint last year and they just crumbled.
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Do you mean Esci British and Zulus? Airfix never did Zulu War stuff.
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Yes! Of course it was.
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My mother foisted a couple of mystery boxes on me last week. Upon opening them, there was a mixed collection of Airfix 54mm plastics (mostly Napoleonics and WW2), a few Britains plastic figures (the ones with a metal base) and a selection of Timpo swappit figures. As these all date to my childhood, so they are 40-50 years old.
All appear to be perfectly fine in fact apart from bits snapped off in childhood warfare, they are pretty much exactly as they were 40-50 years ago. Plastic seems to have aged gracefully, just as pliable as it was when they were new.
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Yuck, I'd never even considered 1/72 models disintegrating.
Every hobby has similar problems I guess. Poorly stored vinyls warp, books mould. Plastic on toys degrades (I've had the same "soft plastic turning to sticky rubbish" on a few old toys saved for my kids. Toy collectors have to replace brittle parts.
One hobby I'm not in so much any more is old video games/computers. Parts fail, white plastic yellows, casset and floppy disks lose data. Power supplies go bad, batteries leak and so on! The cords of a few of my C64 and Amiga controllers went sticky.
Similar to plastic, I know some 3d print movie prop guys who have said they know the shelf life of anything they printed in filament.
(I wonder how long resin print models will last?)
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Yuck, I'd never even considered 1/72 models disintegrating.
Every hobby has similar problems I guess. Poorly stored vinyls warp, books mould. Plastic on toys degrades (I've had the same "soft plastic turning to sticky rubbish" on a few old toys saved for my kids. Toy collectors have to replace brittle parts.
One hobby I'm not in so much any more is old video games/computers. Parts fail, white plastic yellows, casset and floppy disks lose data. Power supplies go bad, batteries leak and so on! The cords of a few of my C64 and Amiga controllers went sticky.
Similar to plastic, I know some 3d print movie prop guys who have said they know the shelf life of anything they printed in filament.
(I wonder how long resin print models will last?)
To the last point, I`m wondering that as well. In my polymer compounding days, such things as a printed polymer resin would have been the stuff of witchcraft! lol
How times change. :)
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I know some of my old Star Wars figures, stored in a box for 40 some odd years have become discolored and the surface has a distinct tacky feel.
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So apparently this is an actual thing.
I had to check for myself, as I have a set of Airfix NATO Grond Crew, which I must have bought almost 40 years ago, but they're still as spry and bendy as they were back then. I suppose there was a large range of plastic types and qualities back then, just as there are now.
I've always advocated varnishing miniatures, and not only on top, but also on the bottom. Because the vast majority of my miniatures are on either slotta bases or Renedra plastic ones, and those can still interact with their environment through their undersides.
Now, my miniatures are mostly displayed in glass cabinets with glass shelves, but I know many will store their miniatures in foam trays, on wooden shelves or on magnetic strips. And most of those materials can potentially chemically interact with plastics.
So sealing everything would be a smart move IMHO. I am of no illusion about the eternal value of my miniature collection, but I would like for them to not deteriorate in my own lifetime ;)
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Yes, but you need to think of future archaeologists. How else are we going to convince folk hundreds of years hence that there was a small but seemingly influential warrior caste who bore miniature armies to their tombs as grave goods? :D
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Why, by sealing them in airtight containers and placing them strategically around my barrow of course! :D
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As with lead rot and other material breakdown, its partially material quality, as with metal miniatures, some of them are better than others and some even down to batches depending on what the manufacturer ordered and received in regards to casting metal.
Its possible to have a very good old mini, but someone else have a crap one of the same type from roughly the same period.
So I am not surprised there are issues.
I am the same page as Daeothar regard completely varnish/sealing minis, with a good varnish to reduce or stop the outgassing or chemical reactions leading to degradation/further degradation.
I will be interested to hear in years to come about how "old" resin prints etc degrade over time.
Sadly Currently, my Barrow plans are on hold, as I need to dig it and my better half veto'ed the idea of me using the garden or under the house.
The local council are also unsupportive as apparently Barrow building on the allotment is NOT the type of barrow allowed on the plot ::)
I may have to settle for being buried under the lead mountain instead.
But i like the idea, so will give it further thots. My main concern though is grave robbers, small scale thieves looking for any OOP stock they might have heard are buried under my knackered and lacquered, triple varnished outgassing corpse.
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How does your local municipal authority feel about Pyramids? lol
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Not my first choice, but they denied my request for a burning drakar, so I have put out some feelers just in case ;D
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they denied my request for a burning drakar
So, I have been told that someone actually did this in the gaming industry. I am not a primary source on this, but a friend told me that he attended the burning Viking Ship burial for one of the main people behind Ral Partha Miniatures (located here in Ohio, my state). They said it was very hush hush, and only people who were close friends were invited.
Once again, second hand info that I can't vouch for its accuracy... :D
Mike Demana
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Of course being a 28mm MDF longship, it only went a little way towards the total immolation of the corpse.
Fortuantely, old car tyres and petrol are your friends in these circumstances. If you have a sufficiently steep incline and can manage to wedge the corpse into the tyres it can make for a spectacular spectator event :D
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Ah, no worries there, just upsize to a worn out tractor tire. You can fit two or three corpses in one of those. The only challenge is getting the heavy bastard rolling. One it’s in motion, though, impressive!
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one thing in common with all my plastic figures which went brittle; they were all painted or undercoated with enamel paints. The ones painted with acrylics are fine.
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Yeah; I understand the oils are a bit of a catalist when it comes to drying out.
Makes me a bit apprehensive about my copies of Hero Quest and Space Crusade as I painted all of the minis in there with enamels back in the day as well.
However. It would be interesting to see what experiences scale modelers have on this front. I mean; they've been lathering their planes, tanks and cars and what have you with oil paints since the advent of the hobby. Wouldn't this have become a well known issue by now if model kits from the fifties, sixties and seventies had been crumbling away? Or are they being held up by the glue and paint alone?
Perhaps the 'corrosion' effect does not hit polystyrene (as hard)?
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I had some big batches of Airfix from the late 70s, unpainted but based (mechanically wedged on with wood putty). Ankles and arms crumbled to dust within 20 years. They had a really bad formulation going for awhile then.
I have styrene models and ROCO vehicles from the late 60s and 70s, painted with enamels that are all holding up fine.
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And there's the thing. The assumption that all batches of similar materials are the same doesn't hold up. Pigments, additives and the chemical compounds of different manufactuers or even the same ones may change and thus alter the equation in terms of lifespan.
Zamak a metal much used in the manufacture of diecast models from the 1930s through to the 1950s developed a horrible reputation for crumbling into dust with age. yet there have been different formulations of the material over the years, just as there have been a wide variety of manufacturers of products using it. Some have crumbled, some are still goin strong almost 100 years on.
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It is only the bendy plastic which seems to go brittle. Hard polystyrene doesn't (unless you leave it out in the sun; UV will destroy it).
However, the strange rubbery tracks on old airfix tanks go sticky and will weld themselves to plastic surfaces they have been standing on
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Some of my very old Airfix figures broke or crumbled many years later. :-[
I thought perhaps because they had stayed in an attic and didn't like the cold?
Plastic is not a natural molecule...
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I've left some unassembled & unpainted resin in my garage with record level heat this summer, interesting to see if it's affected it.
(I remember people leaving GW's awful "finecast" models in the car during summer!).
The oldest 1/72 models I have are "only" 20-25 years, suffering similar mistreatment. I hope I never see them crumble
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I‘ve only recently got a good batch of my uncles Esci, Airfix, Matchbox and what not planes and ships from the 60s. All lovingly slathered in Enamels. Only thing that went bad were the decals, which turned yellow and partly flaked off just by looking at them. The latter probably because they weren‘t varnished at all bitd.