WG resin and GW plastic - the chemistry seems a bit off

[Westfalia Chris]

Hi all,

I normally don't do these kind of posts, but this morning I noticed something that might be of interest to others, as well.

In late November 2019, I painted up one of Warlord Games' Dalek Genesis Ark models, which appears to be made of the hard resin they also use for their vehicle kits (I've only built the plastic ones so far, which I take to be hard polystyrene). Out of a whim, I used a GW plastic flying base with the stem cut down to about 6-8mm to give it a bit of a floating effect.

Colour me surprised as I saw the model in the cabinet today and found the stem had softened so much much that the actual miniature hat but fallen off. In addition, there seems to be some "frosting" or "flowering" inside the actual base propagating from the stem hole. The deformed part is slightly rubbery to the touch, i.e. yielding but not sticky.

The base wasn't actually glued in, but rather push-fit into a drilled hole that had been painted over with Vallejo acrylics.

In any case, no apparent damage was done to the Ark model. I've had issues in the past with vinyl parts bleeding out softener to damage adjacent plastic (e.g. Patlabor mechs, vinyl tires on unvarnished diecast car wheel hubs), but never encountered the issue with resin vs. hard polystyrene (which I take the flying bases are made out of, please correct me if I'm wrong - it might be ABS, if that comes in transparent). Given the look of the base (pics attached below), I strongly suspect a chemical reaction between the two.

I thought it might be of interest since it could also affect models or conversions incorporating both materials. Maybe a layer of CA glue between the two might help, but I am rather baffled by this, and that it only took less than a year.

[OSHIROmodels]

It must be something gassing off from the resin kit although I’ve never seen it like that before.

Could be the paints perhaps? Anything solvent based used for the model?

[Westfalia Chris]

It must be something gassing off from the resin kit although I’ve never seen it like that before.

Could be the paints perhaps? Anything solvent based used for the model?

Vallejo Model Color water-based acrylics only, and a thin layer of water-based gloss varnish.

As I wrote, I have seen similar effects on vinyl vs. hard plastic, but not so far with resin.