After all the Gold Plastic Syndrome horror stories I've heard about Slingshot. I've put him into a "vault". He's in a freezer ziploc bag with three desiccants, and then in a food storage container.
Phew!
I hope that saves him from GPS....
Cries and screams are music to my ears.
-Soundwave
Will this really help? BTW this really sucks we have to do this to our toys.
172 and counting. :)_
Newest addition to my collection: Generations Blitzwing
Looking for packaging for 20th Anni. Masterpiece Optimus Prime and his axe and Megatron gun. PM me if you have any of these at a reasonable price.
I guess it might help to put a figure in a safe container, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to be a guarantee that it'll escape the effects of GPS.
For more on GPS, have a look here: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/GPS
@ Minvera: I'm really hoping the ziploc bag & desiccants will help it. It doesn't sound like anybody knows what causes it (as the article you pointed out says). The storage container is just to keep weight off it from the other TFs.
Cries and screams are music to my ears.
-Soundwave
They DO know what causes it, actually. Plastic is a polymer: long chain molecules that tangle into each other. Each chain is made out of molecular links. These can crosslink with other chains to make a shape, when heated. Gold plastic has small metallic flecks mixed into the polymer. These metallic flecks don't bond with the polymer well because they're different stuff, and eventually the polymer chains around the flecks start breaking in a local scale. when one fleck is close to others, all those little areas of small polymer breakage become one big fault line of broken polymers.
I'm afraid the desiccant won't help this one, since water doesn't play into this reaction. If you could chemically purge the plastic of free radicals (chemicals that "cut in" on the chains), that would help, but you'd have to melt the plastic to get at the inner molecules.
Just don't touch him. Or breathe on him.
SEALED SAMPLES have been observed broken, in their original packages.
@ TT: Thanks for the info. I don't believe the TFwiki had any real cause info on it. I'll just tell myself it'll be fine. I'll have to purchase a G1 slingshot and spray him down gold. haha
Cries and screams are music to my ears.
-Soundwave
I'm pretty sure they don't. I've ordered from them a few times and while the shipping takes a bit it's usually worth it to see your figs look new again.
Time Traveller wrote:They DO know what causes it, actually. Plastic is a polymer: long chain molecules that tangle into each other. Each chain is made out of molecular links. These can crosslink with other chains to make a shape, when heated. Gold plastic has small metallic flecks mixed into the polymer. These metallic flecks don't bond with the polymer well because they're different stuff, and eventually the polymer chains around the flecks start breaking in a local scale. when one fleck is close to others, all those little areas of small polymer breakage become one big fault line of broken polymers.
I'm afraid the desiccant won't help this one, since water doesn't play into this reaction. If you could chemically purge the plastic of free radicals (chemicals that "cut in" on the chains), that would help, but you'd have to melt the plastic to get at the inner molecules.
Look at you, all grown up and explaining chemistry. All that time working in that lab must be paying off.