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I am beyond impressed with your gallery of Black Zarak. Bravo! Were there any dicey bits with the Gold Plastic? I thought I remember hearing a PhD Chemist, wife of one of the podcasters, explained what the problem was with it, what I was unclear of, was whether there was a cure or compound you could treat it with. Thanks again for all your hard work!

Ruthless Cynic wrote:I am beyond impressed with your gallery of Black Zarak. Bravo! Were there any dicey bits with the Gold Plastic? I thought I remember hearing a PhD Chemist, wife of one of the podcasters, explained what the problem was with it, what I was unclear of, was whether there was a cure or compound you could treat it with. Thanks again for all your hard work!

As far as we know, there is no cure for gold plastic syndrome. It's just a matter of time before something happens to it. Due to my experience handling gold plastic, I know what to expect and how to reduce, but not eliminate damage. In the case of Black Zarak, it was easier to figure out where the problems would arise because it's identical to Scorponok, just with gold plastic.

I was doing really good with the shield until I knocked over Black Zarak. It was just one of those fluke moments, not thinking, in a hurry, next thing I know he knocked over. I was lucky that the shield didn't crack in half or something else that would have been catastrophic, instead, the peg hole just broke cleanly into a few pieces which I superglued back into place.

I was most scared of his tail because it's got the rivet in it. There's no back up plan for that at this time. When I had him in his serpent mode, I was very worried that the weight of the toy would make the stand collapse and the toy would fall on its gold plastic tail. Fortunately, that did not happen and the tail didn't shatter when I transformed it.

While it did not escape damage, the damage it sustained was damage I was more or less expecting. It was typical damage that one would expect to find with a Black Zarak toy. I was just plain lucky and experienced that nothing else happened while handling this toy.

About 10 years ago I bought one on ebay for around $450. Perfect condition with stickers unapplied. I hadn't heard of the gold plastic syndrome yet, so you can imagine how shocked I was when I placed the shield on his arm and the connector piece broke. I ended up selling him shortly after that, for about the same price I paid.

Oh god, just looking at this gallery is giving me anxiety about it breaking.

Of all the TFs Takara / Hasbro has ever re-released, this is one that really ought to get done.

Hell, even a 3rd party company that'd make replacement parts would be welcome by all I'd wager.

yeah, I too wish they would re-release this guy, Galaxy Shuttle, and Blue Bacachus ( sp ?)

Then my G1 collection would be finally completed, sucks they dont

Very impressive. As always the galleries were nicely done. I never knew he had a different head sculpt. I always thought it was a straight repaint. So this is the figure that started the "gold plastic syndrome" outrage ???

Impressive gallery. *Plays Taps for another Black Zarak*

This is the gun he uses to shoot out 'SUPER-MEGA-ULTRA-AWESOME-RAYS'
The box for that guy is such a nice piece of artwork too. Great gallery.