The Energon Pub

Around a month ago I decided to put the vast majority of my collection into storage, bubble wrapping each figure individually before boxing them; today it suddenly dawned on me that that might not have been the brightest move.

My question is simply – is there any problem with leaving transformers in bubble wrap for a prolonged amount of time?

Wait, what's the problem with leaving them in bubble wrap? The answer to this that states it's a problem is going to be revolutionary when I hear it, because I don't think there's anything wrong with bubble wrapping your stuff. Do you mean like they could get hot and plastic would take off the color or something? Or something about the screws not working anymore? I don't think there'd be much of a problem with it.

I mean it's not like toys give off body heat. And you're not keeping them in the sun I hope.

Oh I’m sure they aren’t going to spontaneously combust but after wrapping hundreds upon hundreds of transformers I suddenly had this mental image of opening them up in several years’ time to find the bubble wrap had reacted badly and stuck to the plastic or had removed paint.

Its better to be safe than sorry and all that jazz.

Haha, I understand that. I think they should be okay. But don't take my word for it, I don't have any degrees in the wrapping of objects with bubble-like material.

it's a fair question. apparently those plastic wallet things for comic books can actually degrade the books if they're not swapped out over time, so I can see why bubble wrap might have similar effects on plastic. I don't know the science though, so can't help you.

Where's Walter White when we need him?

craggy wrote:Where's Walter White when we need him?

He's marking homework.

Where are your figures stored?

At the moment they are just stored in a loft but they won't be up there for longer than a month, after which they will just be stored under a bed or two; so they shouldn't be getting exposed to extremes in temperature.

[quote="craggy"]it's a fair question. apparently those plastic wallet things for comic books can actually degrade the books if they're not swapped out over time, so I can see why bubble wrap might have similar effects on plastic. I don't know the science though, so can't help you.

Wait, they can? Oh snap, I left the comic that came with 25th anniversary G1 prime in it's plastic wrap... Now to find it and hope it did not melt onto the cover or something...

Krok wrote:At the moment they are just stored in a loft but they won't be up there for longer than a month, after which they will just be stored under a bed or two; so they shouldn't be getting exposed to extremes in temperature.

I don't know what part of the world you're in but lofts can get extremely hot so I'd recommend moving them asap.

The gloriously drizzly UK, so they should be ok for now.

Yeah, you're right, but the minute the sun comes out you had better move them.

I don't think you'd have your collection in danger by wrapping the items in bubble wrap for a prolonged amount of time. That being said, you can't really be 100% sure that there wouldn't be any issues.

Like the issue with comic books degrading in their plastic sleeves, it would all come down to a mixture of factors between conditions and components. For example, the comic book situation could be attributed to a whole bunch of things, like moisture getting into the sleeve and not having a chance to evaporate because it's sealed in plastic.

The same could possibly be said for TFs. Depending on how era expanding your collection is, you'd have alot of differences in plastic and paint quality between G1 stuff and Generations stuff. Paints and plastic from the 80's have a much different composition than they do now, and you could find that some aspects of some figures could be affected.

Now I'm not trying to freak you out, and have you rush to unwrap everything, there are just small chances that SOME things might be affected, even just a tiny bit.

Just don't wrap them in Newsprint........... Horrible idea

When I put some in storage or pack them away for moves I just wrap them in paper towels(plain white). Seemed like the best thing to do.