Bumblevivisector wrote:I'd need to dig out my Electro and see if time has caught up with him, but I think he's a good example of how Gold-Plastic-Syndrome varies by batch. The Cybertronian G2 guidebook claims he didn't suffer from it, unlike G2 Slingshot who hit shelves less than 3 months before these four (this may vary by region, but around Detroit, G2 Combaticon and Aerialbot limbs came out in November of '93, while the Laser Rods and Rotor Force were out in January of '94, possibly even before Onslaught and Silverbolt, IDR), so even if GPS gets worse over time, that couldn't account for the difference; one run of Electros must have just been mixed up better than the others and not swirled as bad.
Don't let my gallery of Electro fool you. All Electros have Gold Plastic Syndrome. It's the knees and the elbows that are the biggest problem on him.
I did a couple of things with Electro after I finished his vehicle mode photos. First, I boiled him in water. I figured what the hell do I have to lose? It helped that I had 3 sealed ones to work with in case one broke. I hoped that by boiling him that it might soften up the plastic a little bit. Just seemed like something new to try since boiling water solves a lot of other issues (stress marks, bent rubber pieces, etc). The batteries already did not work and there is no removing the batteries since the screw goes into gold plastic so I figured a little water wasn't going to cause any more damage.
After his 20 second bath, I soaked his various joints with some of Ace Hardware's Lub-E (basically a plastic safe version of WD40). After doing that, I carefully studied the figure to determine where I thought gold plastic would be the biggest issue and determined what parts of the toy I could put pressure on so that I could transform him. The knees and the elbows were the most difficult parts. I then reapplied very generous amounts of the Lub-E on the elbows and knees until it loosened up enough that I was able to transform those parts with ease.
Once I transformed him fully, I ran him under hot water to get the Lub-E off of him. His joints continue to move freely after doing this, as you can see from all of the various poses I put him in throughout the gallery.
I am very lucky that he survived the gallery process. I put the toys through a lot in these galleries. Electro is also top heavy so he likes to fall backwards, which happened at least a half dozen times throughout the photoshoot. Fortunately, he didn't shatter.
If you look at Electro's windows, you'll see that something coated the inside of the windows. I'm not sure if it was steam/boiling water that caused a problem with the windows, or if the Lub-E dried up or became discolored from the hot water. Something weird happened.
Unfortunately, I forgot to remove the sticker from his chest before doing all of this. The sticker got a little damaged or discolored.
Considering the alternatives, I'll take a little damaged sticker and "fogged up" windows over a broken Electro.
I wish I had done more with the Lub-E on Black Zarak back when I did his gallery last year. It really did the trick with Electro. I used it on Black Zarak but not as extensively as I did on Electro.
Transform yours at your own risk, everyone. Once it's broken, that's it. I got lucky but I've also had a ton of experience with gold plastic Transformers (I think I own them all ) that help me have a good understanding of how to handle these fragile toys.
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