Transformers Plastic Types
Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2019 1:27 pm
I'm a long-time transformer fan and collector, although new to the forums. I really like certain lines of Transformers toys, but dislike some other toy lines, and am not sure what the correct terms/names for what I am describing is.
It seems like when I see a Transformer toy it comes in 2 flavors:
1) Hard plastic. This includes the G1 lines, older toys, and the Transformer Animated toy line. My experience has been most of these toys have hard plastic, metal in the hinges, metal screws, and sometimes metal pieces, although the metal is the part I care about the least. For example, the Transformer Animated toys didn't have much metal but they were very sturdy and transforming them was fun. Even the recent McDonalds Transformer toys were in relatively hard plastic.
2) Soft plastic. It seems like all the newer lines I see look great in the box, but when I open them up, the plastic feels extremely soft and flimsy. The joints are often plastic on plastic, which means they tend to fall part while I am bulding them. For example, I was transforming MP-21 (Bumblebee + spike) and Spike kept falling into pieces now matter how gentle I was.
Is there a common name for what I am describing? I really miss the harder plastics and metal hinges. I feel like the new ones look nice until I transform, and they fall apart in my hands. The Transformer Animation line is the one exception. I'm not sure what they did differently but the plastic felt different.
It seems like when I see a Transformer toy it comes in 2 flavors:
1) Hard plastic. This includes the G1 lines, older toys, and the Transformer Animated toy line. My experience has been most of these toys have hard plastic, metal in the hinges, metal screws, and sometimes metal pieces, although the metal is the part I care about the least. For example, the Transformer Animated toys didn't have much metal but they were very sturdy and transforming them was fun. Even the recent McDonalds Transformer toys were in relatively hard plastic.
2) Soft plastic. It seems like all the newer lines I see look great in the box, but when I open them up, the plastic feels extremely soft and flimsy. The joints are often plastic on plastic, which means they tend to fall part while I am bulding them. For example, I was transforming MP-21 (Bumblebee + spike) and Spike kept falling into pieces now matter how gentle I was.
Is there a common name for what I am describing? I really miss the harder plastics and metal hinges. I feel like the new ones look nice until I transform, and they fall apart in my hands. The Transformer Animation line is the one exception. I'm not sure what they did differently but the plastic felt different.