The Energon Pub

I have been a serious collector since my teens in the wondrous 80's. I've spent time, effort and money constructing a toy room that I can be proud of and that people routinely say "Holy SH**!!!" when they see it for the first time. Its been a culmination of years and years of love for a hobby I've carried into my forties with me. I have TFs vintage to current including Japanese vintage, Micronauts/Microman, Power Rangers/Sentai, Zoids, Exosquad, Gundam, Legos/Bionicles/Megabloks, MOTU and a plethora of other items on display. It's been a lifetime hobby and a HUGE investment over the years.

But today, for the first time, I started to doubt.

I had read a thread about cracking tires on the RID figures, so I went to my shelves and sure enough, Prime's tires were cracked in half (the Japanese one that I keep combined with Magnus was fine, though), and X-Brawn's were on their way to the same fate. Additionally, I noticed that some of my vintage figs like Inferno also have cracked tires.

This is'nt the first time this kind of thing has happened to me, but each time it happens it discourages me just a bit more. I was told as a child that if I took care of my toys, they would last. I believed it. But despite my tenderest treatment of my collection, despite the fact that these things just sit on their shelves in a clean, dust, smoke, and sunlight free room that is always at a consistent moderate temperature, they keep breaking down into their component atoms one piece at a time.

I've had the wings fall off my Master Gundam 7 inch figure because the hinges disintegrated. I've had chrome spontaneously peel off Ranger, Transformer, Microman, and Gundam toys despite the fact that I never touch the chrome (a lesson learned back in the 80's with my vintage TF's). I've had ball joints on figures split without provocation, pvc figures bleed and discolor, paint crack, decals drop off like dead skin, parts snap off with only the gentlest movement. Now splitting tires. And these things have gotten only the barest minimum of handling. Now, its not like my whole collection is falling apart, but this "piece here, piece there" bit is starting to get discouraging all the same.

It almost feels like I've got a room full of stuff that will in very short order simply disintegrate into a pile of plastic dust. No amount of care seems to stave off the relentless force of Toy Entropy. I almost wonder if it might be better to sell it all while its still sellable, cause each thing that suffers said breakdowns becomes instantly worthless; so much for my investment.

It leads me to wonder if it's wise to collect things that simply will not last.

Now that my long editorial is done, anyone else feeling the same way?

Nothing lasts forever, so enjoy it while you can.

If you consider your collection to be an "investment", then you should have it locked up in a cool dark room in sealed packages. If you want to actually enjoy them, though, you have to get rid of the thought that you're going to make a bunch of money off of them some day.

Well, the investment thing was always really secondary to just having the figures and enjoying them. I mean, its nice to know that if I REALLY need to I can sell some items on E-bay for some extra cash, but that was never the actual goal. I'm referring to it as an "investment" more along the lines that it would be nice if they at least lasted a while for the money I paid for them, but realistically, it doesn't look like this is going to be the case with every item.
Still, it really is a sinking feeling to take a look at at something you haven't touched in a while only to find that it has "died" at some point without you even suspecting that it had happened.

Even the Mona Lisa is falling apart.

I'm right in there with trying to maintain a pristine collection, but there are limits to what you can preserve and enjoy at the same time.

If I were to wreck something because I was dumb and left it in light, that's one thing, but naturally occuring disintegration is just something you can't worry about.

As much as I love having a big collection, I have to remember to enjoy it more than I have to worry about it because otherwise it's just a liability.

Just this week I noticed that my Super Speedbreaker/ Red Side Burn has a hardened, cracked wheel. It was the one that folds into his chest in robot mode. My other RiD figures seem okay, except Magnus is yellowing slightly.

Some of the cloaks and rubbery parts on my Lord of the Rings figures are leaking and becoming sticky, as are many of my old childhood toys such as TMNT, Ghostbusters and Thundercats.

Very sad. The RiD and LotR toys are less than ten years old....I expected them to last longer than this!

I think this shows an emerging need for proffesional toy restoration services. That could be a big new market that hasn't been tapped into yet. We do it for cars, works of art and architecture, why not toys?

Toy restoration...a capital idea! Like that old guy in Toy Story 2.

Since we're on the subject of restoration, anyone know how to repair those RID Prime tires so they at least LOOK good again?

I haven't had any of my TF's fall apart on me yet, but all of my GI Joes are snapped at the waist due to the rubber band breaking in the middle.

I guess you just have to enjoy your stuff while you have it. I don't leave any of my toys in the packages. I know I could re-sell them later, but I don't know if I will. I enjoy playing with them too much.

As others have mentioned, playing with the toys works for me. If they break after I've played with 'em at least they've had a good innings. And chances are they'll be rereleased or updated if I stick around long enough.

I feel your pain. I don't have a huge collection (only 215 figures), but I've had some figures start yellowing just a bit which is driving me nuts. My RID Magnus isn't the whitest it could be, and neither is my Beastwars Tigerhawk. I don't understand why this is happening because I've always kept those particular figures either in storage or at least on display in my closet (away from sunlight). I've also seen a bit of discoloration on my Technobots for some reason.

Thankfully, none of the tires have cracked and neither has the hose on my Shockwave, though the figure's screws seem to be giving away for some reason I can't figure out. Sometimes I wonder if the hobby's worth it because it seems as if the toys are going to just turn into dust in 5 or 10 years. However, it's great just admiring the figures while I have them, so I guess it is worth it.

I wonder if the tire problem is caused by the room being too dry? It would seem like it if wasn't humid enough that the tires would eventually "dry" up and crack. I'd be curious to hear some thoughts from people about what they think would be the best temperature level and humidity level and why. I imagine it'd go something like "too dry, tires crack" and "too humid, metal rusts".

I think some of it just has to do with the initial materials used to make the figure. However, I do think "taking care" of your figures goes a long, long way. My original Bumblebee figure is absolute crap. It was also my very first Transformer which got tons of play time. The tires have "rotted" (cracked/hardened) and the toy is just crap. I have another Bumblebee that I bought at a Transformers convention in '97 that is still in absolutely beautiful condition today.

I have a G1 Starscream that used to look fine 10 years ago but it is my best (worst?) example of a yellowed figure. It's really bad!

There's an interesting thread that I've been following at thetf.net about how to FIX yellowed figurs. It's a very interesting read.

http://www.thetf.net/forum_posts-TID-13204-PN-1.htm

Hydrogen Peroxide, well I'll be. I suppose it makes sense though, they use it to bleach hair, after all. I love the safety warnings. Around here, it's used to clean out cuts and scrapes pretty regularly. Granted, that's probably a milder solution than the 30% they're talking of in that thread. However, this does beg the question, will regular household hydrogen peroxide work as well, maybe just take a little longer?

Savage wrote:Hydrogen Peroxide, well I'll be. I suppose it makes sense though, they use it to bleach hair, after all. I love the safety warnings. Around here, it's used to clean out cuts and scrapes pretty regularly. Granted, that's probably a milder solution than the 30% they're talking of in that thread. However, this does beg the question, will regular household hydrogen peroxide work as well, maybe just take a little longer?

It'll work.

The thing about all this is and not enough people are saying it...photodegeneration is permenent. It is an irreversable chemical change.

The peroxide treatment is doing something else entirely to the plastic and we will not know what those effects are for a few years.

This peroxide treatment does NOT reverse yellowing. It is further altering the plastic in some other way.

It might be fine, it might mean that in a few years the toy yellows even faster than before.

They don't know and most of the people who claim to know are shooting bull.

(My wife is a chemical engineer. We've discussed this. It'll work, but the side effects and chemical change of the peroxide is not known yet.)

Interesting.
Yellowing is like Unicron, defeat him once, but he's always lurking somewhere, ready to re-enter your universe at any moment.

If you go to the 3rd page in that thread, you'll see a guy who did the household 3% with a UV light on his Cerebros figure. 24 hours later and a few new stickers it looks brand new! I'm so buying a UV light in the near future to give this a try.

My question is do you think you have to leave the container covered or do you want it uncovered? Should there be holes in the cover or is it fine if it's covered completely? Is there any way that this could cause an explosion or fire?

Seibertron wrote: Is there any way that this could cause an explosion or fire?

The short answer to that question is, 'yes'.

Explosions like that aren't dynomite style explosions though. Think glass bursting, pressure, etc.

It's not the safest practice in the world and should definately be done outside.

Counterpunch wrote:

Seibertron wrote: Is there any way that this could cause an explosion or fire?

The short answer to that question is, 'yes'.

Explosions like that aren't dynomite style explosions though. Think glass bursting, pressure, etc.

It's not the safest practice in the world and should definately be done outside.

That's why I'm thinking that the 3% solution would be best in a container with holes in it so that once the oxidation happens (or whatever) and the gas is given off it will escape through the holes instead of putting pressure on the container to the point where it explodes.

CP is right about the chemical change. Although, the effects from this will not be made known for a while the process is still altering the plastic to an extent.

I'm not 100% sure what all is being changed though since this method seems to only make yellowed areas go back to their original state. SOmething is going on with the unaffected areas, but I can't figure out what exactly at this time. It may be worth making a miroscope slide using a mix of the peroxide and yellowed plastic. It may show us what exactly is going.

I think this is only affecting the pigment in the plastic though. It seems as though the plastic maintains its original strength, but I'm more concerned about the pigment here since that's what makes this project so intriguing. It almost seems to good to be true.

I've never been a proper collector, so my word on this matter is likely not to be much help to those who take this stuff much more seriously. I think it goes without saying we all like to keep our toys intact, and that's not something I'm not good at either. HOWEVER I do have some thoughts on the tire ripping problem as my own RID Prime has suffered from that very fate. Both front tires have split in exactly the same place on both sides, right through the first 'O' in 'FIRE CONVOY' and thus because of it I've grown a little fonder of the use of plastic wheels on all newer toys. On RID Ultra Magnus I've had a rather strange thing come up. One of the front tires ripped and I immediately lost track of it the instant I noticed it, and just as I went looking for it I found an old model car that happened to have rubber tires the exact same size as the one I lost to replace it with. While it no longer matches up on both sides in terms of looks, it fits and is still intact to this very day. So that's the only advice I can really give about rubber tire restoration, find a nice cheap model that has tires the same size as the ripped ones... IF you're that desperate. I'm not, I just got lucky.

Is there anything that we can use on rubber tires to prevent the cracking?

Automotive tire protectant? I've also read that white vinegar was suggested but I don't want to do that without knowing.

I'd like to protect the rubber tires on my G1's if I can and I do think it has to do with humidity levels of the place stored/displayed. The room my G1's are displayed is dry as hell due to the forced air.

Not to go off topic, but its sound like you have a great collection... do you have pics by chance? If so, I'd love to see them! Thanks

I just did a quick tire check, everything seems fine - it is a worry though, all that money and effort...

Regarding yellowing, has anyone noticed the white plastic on their City Commander Armour set discolouring? - it was brilliant white when I got it but now the white pastic armour is duller than the white on the Magnus inside it.

While we're on the subject of rubber, I'd like to extend a word of caution in regards to the leader class movie Megatron figures.

While I was showing my bluish gray version to a friend, the large middle finger of the left arm dropped off.

I found that the ring shaped part of the rubber finger had split, much like the tires on RID Prime had. Afterwards, I tried several methods to glue or fasten the ring closed, yet to no avail, since rubber seems to resist all attempts at repair. I ended up buying a Megs carcass off Ebay that a customizer had stripped of the head and weapon pods. After carefully tapping out the pin, I was able to replace the bum part and still have a spare in reserve if it happens again.

Near as I can figure ( and this is only a guess) the one time I transformed him into his alt mode is what did it. you are supposed to fold the middle finger in so it fastens into the hole on the inside of the forearm. It seems that maybe this just stretches the ring too much, causing it to crack.

So treat your leader Megs' hands with utmost care!!!

Craven Knight wrote:I just did a quick tire check, everything seems fine - it is a worry though, all that money and effort...

Regarding yellowing, has anyone noticed the white plastic on their City Commander Armour set discolouring? - it was brilliant white when I got it but now the white pastic armour is duller than the white on the Magnus inside it.

YES he's no longer a centre piece

I haven't had a lot of problems with my TF's in this regard. I can't easily get to my RID Prime or Magnus to check their wheels at the moment, but just about a month ago I had out my three RID Autobot cars and they all were fine.

As for yellowing, again, not so much on my TF's, but my original GI Joe Storm Shadow is yellowing like a mother****er. My SNES somehow has yellowed, too, which is really weird because it was never white to begin with, rather some crappy purplish grey color Nintendo of America was obsessed with back in the 16bit era. Now it looks like someone left it in a bucket of pee for 10 years. My NES still looks pretty good, though, go figure.