I have been searching for answers to plastic rot for decades. I have had Esci, Airfix, and MPC 60mm ring hand figures all go brittle and fall apart. I have had Esci Vietnam US Army, and Esci Zulus go brittle, and I had almost 1,000 each fall apart. They were unpainted, I purchased them new in the box, they were stored in a plastic food storage container, in a drawer, in the dark, inside my home in Southern California. In the course of a year they would have been subject to temperatures ranging from a low of 40 degrees to a high of 100 degrees, but the extremes would only have been a few days per year.

I have figures that were made by Giant of Hong Kong in the 1960's and I have never had any of them go brittle. They were the cheapest figures sold, compared to Airfix the premier figure making company at the time. They were stored in the same conditions as the Esci, and were at least 10 years older than the Esci figures.

Others have told me it's due to heat and cold, temperature variation, exposure to UV light, a lack of plasticizer in in the plastic when it was injected, the addition of clay into the plastic as a filler to make the figures cheaper, painting them, not painting them, stripping paint off of them.

My experience of storing inside a sealed plastic food container, inside my home, and unpainted tells me it's not due to UV, temperature extremes, or being painted, (I don't paint my figures.) The problem seems to be limited to a few brands, and age alone is not the issue.

I have read that museums are having the same problem with items in their collections falling apart too. I suspect that some of the things I have controlled for, such as UV, probably can affect plastic, but the plastic will disintegrate without exposure to it.

My theory is that companies seeking to keep the price low added fillers to their plastic, maybe clay, maybe something else, and over time that has caused the plastic to become brittle. Every box that has brittle troops in it has a very strong "chemical" smell. That tells me the figures are releasing a gas of some kind. I have been told it is the plasticizer, the stuff that makes plastic flexible. I suspect the interaction between the filler and plasticizer causes or increases the off gassing and makes the figures brittle over time.

If you boil the figures in water for a short period of time, they will become flexible again. Until they cool. Dry cleaners use plasticizer to make vinyl more supple, but I have not been able to find one that will sell me some to try it on the troops. I have tried Armor All on my figures in an effort to revive them. I soaked about a dozen brittle figures in Armor All in a sealed glass jar, for over a year and there was no effect.

About ten years ago I sent a letter to every plastic figure manufacturer who makes 1/72nd scale plastic figures asking about the problem. Most did not bother to respond. The others said it would not happen to their brand of figures, but with no explanation why theirs would not fall victim to this problem.

My speculation is that some combination of plasticizer and heat may prove the answer to restoration of brittle figures, perhaps boiling them in plasticizer. Here is a Wiki article that explains about plasticizer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasticizer

I am not a chemist, nor a scientist, nor do I work in the plastic industry, so there are many others who can likely speak more authoritatively than I on his matter.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
https://bunkermeister.blogspot.com/

I agree with the part of Mike's assessment that points to the plastic formula. I noticed this most with Airfix. The puzzling thing is the same set will have both great plastic and crumbly plastic. For example, the Airfix Indians; I have had "blue box" era boxes that crumbled to the touch. But it couldn't be age alone because I had several sets (needed lots of Indian women for Little Bighorn, and you only get two per box, but anyway...)and so I had another blue box and even an older first version box and those figures were fine, and still are. I noticed the brittle figs often show up in those late 60s early 70s sets, like Airfix may have been experimenting with the plastic formulas.

I've had lots of brittle Indians, Wagon Train, Zoo Animals, Tarzan and WWI sets. There are probably others. And it couldn't be only the way they are stored, because all my figs are housed in the same conditions and cabinets, and many are from the same points in time. Only the Airfix is doing this.

And honestly, I really only notice it on figs I buy currently, not the stuff I had as a kid (so they don't seem to be degenerating in situ, at least mine aren't. Which again, points to the actual plastic they were made of). Maybe whole batches were run in bad plastic, and you never know which auction one of those will show up in. Or maybe there are certain regions or countries where many of these batches show up (although most of the brittle things I've bought have come as often as the US as the UK.).

It makes me hesitant to buy Airfix on ebay (because you can't touch them first). This really makes a case for re-running all the Airfix molds in existence. Even though the argument is "Hey, I already have those!", well, you may need to replace them, and hopefully with new plastic that has worked out the plastic formula so these things will outlive me.

There are some interesting & well thought out explanations here. I too have only had trouble with airfix figures mind you 99% of my old figures are airfix.
The only solution I have heard is to place the figures in car brake fluid for a short while then remove & rinse in water I have not tried this myself but I read about it on another forum somewhere.:wink:

In my experience, worst brittle figures are mostly older (not all) Airfix Terracotta or Brick color sets, Wagon Train, ACW Artillery, Indians etc. and Blue ACW Infantry, the color White Arabs and Farm Animals. Next are the Esci Zulus run before their latest reissue. Older soft Light Brown just fall apart. Not the Darker, meaning it's likely the plastics formula. The newest set is a stiffer, darker plastic that seems nice. Equally frustrating is my Imex and Emhar sets with that stiff purportedly poseable plastic. The thin parts such as with the Mexican Round Hats with Lances break off with very little handling, and even new in the box still.

In gold mining, companies used to use PVC pipes for claim staking in the desert during the 1980's to 1990's. It took about 3 years and they would just start crumbling in the hot sun. So the regulations were changed to go back to using wood posts to avoid the mess that resulted. All pipes had to be changed out to wood. So, yes, plastic is effected by sun. Some moreso than others.

Personally, I think it's both the plastic formula sometimes used, as well as exposure to sun. All of my collection goes into plastic hobby/fishing tackle boxes then Sterilite plastic drawers.

Anything I buy that's brittle off of eBay, like old Airfix, gets returned to the seller. Luckily some sellers will spread out an old set with broken parts, especially Airfix Arabs, and you can see that you don't want to buy it.

There is no such thing as reincarnating old, brittle, plastic, anythings, so stay away from them and buy new products from our great makers today. I do love my Imex Mexican Round Hat Lancer figures, but I know to handle them with respect knowing I just need to be more careful.

I think the best vintage, old plastic ever used was with the old Giant Plastics Corp. out of Hong Kong in the 1960's. Never had one broken, but many off of eBay with kids teeth chew marks. Now that's quality.

Airfix are the oldest and therefore most likely to be susceptible to any deterioration due to age, Esci are also prone to it, Matchbox aside everyone else has come years later so it may still happen to those as well. All plastics break down in time some taking longer than others, and I don`t think you can stop it, just slow it down by keeping them out of the sun and away from heat etc .

I encountered this problem multiple times with the ESCI Vietnam War U.S. Elite Forces set last year. It took me three tries before I got a set with sturdy plastic that didn't fall apart when I tried to cut the figures from the sprue. I'm wondering if the clay method that Mike was talking about was used often with this particular set.

I've had the same experience with the same figures as it is already been mentioned I've got I've got. I've got 70000 + figures that I've been collecting since 1968.

I did some research and some digging on it a few months ago and I found out that airfix use chalk as a filler in their plastic in the 60s and early 70s. So I guess it's got something to do with the plastic composition.

Some figures seem to be just fine and others just crumble when I touch them. I did a random check on my collection and I figure I've got seven to 10% breakage. I also had this problem with the Italeri silver figures and some of the Zvezda Napoleonic French.

My guess it's got something to do with the plastic composition and there's really not much you can do about it except keep them out of the Sun and extremes of heat and cold and plan on replacing them periodically. A dealer told me one time to store lemon bags with few drops of baby oil but all I got were oily figures and fingers.

Oh and I forgot to mention Mike I know exactly what you're talking about when you mention that "chemical"smell.

Yes, Gary W Panter, it's very distinctive. Once you smell it you know it forever.
Mike Bunkermeister Creek

I have written before on this. I don't like the term rot as it implies some neglect or infection like wood suffers. ALL plastic is going to decompose despite the eco police warnings of it being forever.
decompose--(with reference to a chemical compound) break down or cause to break down into component elements or simpler constituents.
When sets fragment or become brittle then the best thing to do is to throw them away and console yourself they didn't cost a lot and only diamonds are forever and they do cost a lot. It seems like some of us could have got the Koh i Noor for what we have spent on plastic figures. Those people have permission to bawl.
Some alsothink encasing figures in Carbonite or Kryptonite works. Well it works in the films so why not.
Any of us aware of Novichok or Sarin may have noticed the diagrams are similar to the ones for plastic so it is in the arcane world of organic chemistry that plastics live.
The term plastic means malleable so when it loses its malleability( ie becomes brittle) then it is decomposing and especially noticeable with polyethylene. Other plastics such as styrene have less flex and therefore harder to spot the decomposition of the "chains". Hydrocarbons are the essence of the whether the plastic has a strong or weak "backbone". The backbone is the bit that gives the strength and malleability in the compositional structure. Of all the plastics polyethylene (polymers of Ethylene hence name) doesn't wear well especially in bright sunlight. Some polyethylene will eat into polystyrene such as Dragon models flexible tank tracks do for example. My polyethylene washing up bowl has absorbed copper from my colander so you can see the looseness of the chains works in lots of different ways.
Smell is not always the best indicator. Some smell more than others(Caesars figures were so smelly I had to use a face mask). My figures always produce a rich smell which tells me the whole lot are decomposing (shedding ethylene) but to me it is like the actors/clowns smell of the greasepaint(also an oily smell). I love it (love both). My oldest Strelets of 17 yrs seem OK and I am pretty sure they have the edge on me for durability.

Alright, O'B - Please enlighten us in the simplest of terms as to what it is that makes the old GIANT plastic still feel and flex like brand new plastic soldiers still after 60 years, reminder in simple terms - What did they do RIGHT that old Airfix and some others did that has disappointed us?

Differences in plastic quality and manufacture can cause this problem, basically the plastic looses the chemical that makes it flexible over time, some plastics dont have these particular plasticisers so are unaffected, eventually though all such plastic (with platicisers) will go brittle, this could take hundreds of years or just a few...
generally it seems to be confined to a relatively small percentage of plastic that goes brittle in relatively short time ie say 5-30 years or so, and it will likely be a particular batch... with airfix it seems to be very early 70s or late blue box...
Theres is no way of halting it short of recycling the plastic...

:wink: