Why Do Action Figures Turn Yellow, Fade & Break? The Science Explained

[00:00:00]For all of you chemical engineers and all those people that know the intricacies of plastic and how it works, don't have a go at me if I explain this in a very simple way. I'm going to I'm going to simplify things very very much for myself and for the people that don't know. Right. There are essentially we'll call them three areas of different types of plastic within an action figure. And I'm using a stormtrooper here. And I know it's old-fashioned, I know it's five points of articulation, but it's probably the epitome of plastic degradation.

[00:00:30]Sounds like a key to that.

[00:00:32]So, ABS.

[00:00:34]That is Here we go. Acrylon I can't say it. Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene. That's what ABS stands for if you didn't know. Well, now you do. But that is essentially this middle bit.

[00:00:49]And if you can hear it, it's hard and it's echoey. And it is ABS in the center torso. Now, because the the helmet is molded in with the torso on the stormtrooper, it's that's ABS as well. But usually in the Star Wars figures anyway, the the center torso is ABS, which is that sort of hollow and rigid it's hollow because it's two halves. And they they trap all the appendages, the arms, the legs, and the head although not in this case and the legs all go into the center torso.

[00:01:20]So, the torso has to be separated in and and two pieces that traps and it's rigid. It's hard. It's much harder than anything else.

[00:01:29]You can hear it. ABS.

[00:01:30]Then when we have the appendages, the arms and the legs and the head although not in this one, that is usually PVC.

[00:01:35]Now, PVC is polyvinyl chloride. And PVC is a little bit more bendy.

[00:01:40]It's a little bit more flexy. You see that little flex in there?

[00:01:44]And it's solid. It's a solid mold. So, you all the plastic is poured in and it's a whole it's solid it's plastic all the way through and it gives you a dead I've no idea if this sounds any different by the way.

[00:01:56]But it's it's solid. It's solid plastic. So it absorbs torque. So this is the bits you play with, right? These are moving the legs and I'm bending the legs and everything. So it needs a little bit of flex, so it doesn't snap and brittle and shatter. And then you have, and it doesn't show it on here, the little joint disc. So in a in a super articulated figure, I have discs. You can see the knee there.

[00:02:19]There's a little disc piece inside.

[00:02:21]That's usually That's either made out of polypropylene PP or more common nowadays is POM, which is Here we go. Poly polyoxymethylene.

[00:02:30]Ah, that's quite easy to say. And these are small internal discs and they are super tough, super hard, and very rigid, and they can withstand thousands of repeated flexes because that's what you're flexing all the time. So they're the three essential types of plastics that go into into action figures. Now, to get to your question, how do they degrade?

[00:02:54]Three types of degradation. So ABS is notorious for yellowing. You can see there, nice and clean, and then it goes yellow.

[00:03:01]Why? UV yellows ABS over a period of 5 to 15 years. It just reacts. That type of plastic it is is highly reactive, more reactive than the others I'd say, to UV light, and that eventually goes yellow, and then because it's already pretty brittle, like you can shatter ABS, but over time, over 20 to 40 years, that gets very, very, very very brittle. So our Star Wars figures are getting very, very, very brittle. All right, so careful, don't stomp on them. The PVC, the polyvinyl chloride, you can't read that cuz I'm showing you comments at the top.

[00:03:37]Heat and sealing, which is interesting, we'll talk about that in a minute, turns PVC sticky. You know when you get a when you know when you get a figure and it's a little sticky? It's called leaching, and it's all the oils, all the plasticizers coming out of the plastic. So, what is a plasticizer? So, a plasticizer is a chemical that is mixed in with the plastic that helps it flex. It It creates the amount of flexibility. The more plasticizer you put in it, the more flexible the plastic is, the more bendy it is. So, if it's less bendy, it gets it gets to be a little brittle and you can probably break it or twist it, but if too bendy and it gets all floppy and and icky. But, the more plasticizer that's in it, the more that plasticizer leaches out because it never fully bonds with the plastic. It's always sort of mixed up, but it always, over time, starts going to separate from the actual plastic and comes to the surface, which is why it gets sticky. And it creates vapor, very very slightly, won't kill you.

[00:04:35]>> [sighs and gasps] >> Seldom leave more than this. If you get that reference, you're old as me. So, if you put that in a box with others or you put it in a box if you leave it in its pack, it's actually more susceptible to leaching because the vapors are escaping and they can't get out. They can't escape within the confines of the how you're keeping and storing it and therefore can actually make it leach more.

[00:04:58]So, keeping it in its pack actually makes it leach more.

[00:05:01]Now, if you keep it in its pack forever and ever and ever, who cares cuz you're not touching it. POM is really really hard and can last thousands thousands of stretching and it's really hard to break.

[00:05:11]You get it cold, that can snap.

[00:05:14]Now, who of you who've got an action figure who've just been delivered and you're living maybe a cold environment and you go to bend the leg and snap, that comes off. That's cuz the POM is cold. The POM The POM plastic in that joint can actually react very nast not very nastily. It's not very uh It's very reactive to cold and so cold can shatter your POM. Sounds painful, doesn't it? Really good question and it was good to just refresh my memory.

[00:05:43]And uh there are loads of other different plastics and I'm sure there are lots of intricacies that I am not saying, but in essence ABS is hard and brittle and yellows and eventually goes crumbly. PVC is flexible and solid and it's its flexibility makes it leech and oils leak out and POM is super rigid except when you get it cold. It's like it's like it's kryptonite. You put kryptonite put cold to a POM and it can be quite dangerous. So make sure when you get your figures in you let them warm up get to room temperature before you go posing them. Uh cuz I don't like it when things like that snap and break.