Certain figures are sticky. What is the cause?

[Reptilia]

Aging might be a factor, yes. Also how you take care of your figures, where you storage them, if you ever clean or wash them, etc.

[sauroid]

My guess it has to do with how they're made? Like the certain type of paint or something....? Or it could be the age? I mean when stuff gets older the plastic/ vinal will do weird things... it's my only guess!

i think it only depends on certain types of plastic. i have 50 year old MPC plastic figures i inherited from my dad (when he got them in the early 70s as a child) and they look as good as new altho two generations of children played with them.

[postsaurischian]

My guess it has to do with how they're made? .......

Definitely! Since my only sticky figure is the Paraceratherium, stored between 25 other mammal figures, this must be the reason. And the figure is only a few years old. I also have figures from the early 70s my dad, I mean I () got as a child and that still look like new.

[sauroid]

whoah you look too young to be a kid from the early 70s Helge!

[postsaurischian]

This will surely change when my hair will be getting completely grey throughout the next years .

[Carnosaur]

Dust can also be a factor.
Figures on shelves sit for long periods of time collecting it.
We only see dust when it becomes thick, and when we clean we dont usually get it all.
without a good cleaning it can make a figure sticky.

Also most plastic has a chemical fire suppressor mixed in.
over time it can leak out of the plastic. this is especially true in older pieces.
and is one of the reasons white plastic turns yellow. along with age and sunlight.

Speaking of sunlight, keep your toys out of direct sunlight. it will age the plastic faster.
and bleach any colors on the toy.

[Shonisaurus]

Thanks for the information, by the way, how often do you have to clean the dinosaur figures? I do it once a year. Is that enough?

[docronnie]

I answered a TV host same with your answer and my fellow collector looked horribly surprised! 😂😂😂

I guess he cleans his collections once a month. 😇

[Carnosaur]

Thanks for the information, by the way, how often do you have to clean the dinosaur figures? I do it once a year. Is that enough?

once a year is probably not enough.
Would you let dust settle on your furniture for a year?
Probably not.

[CityRaptor]

BUMP!

Now , let's make this thread sticky!

[DragonRider02]

Some Time ago I was looking for something in my plastic container where I keep all my cheap chinese plastic dinosaurs from my childhood and noticed that my fav Tyrannosaurus is...wet. He was covered in some oil-like fluid. No other Dino was wet, so it must be something only with the Rex. I have simply washed him and putted him in my desk's drawer to keep eye on him and see if he gets wet again..

Also, my CollectA Gigantoraptor got kinda rubberish...ugh

[Shonisaurus]

In some dinosaurs or prehistoric animals I wonder can it be manufacturing errors? I just bought a Pataspo 2018 bittergasaurus yesterday and it has a rubbery texture, spongy and prone to my coming back with sticky weather, regardless of whether that figure is cleaned every twenty days.

What I said in the thread of Papo 2018 and hopefully I'm wrong. Some figures may be deteriorated because before they were put into circulation they already had manufacturing errors. 

[Reptilia]

Poor Papo Amargasaurus, it's sticky too!

[DinoToyForum]

I stickied the sticky topic. 

[Libraraptor]

I stickied the sticky topic. 

[Lanthanotus]

When I started collecting dinosaur figures "seriously" just like three years back I also searched my parent's attic for some old figures. We threw almost nothing away, so all the old figures were there, not only dinosaurs but all kind of plastic toys (Lego, Kenner SW, Playmobil, Schleich, Bullyland, UKRD, two Carnegies, you name it). But despite having been stored for 25 years in an uninsulated attic, which experiences a high climb and drop in temperature every day and gets freezing cold aswell as scalding hot, all the stuff seems to have faired quite well. Some white Legos are a bit yellowish and several figures are a bit warped due to being stored carelessly with a lot of peers but that's it.

[ITdactyl]

The reason the figures become sticky is because of the plasticizer used when making them. This plasticizer is added to the PVC (the main material used in figures) in order to make it softer – the more mixed in with the PVC, the softer and more flexible it becomes.

However, over a long period of time this plasticizer vaporizes, and when this happens while a figure is sealed up in it's box the vaporized plasticizer has nowhere to go, and thus sticks onto the surface of the figure creating a sticky layer.

Took that quote from "Kahotan's blog" - 'thought it's a good explanation for what's happening.  It seems to be a better idea to display/keep toys in a ventilated room away from direct sunlight as opposed to keeping them in their packages or "in a tub".

If you read through plastic manufacturer's chemistry white papers, they seem to claim that plasticizers are not supposed to leach out of the PVC that they're bonded to.  Aside from other toy blogs/fan sites, I have not found any manufacturer documentation that admits plasticizers can leach out of their products. 

Unless we get a comprehensive list of the plastics used for our favorite toys (the same way we ask for the ingredients of our food/medicine or the fibers of our clothes etc.) we won't really know why certain toys get sticky and others do not.

[Megalosaurus]

Helo.
My TMNT toys from the 80ths were stored in cardboard boxes for years. I took them out to mount a display, but some of them were sticky. I washed them with liquid dish soap (lemon scent) but the stickiness was still present. I let them to dry and the stickiness is much less noticeable now. It seems it was the exposure to the air what helped the most with the stickiness. Be aware I live in a very warm place.

[Pachyallosaurus]

For those who have old Carnegies such as the maiasaura and deinonychus, what type of stickiness is a result of degrading plastic? I keep them in a room with ceiling lights and I wonder if I should be concerned. Also, I've tried leaving them out under shade. That seemed to work, but I can't tell if I feel the natural texture of the plastic or a sticky layer.

[Pachyallosaurus]

And how much sunlight is too much for these figures? If I wanted to take pictures of these figures outside, would I still be able to do that if I found a shady area?