~ fuwa! ~

For Otaku : : By Otaku

Preventing Figure Damage in Summer

SUN draws near!   Command?

There’s little doubt that Figure collection is one of the many pulses of Otaku life to have a finger on.  It’s an expensive hobby to say the least but it is one of the most rewarding in a roundabout way.  What new figure collectors, and even some veterans of the ‘figure scene’ sometimes forget is that there are elements and forces that act against them in sometimes subtle and sometimes vulgar ways.

In this post I’ll be covering some common ‘oops’ factors and also some not so common worries about PVC figures and how things like heat, leaning, gravity and even photoshooting can lead to figurine damage.  My aim is to both refresh my own memory and keep others from having  woes with their collection.

What I am about to run through in this post doesn’t apply to ALL figures.   Older figures tend to have more problems than newer figures but it stands to be said that not all figures are created equal; each figure batch are created with different injection mixtures which can lead to different results in the end run.  When figures are cast, a number of things can come into play including mixture, ‘cook’ time (not actual cooking), which I can confirm through personal experience that sometimes even different runs of the same figure from the same manufacturer from the same point of sale can have different expectancies and resistance. 

In short, even if I warn that ‘x’ could happen, doesn’t mean it will always be that way, but it’s good to be cautious with such an investment. 

If this starts getting long, I’ll probably break it down into separate posts over a day or two.   There is much to cover!   On to the first enemy, and that’s one that roughly half the world is about to encounter… Summer (with it’s super hero sidekick: HEAT)!

 

Summer Loves your Figures…

…but your figures hate summer.

I choose Summer and Heat as my first tutorial primarily because I’ve seen a few friends lose figures to summer, and they weren’t all too happy.  Most don’t think twice that their precious PVC could be affected in such ways, and some have the background benefit of keeping their homes air conditioned - so the issue is never brought to mind.   Allow me to bring this issue to light, then!

PVC’s normal chemical melting point is 80 degrees Celcius/176 Fahrenheit, however it weakens drastically at a much lower temperature.   While we could do some severe damage to a (already long broken) figurine by exposing it to boiling water, no surprise, we kind of stumbled onto the fact that around 28-29 degrees Celcius, which is about 83 Fahrenheit, that PVC starts to get bendy.   Go above 35 degrees, and it quickly gets worse.  Very quickly.

Different mixtures and pours of PVC have different tolerances.  Some are very rigid and robust, others are more succeptible and succumb easy.  It’s not a measure of which company or ‘cheap’ figure casting, I have very expensive/high quality figures that have bent just as much as ‘mill run’ figures.  It’s more a matter of ordinance over expense.

Let’s assume for example that someone (like myself) who doesn’t have air conditioning in their home has their figurines on a shelf in a room that has relative exposure to sunlight, but no sunlight direct upon the figures.  If the room’s temperature goes up too high, some PVC will warp around nip and stress points, usually in the ankle or leg areas depending on the set of the figurine.  Over time this can cause bending, and in some cases, breakage.  For example…

My Fate Testarossa Harlaown.   (a pic of the current broken unit coming soon ._.)  This breakage is more stupidity and carelessness on my behalf rather than not thinking about Summer, but it will show the case in point well enough.

If you were reading my blog about a week ago, you may have seen a brief post before I took it down, as well as a Twitter blurb about being pissed off because I broke Fate’s Bardiche.  I was getting accumstomed to different light effects and was using a combination Full Spectrum CF for blanketing light and a directed halogen for an amber effect.   Of course, I was not paying attention to what I was putting the figure through and in the process of taking the photos, I hear this little plasticy ‘click’ and in between shots I notice something was suddenly missing.

The head of Fate’s Bardiche had warmed up to the point where it got weak, and it broke off.  Without so much as anything touching it.  

The case in point in this situation is that the ratio of size comparing the head of the weapon to the support point was exceptionally small.  It was plastic standard but had a PVC nip point, which I checked after it broke, that got too hot because of the halogen lamp.  Halogen burns bright but it also burns ridiculously hot, this heat is projected as amber light, and figures react to that.  Despite that though, the Fate figure was unscathed from the light in all other ways.   Another example…

Last summer was a really hot summer in Quebec City, temperatures regularily rose to 30-35, yet out of my entire collection only four figures actually lost anchor and went bendy on me.  In one case, I have two identical 1/6 Kasumi figures that I use as book-ends, and only one of the two warped.  Conditions were largely the same yet only one of the two shifted, the only difference is that I bought one about eight months after the other, from a separate distribution batch, the older of the two warped, after not having shifted for over eight months prior… so chances are mixtures for the PVC creation differed slightly, however; what caused the sudden change of support and consistency?  Sadly, heat was the culprit in the end.

Just a reminder, though that this isn’t a ‘make or break’ situation.  It’s not like the figure will simply melt in front of your eyes.  The transition and bending of a figure is very slow unless you go into insane heat ranges, like in the upper 40s, so this isn’t meant to be an alarmist post.  It’s more to advise and educate, so don’t go thinking your figures are doing to start doing professional ankle-limbo on you!

  

How to avoid heat damage

So the inevitable questions:  How do I stop this from happening?  How can I tell if a figure has started to warp?  If one is bent, how do I return it to original shape?

Prevention is the name of the game really.  Having your figures away from direct sunlight is a surefire way to avoid unwanted softening.  Keeping room temperature lower than 30 Celcius is also recommended, though that number is kind of aribitrary and is a general safe point.  Going above that means that the PVC will start to lose strength, especially if your figures incorporate non-balanced poses or strange weighting.

If you can’t tell via naked-eye if your figure is bending, a surefire way of finding out is by taking the original box for the figure if you still have it and take the plastic packaging that came with and compare its shape to the pinch mold they use for shipping.  Since the figure should nearly glove-fit the mold, if you get any strange resistance or refusal to fit, you can say with certainty if something’s shifted.

As for repair, it can be a complicated process, and there are many ways to go about shifting a unit back into shape.   The more complex methods will be covered in an additional post later on, but for simplicity sake I can offer a recommendation to return the figure to its box if it still fits, and let it rest into shape again.  PVC does not have much shape memory, but letting it rest in its plastic holder box can somewhat repair damage.   This only applies if there’s very minor bending involved, anything intermediate to severe will require intervention.

 

I hope this was informative to you and I welcome comments.  I’ll talk more on the subject at a later date!

If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Reinforce reports this post was viewed 477 times...

Copyright 2007, 2008, Finetoo.org ~Fuwa~. All rights reserved.

• Home
• …Len-Vesper Livefeed…
• ~About/FAQ~
• ~Advertising Info~
• ~Contact/Suggest~