Snafu "situation normal all fkd up"

I have a perfect YPS Stormtrooper figure and weapon but the white vinyl cape to this figure is blemmed with pinkish stain inside and out.

Ive tried bleach to remove the stain off cape it's not working.Does anyone have an idea or solution on how to remove discolored stain off a white vinyl cape?? :abducted: :abducted: :abducted: :abducted:

Dan.

maybe retrobright?
worked a charm on my falcon

Hey Dan, sorry to hear about that issue with your YPS cape .That pinky spots are mushrooms , and there is nothing you can do with them, IMO.
Cheers
Javi

mushrooms :scratch: I thought it was the ink from the cardback (but the YPS was not carded)- Tri version maybe?

Mold?

aussiejames wrote:

mushrooms :scratch: I thought it was the ink from the cardback (but the YPS was not carded)- Tri version maybe?

Dan said that the cape have pinkish stain in and out, so is not possible that it comes from the cardback,IMO

Javi is right IMO!

All plastics are made from organic material! Derivates from cellulose etc.

And Imo the spots on limbs, heads and capes are indeed mushrooms! They can possibly get quite easier into the softer plastics! The dictonray say: fox mark/mould spot

Thats what it is!

There is possibilties to destroy the fungus....but I would go for just keeping figures below 50% relative humidity....so it stops growing!

Wolff

I agree with Javi and Wolff,

Fungi/molds are micro-organisms with "many abilities, some considered to be unnatural'' (quoting Palpatine in ROTS).

Providing the right conditions (temperature, humidity) they can use many organic stuffs as food, not only the bread and marmalade in your kitchen cabinet, but also more harsh materials like wood (think about the mushrooms in autumn forests), and as it seems even (horror!) plastics of your beloved Star Wars items. They have a tendency to choose the softer plastic parts indeed, at least never saw any molds on my X-Wings. Maybe they don't eat the plastics itself but the plastifiers instead which serve to make the plastics more smooth.

Fungi can be killed by bleach and UV but keep in mind that such treatment might also affect the plastics/pigments. I wonder whether strong antifungals would work like Canesten (used for athlete’s foot and infections in…hmmm let’s say…certain parts of the woman body). Still you will probably kill the fungus (or part of it, see below) and prevent further growth but the fungi pigments (pink, brown etc.) are probably there to stay.

Moreover fungi have spent a few billion years longer on this planet than we do and successfully developed spores, which are more resistant to antifungal treatments. Spores serve to spread the fungi to other areas and start a new life there. In this way fungi could in principle infect neighboring figures. I sincerely hope this remains theory and won't happen in real life collections. To be sure I put the few molded figures I have in safe quarantine from the rest. In one instance I customized the pinkish molded Snowtrooper of my youth into a cool looking UZAY Bluestar by applying a protecting cover of blue paint. Eat this Fungi!!!

Cheers

I agree....I only have one question: You sure these are spore building fungis?

Im not quite sure! I never saw sth like a fruiting body on figures.....so I tend to think they do not build spores????!!!


Wolff

wbobafett wrote:

I agree....I only have one question: You sure these are spore building fungis?

Im not quite sure! I never saw sth like a fruiting body on figures.....so I tend to think they do not build spores????!!!


Wolff

I don't know which fungi are sometimes populating our Star Wars figures. So called white-rot fungi are often described to be able to degrade plastics and other man made organic stuff. So this fungi would be a good candidate. I guess they produce spores too., but I am really not the expert here.

The spore producing parts of the fungi can be big (the hood of the mushrooms) but also microscopically small. So I guess, not seeing them on figures won't necessarily mean they are absent from molded spots.

Below a pic of the fruiting body loaded with spores of the world famous green bread mold. Click here if you really want to know.
It is too small to be seen by the naked eye, but it is out there and everywhere where there’s bread, so basically covering the whole planet. Wait a minute these things look like.....WTF?!!!

Fruiting body of fungi loaded with spores as seen by microscope (Left) and by LEGO (Right)

Guy's i don't have mushroom's or fungus.just some pinkish hue on cape only, not on figure.

I thought maby because this figure came off a german comic book that maby the red from the cover page rubbed into the plastic since it was touching it for a couple decade's.

DLT9 what is retrobright?never heard of it before,what is it?.

Dan.

Retrobrite is basically a strong bleach agent: http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com/Retr0Bright+Gel
Dan it is possible the pink is a micro organism of some sort, but like you I think it maybe ink. If boiling water or bleach hasn't fixed it I think it's there for good

Actually i've been soaking the cape in bleach and water mixed in a container since yesterday.The Pink is almost gone,but all the help is much appreciated,thank's guy's.I think i''l look for the Retrobite still i could use some stronger bleach maby for something in the future.

Dan.

James i just checked out the retrobite link you posted.

Do you have to make retrobite yourself or can you buy it already mixed as a product for sale?

No, you have to make it as far as I know & there are a couple of different methods. Personally BE CAREFUL we're talking about industrial strength stuff that could blind you if you fuck up

OMG.....

I'm not sure about the rest of the world but if you look for 30% hydrogen peroxide & glycerine you might be accused of being a terrorist There is a safety warning attached to the retrobrite site so I'm not really keen on putting the stuff on 30 year old toys.

I may give my 5 cents about bleahcing again....but honestly I gave up a long long time before!

This is what I wrote month ago about bleaching yellowed figures...


I want to point out a few more things:

1. bleaching teeth:
If you are bleaching teeth you are talking from the enamel! Fact is enamel is ANORGANIC substance (at least 95% are anorganic). While plastic is organic (we are talking about the plastic the figures are made of). It is NOT possible to tell that an anorganic substance reacts like an organic substance to bleaching!! No way of an comparison....
(Also many dentist nowadays disadvise bleeching teeth with H2O2!!! But as I said no comparison possible!!

2. Yellowed Plastic:
Most organic yellow substances have one thing in common: alternating double bounds!!
So yellowing is a reaction in the plastic where oxidative substance (like pollution in the air, i.e. Sulfur-connections together with UV-light as „reaction starter) „pick“ out an atom so that double bonds emerge. (puhh this is heavy in english).
The result is building up alternating double-bonds, which means for human eyes the plastic gets yellow!!

3. H2O2 (as already pointed out) is a very reactive and corrosive substance!! So how does it work??? The radical Oxid „breaks“ up the double bonds!!! What does that mean: the plastic gets white again....but there MUST be more effects:
the radical not only breaks up the double bonds, it also may build:

a) „bridges“ to other molecules what makes them more brittle and also an oxid-bridge is AGAIN very very very reactive with sulfur-moleculs and sunlight!!!!
THATS the most important thing I think and thats why I pretty sure:
bleached plastic will get more yellow and more faster and also more brittle!!

b) Also, the H2O2 will not only break up the double bonds which are responsible for yellowing.....it will break up nearly every EVERY double-bonds it will come near to. So what does that mean..... No one knows, but it changes the material in molecular structure!!!!! It also can be that the plastic degradates more faster and gets heavily brittle!!!

c) In the figures you have hard plastic (torso) and softer parts (limbs, head). Whats the difference??? In the soft parts (and I´m talking about plastics from the early 80s) you can await to find some flexibilizers!!! I´m talking about the plastics from the early 80s because nowadays most flexibilizers cannot diffuse, or sublimate out of the plastic, but in the early 80s I think it is possible!! Thats why the soft parts are getting harder in time (only one part, the other is also chemical reactions)!!
BTW: most SW plastics smell....what you smell are mostly the flexibilizers that diffund out of the material!!!!
So what are flexibilizers??Mostly the are short molecules that are not chemical connected to the plastic (in the 80s). They are physical connected if you will call it so!! The fact the only „lie between“ the plastic molecules make them work like oil in an engine....it makes the plastic molecüls to be streched a little bit in other word it makes them flexible!!
H2O2 will possibly DESTROY the flexibilizers!!! Your limbs will get hard and brittle!!

Please please stop using H2O2....you will destroy your figures! It has nothing to do with preventing or something like that. No one can say how much time it takes till the first bleeched figures will show up with catastrophic damages...m guess is it will go very fast (10 years maybe less).

Yikes bleach,chemicals,terroism,Wolff hyped up on redbull.

I already know i'm not up to making a super bleach concoction,everything or something would go wrong with my luck.

Wolff i'm not bleaching a figure that would ruin the paint on it and destroy it,i know better than that.I'm just bleaching some old ink dye off my white vinyl cape,it did work.It was a YPS cape there not easy to get especially one in mint condition.I was'nt gonna let a old stain stay on the cape,It would be like someone leaving birdshit on a ferrari and not washing it off.

actually the paint stays the same.
i used retrobright on a falcon,slave I,y-wing,stromtrooper,snowtrooper and bikerscout.
the paint was ok after the process,i tried it on some beater figs first and stayed away from my collection.

you can also use hairdressers solution for coloring hair,its less agressive then the undesolved h2o2 and does the work.
the gel is even a bit thicker and better to use then with the pure h2o2.

Using Dan's example of bird shit on a Ferrari, I could wipe it off with a rag soaked in brake fluid. It would come up perfectly clean but one day the paint will peal off. Before Wolff blows a gasket (he's very passionate about this topic) just everyone be careful using anything other than a mild detergent on any of your toys. Anything else IS a chemical reaction that may (will) damage things in the long run

well i dont want to step on anyone's toes
just wanted to share my expierinces with it and like said i wouldnt recommand doing it to valuable figs even if they are beater.

PS brakefluid strips paint so dont use that

wbobafett wrote:

c) In the figures you have hard plastic (torso) and softer parts (limbs, head). Whats the difference??? In the soft parts (and I´m talking about plastics from the early 80s) you can await to find some flexibilizers!!! I´m talking about the plastics from the early 80s because nowadays most flexibilizers cannot diffuse, or sublimate out of the plastic, but in the early 80s I think it is possible!! Thats why the soft parts are getting harder in time (only one part, the other is also chemical reactions)!!
BTW: most SW plastics smell....what you smell are mostly the flexibilizers that diffund out of the material!!!!
So what are flexibilizers??Mostly the are short molecules that are not chemical connected to the plastic (in the 80s). They are physical connected if you will call it so!! The fact the only „lie between“ the plastic molecules make them work like oil in an engine....it makes the plastic molecüls to be streched a little bit in other word it makes them flexible!!
H2O2 will possibly DESTROY the flexibilizers!!! Your limbs will get hard and brittle!!

This is an interesting thread. A pink spot on the cape of the YPS trooper turns into a serious biology and chemistry course. Nice overview Wolff, I liked it.

Something which might be off topic here but I was triggered by the diffusion of flexibilizers out of the plastic. Is this phenomenon causing the sticky feeling of some of my otherwise mint figures? If so, I guess there is nothing to stop it. Only the Force would be strong enough to prevent a state of growing disorder. But I might got it all wrong off course and there is an easy way to get rid of the stickiness. Anyone?

I agree with Wolff and AJ and anyone else who said don't go down the bleaching path (or any other extreme chemical concoctions !)

I don't know the science behind it all and not really interested to find out but to quote a very awesome character
from a very awesome film "I have a baddddd feeling about this"

Dr Dengar wrote:

there is an easy way to get rid of the stickiness. Anyone?

warm soapy water and a soft bristled brush.