Imperial Creative Engineering > Custom Questions
Yellowing: When your Army Turns Yellow over time...
Darth More:
So here's another issue all army-builders and collectors of Clone Troopers and Imperial Stormtroopers know:
It's a bitter truth that their torsos turn yellow over time. And there are plenty rumors why they do so!
Do they turn yellow because I smoke at home? Or is it because I usually touch my troops by hand? Maybe the lipids on my skin make them all grey n greasy...
Or does it have to do anything with the sun? And is there anything I can do about it?
You can find the answers here:
I actually wanted to share this in my custom action figure thread "Restoring Star Wars Action Figures", but I think one can find this frequently asked question here easier.
http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=10179.0
Let's dive into the world of mystery and chemistry here...
So while you wait for me to finish this article you can listen to this song:
Coldplay - Yellow
As a small army-builder and BIG fan of Clone Troopers, this is by far the most frustrating topic to me. Personally I think this is a scandal! It's like buying food - with an expiration date! Like many of you know, I'm a big fan of Clone Troopers (in case I haven't mentioned that already...). Some of them were always hard to find since their release and most of all Clone Troopers reach premium prices on the secondary market by now - due to a lack of supply by Hasbro! And seeing them yellow is just a massive pain in the...teeth!
And this is no (...) joke! Some of us have spent hundreds if not THOUSANDS of dollars on our armies (like Actionfigureexpert).
I started collecting in 2005. Most of the Clone Troopers of the ROTS line have yellowed by now. Even the VC06 Clone Trooper from 2010 (well I just realize that's 9 years ago already!!) has a yellow torso now...they just shouldn't change like that!
Talking about the manufacturer:
I wrote Hasbro Germany about my deepest concerns. But they told me they were not in charge of design & development. I should write to Hasbro Inc. on Rhode Island. So I did.
But! The system recognized that I was writing from Germany and redirected my e-mail back to Germany. So this was my try to tell Hasbro about it - so far!
But why does it happen? And which kind of material is affected?
Well, it happens to all hard PVC plastic parts in white and grey such as LEGO bricks or torsos of Hasbro's action figures that are fairly cheap!
For some reason the plastic/rubber used by Hasbro for arms and legs don’t seem to by affected.
But why does it happen?
It's actually the energy of the sun light that causes a chemical chain reaction. Once the sun shines onto the white or grey plastic for long enough it is only a matter of chance that the energy of the light is sufficient to break the carbon-chains of the white dye in the material (spontaneous fission). In the likely event of generating a carbon radical chem. the chain reaction is started.
Here is an example of how this happens:
And it cannot be stopped unless two radicals collide (which is very unlikely, but not impossible). Those radicals break more carbon-chains and destroy the dye/color so that it appears rather yellow to our eyes from then on...
It's called radical substituition. Once a chain is divided into two radicals they split another carbon-chain which resukts in two other radicals. And then the decay has started. The time it takes to turn your trooper into a lemon depends on the amount of radicals within the material.
So keep your white/grey plastic soldiers out of the sun! Even indirect sunlight can cause radicals.
In most cases the torsos change color, but sometimes the entire figure evenly turns yellow over time...isn't it magic..?
So can you do anything about it? The answer is: kind of...
There are three options:
Option 1: If you recieve (used) dirty figures I can recommend to you to wash them before adding them to your collection. Wash them with water, soap and a cheap (but new) tooth-brush.
Sometimes the dirt is not visible before and your figures will look much brighter after taking a bath.
For serious dirt you can also use magic erasers by Mr. Clean (or similar sponges), but beware of paint rubbing!
Option 2: If option 1 is not enough you can still lighten yellowed parts with...Hydrogenperoxide!
Option 3: If you're not happy with the results of bleaching with H2O2, then you can still bite into that lemon and repaint the yellowed parts in white, make customs out of them (repaint in different color) or even kit-bash your troops...or just burn them.
More on that later. Most of you have most likely heard about this technique already...
- Philipp
Tamer:
Wow, another great tutorial. Very nice.
I can see you adding to this by showing how to do the three steps you have below.
Off to share on the front pages.
Darth More:
Thank you Tamer. I will most certainly do so! So stay tuned for more pictures. They are all ready to be shared. I worked a bit with Hydrogenperoxide at the beginning of the summer and it worked quite well! Actually the torso of that red Phase I Clone Trooper is already bleached - it was much darker (yellow) before.
DS-61-22:
Thanks form the info, and this really does suck the amounts of money spent this shouldn’t have to be a concern. Can’t wait to see more
Sjefke:
My collection is in the basement, away from the sun and I’m a non-smoker, but second hand clones and troopers from eBay and from figure bins at comic-cons are in all kinds of bad condition. Yellowed figures do tend to be cheaper, sooooo......
I haven’t had great success with H2O2,
so I’ve had to resort to a very dilute bleach solution.
That whitens my Troopers pretty well, but I don’t know the long term effects.
Thank you for posting this, BTW.
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