Transformers questions by newbies, and not-so-newbies

[Bidoofdude]

I've always wondered if any of the different types of indoor lighting can cause "sun damage" to the toys, because there are a number of my older toys that are only recently showing yellowing, but they have been in the darkest corner of the main toy room for over a decade with no natural lighting and very little time with the room lights on.

In my second toy room, which is where I have my work desk, the lights are on for several hours every day, but toys in there that are 15 years old, don't show any sign of yellowing (yet).

... so maybe it's damage from light/sunlight exposure decades ago, and only now the degradation of the plastic is accelerating?

Metallic paint on most of my United Seekers are wearing thin, especially the blue on Starscream and Thundercracker. Real shame. Someone could probably touch them up here but right now they look blander. They see a decent amount of sunlight, but even the obscured sides that see only my room lighting have lost it too.

[Autocon]

Good time to do a sale thread?

[UltraMarginal]

I've heard many accounts over the year of old G1 era toys being stored in a dark space, away from the weather, or even significant temperature change being brought out and having yellowed or otherwise damaged plastic. UV light probably does have an accelerating effect but complete light isolation isn't the answer. And in my mind, I'd rather enjoy having the toys around than never seeing them because I'm scared of them potentially damaging even though the process of never seeing them would not necessarily avoid the damage.

[Tha_Phantom]

I have a clear God Fire Convoy set and the clear plastic on Magnus has yellowed very badly despite the set being kept in the box 99.9% of the time. Never has the set been exposed to sunlight. I'm sure there are many different factors that affect yellowing.

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

I had the first TIE fighter Darth Vader which I didn't really like so it spent a lot of time in a box. Parts of it went green/sunburnt withing a year or two. It rarely saw room light, let alone sunlight!!

[GoktimusPrime]

I moved into my current place a few years ago and my TF room has no light, and toys that I've purchased since moving in here have experienced no discolouration so far (touch wood). This is because I've completely blocked the one small window that the room has. At my last place, my TF room had an average size window, but even with the Venetian blinds closed some light would always bleed in. I tried to cover the gaps but I couldn't do it completely.

My current TF room has a tiny window with a solid roller blind (no slats for light to seep through). I've stacked some empty TF boxes in front of the blind as another barrier, then draped a wall-hanging (of Dinobots) as another barrier (with yet another Galaxy Force wall hanging to further block out any light leaking out from the side), then in front of that I've stacked a pile of boxed TFs as yet another barrier. And I can tell you that even in the middle of the day, when I switch off the lights and close the door, it is nearly pitch dark in that room. Also on hot summer days, that room stays cool. It could be over 45? outside but the hottest temp I've measured in there was maybe around 26?. That room has no air conditioning, but just by virtue of keeping out most incoming sunlight, it stays pretty dark and cool. It's dark enough to develop photographs in.


Left: my previous TF room which had a large window with a Venetian blind. I had drapped wall hangings on either side (but couldn't cover the middle), put pieces of paper and cardboard around the edges to block out some light, and also stacked boxes behind and in front of the blinds to block more light. But it wasn't perfect as light could still seep in and eventually, despite my efforts, some toys kept in that room did experience some photodegradation.
Right: my current TF room which has a small window covered by a solid roller blind. In this pic you can see the two wall hangings draped over and around the window. Behind the big drape are empty TF boxes stacked up. After this photo was taken I stacked up more TF boxes in front of the drape. I had eventually done the same thing at my previous room, but I the real difference is having a smaller window and the roller blind just works so much better than Venetian blinds in just block out sunlight.

Another option would be just to paint your windows black. The downside to having such a dark room is that photos and videos often don't show up well. And recently when I've been doing video conferencing my chat window always looks the darkest compared to other people's. I've put a small desk lamp in that room just to help illuminate me when I'm doing video chats (I shine it onto a white shirt in front of me so that the light reflects back into my face rather than blinding myself with the lamp pointed directly at me ). Had a video faculty meeting today - everyone else was in these nice brightly lit rooms whereas I looked like I was sitting in a basement* full of toys. I might take a screen shot next time I do a video chat to show you how it looks like.

(*despite being an upstairs room)

[Sam]

This is a WFC toyline question and not news, so hope it's okay for me to post here.

Does anyone know if it's likely that we'll get a voyager class Rodimus Prime and/or similar sized Blaster?

I moved into my current place a few years ago and my TF room has no light, and toys that I've purchased since moving in here have experienced no discolouration so far (touch wood). This is because I've completely blocked the one small window that the room has. At my last place, my TF room had an average size window, but even with the Venetian blinds closed some light would always bleed in. I tried to cover the gaps but I couldn't do it completely.

When I saw photos of your toy room without reading the text, my initial thought was "Where is this toy shop?"

[Paulbot]

Does anyone know if it's likely that we'll get a voyager class Rodimus Prime and/or similar sized Blaster?

I think it's very likely but not in Earthrise. Maybe what comes next. Blaster probably earlier than Rodimus. I think a new Rodimus Prime would be a Leader toy - but height wise he'd be close to a Voyager like Earthrise Astrotrain and Optimus Prime are.

[DELTAprime]

Does anyone know if it's likely that we'll get a voyager class Rodimus Prime and/or similar sized Blaster?

I really want a Voyager sized Rodimus and Blaster. The Leader sized figures from a couple of years ago tower over their cohorts.

[SharkyMcShark]

I too wouldn't be shocked to get a new Rodimus Prime, but I also think it will be in whatever the third part of this trilogy is. Waves 1-3 are already completely known and on the basis that Earthrise will be comprised of four waves (like most of the recent Generations lines) I can't see Hasbro shoving a marquee character into wave 4.