Maintaining Figures

[MAC83]

Hello all,

Being relatively new to collecting figures I would like to know how you gents/ladies maintain your collectibles? I came across this figure on eBay, and it got me thinking, "how the hell do I avoid this from happening to my collection?"



Any feedback would be awesome!

Cheers!

 

[dominishin]

avoid humidity, sunlight, excessive touching, and any pose that stresses the material. especially on non-cloth materials like that.

have fun

 

[SAB]

Maintain your figure through diet and regular exercise.

 

[MAC83]

Maintain your figure through diet and regular exercise.

Hahahaha now you sound like the wife

 

[Jameson Rook]

Never keep figures in boxes, they're deteriorate much faster.

 

[InebriatedGnome]

Interesting—why is that? Something to do with the surrounding plastic, maybe?

 

[EVILFACE]

Sell them as soon as you get them.

 

[potato]

Send it into space in an air tight Vacuum jar.

 

[Nocturnal]

That material looks like a pair of cheap snow boots (think Napoleon Dynamite). I imagine excessive handing played a role in it.

 

[fosing]

nah, its just hot toys charging big bucks for cheap leather and rubber.

they went too cheap with their diecasts too. the diecast bits, not the price.lolz

 

[Lejuan]

Hot Toys should put a warning on their box, "Not a dog's toy".

Not happy

 

[shells075]

Personally I keep my fav figs in the detolf, hardly ever touch them, and keep the curtains shut to avoid light damage. It helps if you have a room specially for your figs, so you don't have to go in there too often, this will cut the amount of dust down in the room.

 

[gogul1]

I also bought some fine makeup brushes and dust them down occasionally so that they don't get dust settle too long. It's simple but it stops foreign materials sitting too long in places they shouldn't. I try to keep the blinds shut too and use led lighting so I can admire the figs without needing to expose them to sunlight. As soon as I see people putting their figures on their window ledge I cringe.

 

[Mr Walker]

Keep them out of the sun, apart from that, not much to do. Cheap pleather, like in the photo, will rot, either sooner or later, inevitably, and cheap plastic will disintegrate, again, sooner or later, again, inevitably.

Use some common sense, you'll be right. They're not faberge eggs.

 

[K.bowen]

I keep all of mine in a glass case they get dusted maybe twice a year, and as others have said I dont really pose them if they are rubber

 

[MAC83]

Thanks for the valuable feedback gents. Apparently baby oil helps maintain pleather, not sure if anyone goes to that extreme. Down the line, figures like Vader and the Terminator DX13 would be my concern. Not sure what collectors do to maintain rubber bodies, or is it best to steer clear? As for storage, yeah I keep my figures away from sunlight, in a glass cabinet. However, Im roughly 5km from the sea :/

I would have a callous outlook if these things were $20 toys, unfortunately they $200+ ummmm toys.

 

[Jmek]

I may be nuts but I use a hair dryer (on cold air) to dust my figures. It works a treat!

 

[gogul1]

Pleather is a pain I bought two pleather jackets and they both began to break up as soon as I tried to put them on a figure. I'd avoid rubber if possible. I have Iron man mark 5 and he has rubber inner elbow joints. Nervous they'll dry out and break up sooner rather than later. Hoping hot toys do a remake like the die cast mark 3.

 

[Asta]

I keep reading about problems with pleather, but I've got figures dating back to at least 2000 that are still perfect and with no sign of impending deterioration. Never had a problem with it.

 

[potato]

I keep reading about problems with pleather, but I've got figures dating back to at least 2000 that are still perfect and with no sign of impending deterioration. Never had a problem with it.

usually those from Dragon Military line holds up quite well. maybe back then Pleather in toys is not so common so they had to source a common source which is usually for hard duty & durability, but once the 1/6 market kept up with pleather new pleather being introduced to make them look closer to scale & more leather like, at the price of durability.

Sideshow probably got their pleather tech from Medicom/Takara which is sort of a pioneer for introducing realistic pleather, Hot Toys probably refined theirs from Dragon, but still not as durable as Dragon. And since there isn't much of New Dragon figures out we can't say whether it's the same for new dragon figures.