Having problems with Brown

[Mesabi]

So, I've been doing some building lately with brown plates, and I've noticed they're a little brittle, and break easily.

The problem with brown by North White, on Flickr

Are my pieces just old or something, or is this a common problem?

[LM71Blackbird]

@Mesabi I have had a few problems over the years with some of my smaller plates cracking on me. I believe that plastic can get brittle if exposed to extreme heat or cold. I assume that older lego bricks and plates will be more susceptible to this problem because the plastic mixture was different from what Lego uses now. I'm by no means an expert on the subject, so someone else may have a more scientific explanation for you. Hope that helps you out!

[Johnny1360]

Fortunately I have yet to experience broken LEGO, I have noticed though from this thread and others, see fragile pieces on page 2, that the Browns and Reddish-Browns seem to be the ones that most often break. Must be something to do with the pigmentation process is all I can figure. I have just put together the Hans Christian Andersen story book, it has a lot of brown plates and they seem just as durable as other colors. It would be nice to know for sure what causes random breakage though, in hopes of avoiding disastrous consequences. 

[dr_spock]

I used to use a lot of brown for BoBS builds.  I haven't really had much breakage other than a piece or two because of me applying force at the wrong spot with the brick separator.