TIght arms on minifigures

[eldiano]

I've pulled my lego figures out of storage and noticed that random minifigures will have their arms completely tighten that make it hard to move, I broke my Star Wars Snoke minifigure this way, it cracked the torso in half and broke the arm, what's causing this and is there a fix? I was messing around with other figures and found another one, Old Han Solo from the force awakens and when I wanted to move the arms, they got tight.  

Removing one arm on Snoke is what caused it to break... 

[Mylenium]

It's plastic. From thermal micro warping to components in the plastic degrading this could be a number of factors. After all, it'S ABS and the Butadien and Styrene components are not the most chemically stable polymers. Their sulfur atoms can dissipate/ migrate an d then the polymer chains shorten and get brittle. Rinse repeat for pigments decomposing or auxiliary mediums in the plastic evaporating over time. It's not made for eternity even under the best conditions. Even if you store them at the "ideal" 11 deg C and 55% air humidity there will be long-term effects.

Mylenium

[MAB]

If they are tight, then gently move them up/down and they should soon loosen. However, if you are displaying them, then just move the arms to the angles you want to display them. I would not aim to remove really tight arms, as you might break the shoulder ball or you might crack the torso. The fix is glue or buying a new torso assembly.

[eldiano]

23 hours ago, MAB said:

If they are tight, then gently move them up/down and they should soon loosen. However, if you are displaying them, then just move the arms to the angles you want to display them. I would not aim to remove really tight arms, as you might break the shoulder ball or you might crack the torso. The fix is glue or buying a new torso assembly.

I tried that, this is the aftermath, RIP Snoke 

I was moving Old Han from the MF falcon set and his torso started to do the same and I just didn’t touch it anymore, I’m scared now haha 

[MAB]

US users do seem to have a bigger problem with this than Europeans. I don't know if it is your temperatures or the overall variation in temperature or the quality of the plastic used in the Mexican factory, or something else. I have 100s of figures and animals from the brittle brown age and I have had only a single horse break, and that was new from the box with no play at all. The legs were tight and broke as soon as I posed them.

[TeriXeri]

While not minifig related, recently had some very tight fitting parts in a new 2023 Friends set, 41739: Liann's Room when putting those parts together first time : 

 

on top of

The yellow top studs are much tighter then usual, but so far it seems just isolated to that particular instance of the set (2 parts in same box)

 

Back in 2018 , I had a case of a bar getting stuck inside a bar sized hole in this side build of a set : 

 

Edited June 14, 2023 by TeriXeri

[eldiano]

On 6/12/2023 at 2:38 AM, Mylenium said:

It's plastic. From thermal micro warping to components in the plastic degrading this could be a number of factors. After all, it'S ABS and the Butadien and Styrene components are not the most chemically stable polymers. Their sulfur atoms can dissipate/ migrate an d then the polymer chains shorten and get brittle. Rinse repeat for pigments decomposing or auxiliary mediums in the plastic evaporating over time. It's not made for eternity even under the best conditions. Even if you store them at the "ideal" 11 deg C and 55% air humidity there will be long-term effects.

Mylenium

It’s funny you mention this because some of my other ABS action figure pieces have begun to leave a weird odor and they look dry, I’m curious to see if anything can bring them back to life 

[MAB]

1 hour ago, eldiano said:

It’s funny you mention this because some of my other ABS action figure pieces have begun to leave a weird odor and they look dry, I’m curious to see if anything can bring them back to life 

Yeah, often plastic toys crack and rubber parts can harden and shrink. It is sort of expected after decades. But if it is happening on relatively new LEGO sets, it is still a worry that there are production issues or they are not testing their products under realistic conditions.

[eldiano]

5 hours ago, MAB said:

Yeah, often plastic toys crack and rubber parts can harden and shrink. It is sort of expected after decades. But if it is happening on relatively new LEGO sets, it is still a worry that there are production issues or they are not testing their products under realistic conditions.

This exactly why I’m panicking, I wasn’t expecting this to happen so recent 😭