Possibe flawed piece

[jonwil]

I have here one of these in black

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=4488

from an unknown source.

When I hold this part up to a light source (such as my PC monitor) the part appears partially translucent. Is this normal for such parts or does it indicate a failing in the moulding process?

I have several other examples of this part in black in front of me which are fine.

Edited February 9, 2011 by jonwil

[fred67]

It's not the mold it's the plastic mixture. From what I understand all mixed colors start with clear and then have colors added. They didn't add enough of the correct colors to make it opaque. It more common with the Chinese parts, but it happens with others too, from time to time. I've gotten marbled pieces and even at the PAB section in the LEGO Store, I put together a bunch of 1x4s to pack them better into the cup and showed the manager distinct color variations for the brown bricks.

Edited February 9, 2011 by fred67

[MinifigFreak2010]

It's not the mold it's the plastic mixture. From what I understand all mixed colors start with clear and then have colors added. They didn't add enough of the correct colors to make it opaque. It more common with the Chinese parts, but it happens with others too, from time to time. I've gotten marbled pieces and even at the PAB section in the LEGO Store, I put together a bunch of 1x4s to pack them better into the cup and showed the manager distinct color variations for the brown bricks.

I saw this post earlier and I was thinking something along the same lines. i was thinking about something along the lines of it being a newer or older mold run of the piece and you may have a piece from a bad/poorly made batch possibly but I wasn't sure. It seems like an awefully lazy move on lego's end though.

We're paying more and more for "quality" items yet they're beginning to have some minifig packs made w/ chinese plastic, stopped putting the plastic container sets in plastic bags b4 putting them in the containers(BAD MOVE), and overall the ppp ratio seems to be jumping on more items.

[Skull-Mark_Ladybug]

I've never noticed this with a black piece, but I've noticed this a lot with my newer white pieces if I hold almost any white plate or brick up to the light it appears translucent. As a matter of fact I'm sure this is not the first time something like this has been reported, it obviously shows a trend that Lego is using thinner plastic.

Regarding if this was a manufacturing error; as long as it still grasps other pieces well it should be fine though it wouldn't hurt to push TLG for a replacement if you can.

[CP5670]

This is very common with parts in a variety of colors (white, yellow, red, etc.), regardless of where they were produced. As fred67 said, it is a result of the coloring process they use today. This has been very widespread since late 2006, but at this point TLG is not going to try to fix it since most people never noticed it.

I have never actually seen this with black bricks though. The color injection process for black is supposed to be simpler and easier to get right than any of the other colors. A translucent black piece would look pretty odd, now that I think about it.

[Aanchir]

This is very common with parts in a variety of colors (white, yellow, red, etc.), regardless of where they were produced. As fred67 said, it is a result of the coloring process they use today. This has been very widespread since late 2006, but at this point TLG is not going to try to fix it since most people never noticed it.

I have never actually seen this with black bricks though. The color injection process for black is supposed to be simpler and easier to get right than any of the other colors. A translucent black piece would look pretty odd, now that I think about it.

I've been encountering it since 2004 or 2005. This set was perhaps the most egregious instance of this problem I've ever encountered-- far more so than any current or recent sets. The parts in most colors-- even the basics like red, blue, and yellow-- were so inconsistent you could easily separate identical parts into two separate groups: one closer to the classic color, and one dreadfully translucent and washed out.

I agree, I've never seen this with black bricks. EDIT: Make that rarely. I remember I have at least one of these parts in black with that problem.

Also, bricks don't start out "clear", they start out a sort of semi-translucent color (I'm pretty sure this is 20 Nature, or the color AFOLs call milky white). Clear parts are made of an entirely different type of plastic than solid-colored parts (Polycarbonate rather than ABS). Just wanted to clear that up (no pun intended).

Edited February 12, 2011 by Aanchir