Posted by sberry on 04 Feb 2020, 10:45
Dear Michael,
Thank you for the excellent summary! Being a chemist myself – but no polymer expert – I’m delighted by this synopsis of the various plastics used in our hobby.
About the rubbery stuff used in recent years by HäT, I always wondered what this might be. Perhaps some copolymer like VC/E might be the answer (for non-chemists: a sort of mixture of polyethylene and PVC)?
I like that this stuff takes acrylic paint very well, and it can be glued using superglue without activator. However, in addition to the problem of ageing/brittleness that several gentlemen have mentioned, I also strongly dislike that this rubbery material is very bad at reproducing fine details; the older HäT sets had much better detail IMHO.
Best regards,
Stephan