Brittle plastic

[Stefan Skoglund]

ons 2020-09-02 klockan 13:46 -0700 skrev Chuck Guzis via cctalk:
> On 9/2/20 12:02 PM, Rico Pajarola via cctalk wrote:
> > I have a friend who is a Materials Science Technologist and
> > specializes in
> > injection molded plastics. So... basically the same thing that's in
> > computer cases (even though he doesn't deal with computer cases). I
> > grilled
> > him at length on this topic, and he insisted that the brittleness
> > with age
> > (and UV light) is expected and irreversible. Basically, the plastic
> > softeners are off-gassing, and there's no way to put them back in.
> > 
> > I'm still hoping for a happier second opinion, though I'm not
> > holding my
> > breath.
> > 


> 
> It's a very well-known problem among the museum conservation crowd
> --and
> with no practical solution.
> 
> For a discussion, WikiPedia is pretty informative:
> 

Textilmuseet (textiles and clothes museum in Borås, Sweden) have a
number of items which was haute couture in the 70s and 80s. Some of
them was done in a plastic which today is basically an awful mess...

And so they are basically forced to thwrow away items which cost them a
fair bit to buy.