Monday 10 June 2013

Lead Rot - I am cursed.........................


Years ago I read an article against putting lead in wooden cabinets - it warned against Oak and Walnut due to the acidic nature of fumes...more details once I have found the link. I have a bunch of IKEA wooden drawer cabinets - all pine and I had thought they would be safe. I have just gone looking for some half painted Empire of the Petal Throne figuress and decided to take a pic of some half painted (get the behaviour patterns here?) Heritage Lord of the rings Orcs when I noticed 'fluffy' bubbling paint and cracked bases....also the penny coins on some EPT minis have a discolouration due to oxidisation....a heck of a warning. Check out the pics and be afraid, be very afraid......





Citadel 80s Medievals with the paint bubbling up all around especially on the raised areas.....the quality of lead alloy they used was occasionally atrocious to begin with.... 



The offending storage drawer......old Citadel 'grey lead' medievals from the early 80s....



Note the verdigris on the pennies.....the figures appeared unaffected so far....this is a time bomb....


Thought I would take a few pics of various, mainly Citadel figs to show the discoloration of the various alloys used....these plastic drawers were the ones we used in Games Workshop in the early 80s to store the loose lead......I got given a bunch of them after the store was revamped for blisters.....a sad time for all.

Citadel (plus a couple other make) Medievals


Citadel Slann


Aly Morrison Hobgoblins


Citadel Perry Hobgoblins


Citadel C04 Thieves


Ral Partha Tom Meier CS series Elves


Citadel C series Amazons


There was an excellent lead rot article some years ago on this nautical archeology website http://nautarch.tamu.edu unfortunately my bookmarked link is no longer valid so you will have to search!

7 comments:

Unknown said...
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Springinsfeld said...

Hi Dave.... I have recently bought a lot of figures from the estate of the late Joe Dever (Gawd bless 'im). Needless to say I am ecstatic to have some of the figures I used to drool over in WD, but unfortunately a unit of Ral Partha Tree Shepherds in crumbling before my eyes. They are painted by Joe, so I don't want to strip them, but I need to treat the affected areas PDQ. Any ideas? Would sealing the blooms appearing through the paint with another coat of paint work?

cheers
Mike

David Wood said...

Hi Mike,

I hate to say but I think you'd need to cut out the offending blooms.....it's a no win situation I'm afraid....it seems to be much like rust on a car...painting over only covers the damage....maybe superglue would slow the process down as that would stop any moisture/oxygen but then only from that surface. I only got one small manticore mini form Joe's estate but was happy to have it.

Springinsfeld said...

Blasteration.... some of the figures have blisters erupting all over them. I might cut out the smaller ones and them try sealing the worst areas. Bit of a bummer really. Thanks for the advice.

David Wood said...

Not good news is it :( Take pics and do a blog post....at least that would allow something positive come out of it.

Every Comment A Poem said...

The wood in the boxes in which you keep them has a chemical reaction with the lead alloy. Paint or varnish the interiors of your wooden figure boxes. Or keep the figures in plastic boxes.

David Wood said...

All have been moved now. A few modern minis are still in the IKEA drawers but mostly plastic and resin pieces other than that. Oh to turn back time!