Early Lego was made from cellulose acetate plastic, which can distort quite substantially as shown above. The bricks on the right have remained pretty much unaffected, while the others have warped one way or another. Since the warped bricks are useless as such, I thought I'd see if I could straighten them.
The idea I had was to let opposite warps work against each other. So I put two stacks next to each other with a brick underneath and another on top to keep them forced together.
Each block was then immersed in pretty hot water (though not boiling water) and left there for some 10-20 minutes. This was intended to soften them just sufficiently that the warp would lose its force so the bricks would straighten out again.
Then each block was immersed in water as cold as I could get it. The intention being this would help settle the bricks in their straightened shape.
Final step was to reassemble the blocks as shown, with each level perpendicular to the previous one. At this stage it appeared that the operation had been somewhat successful. Although not as straight as new bricks, the warp had been greatly diminished.
However, a couple of weeks later the warp had returned; the same stacks now sporting larger gaps again. I may give this method another try, and maybe use even hotter water and leave the blocks of bricks in longer. They're almost useless as they are, so any gain at all would be a profit.
No comments:
Post a Comment