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Subject: 
Re: A question of humidity...
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.general, lugnet.trains
Followup-To: 
lugnet.trains
Date: 
Sat, 17 Jul 2004 04:44:47 GMT
Viewed: 
2824 times
  
In lugnet.general, David Koudys wrote:
A few brief stories--

I've had LEGO displays in fish tanks for the little fishes to swim through.
After years of staying in the fish tank, I found that the LEGO pieces were stuck
together quite firmly, and some pieces took much effort to pry apart.

I filed that away for no real reason.

I bought a house last August and promptly set up a LEGO train layout in the
basement.  Then spring and summer arrived with much rain and humidity, and I
noticed that many of my large blue baseplates sitting on the wooden train
modules were getting all warped, and that my 9 volt train wheels were really
starting to bind.  Dragging out the dehumidifier last week and leaving it on for
a few days (and subsequently dumping lots of collected water down the drain),
I've noticed that the blue baseplates are gradually flattening out, and the 9
volt wheels are not binding as bad as they once were.

I had the same problem with my 9v train wheels when I moved to RI.  I had a nice
new basement in my new house.  Well, I thought it was nice, until it started
raining inside during the summer.  (Ok, not really, but there were so many
puddles of water, and condensation on the pipes, that instead of getting a
dehumidifier, I called the plumber.  HE told me to get a dehumidifier!  New
homeowner blues.)  Anyway, I noticed that my trains didn't run as well any more.

At first I thought I just got a bum set cause it was a new Railway Express that
I was running (It ran fine first out of the box, but slowly degraded over the
course of the month of July.)  I never thought it was humidity, and even called
Lego (who sent replacement wheels).  Anyway, at the end of the summer, my
Metroliner and Santa Fe were running badly, and as I had just got the
dehumidifier installed, I figured that must have been the problem.  I gotta get
my Legos out of that basement! ;)

-Alfred


So a few things--

There must be different 'grades' of plastic (ABS, whatever) that LEGO bricks are
made from--Every blue baseplate warped--none of the green or grey ones warped.
I thought that this fact alone was rather odd.

The tolerances on 9v wheelsets must be quite small for the humidity to affect
them that much.

I didn't think that LEGO bricks could 'absorb' water moisture.  Always had it in
my mind that ABS was 'waterproof'.  Eh, live and learn.

Dave K



Message is in Reply To:
  A question of humidity...
 
A few brief stories-- I've had LEGO displays in fish tanks for the little fishes to swim through. After years of staying in the fish tank, I found that the LEGO pieces were stuck together quite firmly, and some pieces took much effort to pry apart. (...) (20 years ago, 16-Jul-04, to lugnet.general)

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