Rusted Tin Robots.....

[robothunter]

I just found myself making a comment about this in another thread and felt it would make for a good fresh topic. I have always been super paranoid about putting a toy with any significant amount of rust anywhere near a minty toy as I fear the rust will somehow spread. Maybe this sounds really stupid, but I've always been told that the rust will spread from airborn spores. Now I can tell you from my experience back as an avid collector of vintage firearms that this is true. Keep a rusted or pitted gun near a clean blued steel one and sooner or later, the clean gun will rust and pit. Even if kept in a dry locked glass case without any exposure to moisture.

So is it true for tin litho robots & space toys as well???....What are your thoughts? I have always grouped toys together based on condition and never mixed minty examples near any with any visible level of rusting.

[David Kirk]

I'm no chemist (there's an understatement!), but I thought rust was merely the product of water and iron. I don't think it can be spread like a mold by airborn particles, or even by touching, once it was dry. I wonder if that really happened with your guns, or if the fresh ones just got rusty from humidity. We've been running a humidifier in my bedroom to keep ourselves from drying out lately and I'm worried about that with my robots, who are standing over us on open shelves.

[Nikola Tesla]

I've always been told that the rust will spread from airborn spores. Now I can tell you from my experience back as an avid collector of vintage firearms that this is true. Keep a rusted or pitted gun near a clean blued steel one and sooner or later, the clean gun will rust and pit. Even if kept in a dry locked glass case without any exposure to moisture.

So is it true for tin litho robots & space toys as well???

Rust is only a chemical reaction, more indicative of the climate, protective coating and/or care given to your pieces. I've never had anybody tell me that rust travelled by "spores"---however, the chemical reaction itself is pernicious (even electrically-driven), and we know that rust CAN molecularly "weld" individual pieces of iron together. But only if the adjacent metal surfaces are inadequately protected---I mean, I see good examples of this down at the hardware store: Here's a whole bin of nails or bolts that have been sitting there for months/years, and a great many of them show surface rust or worse. But there, buried in the middle of all that oxidized iron, are a few bright and shiney nails or bolts that haven't sustained any rust damage at all! Well, of course, the shiney guys in there are properly galvanized, thoroughly sealed off with zinc, and rust needs access to raw iron. Rust only requires a few elements for the reaction to take place---iron, oxygen and hydrogen (these last two in the form of water, usually). We're surrounded by oxygen all the time, as well as water vapor---there's no getting away from it, even in the most carefully controlled conditions. If your gun or robot or whatever has even a microscopic spot of exposed iron, it WILL rust over time, regardless of what pieces you place adjacent to it. Strange as it may seem, certain protective coatings can electrically ACCELERATE rust---Tin is one such coating, unfortunately.

;)

[Kiwi]

A lot of damage to priceless objects in the past was done simply by the oils/acids and water in our hands when the objects were picked up and looked at so now all objects are handled with special gloves.Could this

have started the rust that you were trying so hard to stop happening on your firearms ??....and even the toys we try so hard to keep rust free.

[Volker]

So- you must take all rusty Robots is boild Water 10 minuties - and the Rustspores are dead .

Littel Joke

DO IT NOT .

but in the past I saw only many rust at Batteriedrive Robots - not so much by Wind-up robots.

So the most Rust comes by brocken Batteries and the batterieacid.

I do always sprayed my TinToys inside with a gun-oil . so inside oure Robots is blank metall

outside I see no problems when the color and litho is still there.

Rust comes only from water ( in Air ) and Oxygen and this works with the Iron.

cu

Volker