Why does nobody talk about those cheap plastic army men cracking apart

I dug out my old bag of those green plastic army men from 1998 last weekend to let my nephew play with them. Half of them had cracks right down the middle or missing limbs from just sitting in a bin for 25 years. I tried gluing a few back together with super glue but they just broke again when he tried to stand them up. Has anyone else had luck with a specific brand or material that holds up better?

2 comments

2 Comments

daniel21425d ago

Oh man, those old green army men are basically just time bombs at this point! I tried to glue a guy's arm back on and ended up gluing my own fingers together instead. The plastic gets so brittle that even looking at them wrong makes another leg snap off. I swear those 1998 ones were made out of recycled yogurt containers or something. My nephew was so disappointed when his "wounded soldier" just turned into a pile of green confetti.

logan63225d ago

Remember @daniel214 mentioning the yogurt container theory, but I think the real issue is they used two different plastic blends back then depending on the factory batch. Some of my guys from 1997 are still flexible while the 1998 ones basically shatter if you breathe on them. The only fix I found was using a hairdryer to heat them up before moving them, but that just makes them floppy instead.