Welcome again to my display project. This last weekend proved to be very busy for my personal life, but I’m glad to get back into the swing of things again, and to start making some real progress on this.
Intro
I ended off my last post by talking about how many of the Toa Inika needed a proper deep clean. We can’t have any grime and dirt ruining the beauty of these figures and their soon to be home!
To get right into it, the first thing I want to do is quickly use some compressed air to blow away any loose debris and dust on the pieces. To make this process easier, I’ll deconstruct each Inika down to have an easier time with each piece.
Because there’s so many pieces, I only want to detail some of the worst, most visible offenders and showcase a before-and-after of those pieces. So with that being said, let’s begin.
The Great Dusting
I chose to start with Nuparu due to his black coloration making the grime most visible. By far his dirtiest parts are his mask, shoulder and chest armor, and torso.
Personally, I’m amazed his feet and lower arms don’t have as much dust on them with how many fine details they have.
Unfortunately, the compressed air was not able to remove much from the torso, and nearly nothing from the shoulder armor. However, the chest plate cleaned up nicely, as I had expected… but so did his Kadin!
While I’ll still have to go over them again with a wash of isopropyl alcohol, it is nice to have at least some of the dust off.
I continued his cleaning without any further surprising incidents. Everything left of him will need some alcohol.
Fun fact! – Nuparu
As mentioned on his character bio in my first post, Nuparu was an excellent engineer and nothing short of a genius. During the Bohrok invasion on Mata Nui, he failed to escape Onu-Koro before it was flooded and ended up trapped in its caves alongside Onepu and Taipu.
While the two other Matoran worked on digging an escape path, Nuparu used the empty shell of a Gahlok to create the Boxor, which would play a massive role in saving the other villages across Mata Nui from the invasion.
He quite literally built an Iron Man-like suit in a cave, with a box of scrap, 6 years before the first Iron Man movie would debut.
Thankfully, Jaller, Kongu, and, to my surprise, Hewkii all are fairly clean as is and I don’t feel any of their parts are worth documenting.
Hahli, on the other hand, has some parts that could use a dusting. Her parts include her torso, mask, and chest plate.
Within these parts, her chest plate and torso cleaned up alright. Her Elda is still plagued by bits of dust and other gunk. I worry that a lot of this mess is caused by wear and tear around the mask, as there are some very clear scuff marks and light scratches. Should that be the case, I would feel that using a different mask piece entirely would have to be the best option.
Thankfully, I happen to have a few extra copies of Hahli specifically. This is due both in part just to luck from the pieces I’ve kept over the decades, and because of the Inika exclusive combiner Toa Jovan*, who is assembled with parts of Hewkii, Nuparu, and Hahli. I bought a second copy of all three Toa Inika specifically to assemble Jovan, and after assembling him, I kept the remaining pieces of each Toa in their respective canisters.
*Fun fact! – Toa Jovan
Jovan was extremely unique in his lore. He was the only Toa of Magnetism, and also the only Toa in his team, to have ever gotten an official name or design. In-universe, Jovan was one of the oldest Toa created and his team reflects this, being the first ever functional Toa team. His team would also not only be the first ones to retrieve the Mask of Life, but also included the only other (unfortunately, unnamed) character who would be destined to wear said mask.
This is all to say, I do happen to have an extra Elda I can swap out for if needed. I gave it a quick inspection but struggled to see any physical damage under the extremely thick dust all over it, so hopefully that means there is none!
Age Begins to Show
While continuing to clean Hahli, I spotted this crack in her right foot!
While it is small, and does not (currently) affect the overall structure stability of her, it does worry me that it has formed at all.
I went to grab another foot from her canister, but spotted more cracks on each of them!
This was extremely strange to me, as I have never seen damage like this in these specific molds before, so that got me thinking that the cause was similar case to that of the infamous Gold Plastic Syndrome*. I decided to inspect Kongu’s feet, and sure enough…
The cracks reveal themselves again! While his are much milder compared to Hahli’s it does seem to me that this issue is caused by the special marbled plastic they both share.
*Tragic fact – GPS in Bionicle
While Gold Plastic Syndrome is a term created and used by the Transformers toy community, Bionicle suffered from a very similar issue, just with another color. While the Lime (referred to as Lime Green by the community) color had been used since the beginning of the series, featuring in Toa Mata Lewa in 2001, and even the Toa Inika’s heads, it was not until 2007 that Lime Green would start to gain its horrible infamy.
While not to the extreme, hand-crushing degree of actual GPS, any Bionicle joints made with the Lime Green coloration had a very noticeable reduction in strength, breaking under normal use extremely easily, and quickly. This was made worse because those joints were sockets, meant to snap on to ball joints after applying force.
This excellent Reddit thread delves into the specifics and history of it all (although beware of major spoilers for Bionicle’s story). In short, something within the plastic mixture that Lego used was the culprit, and it means that nearly all Lime Green pieces made after 2006 are eventually doomed to be destroyed. Hopefully injection molding becomes cheaper in the future and fans find a way to replicate Lego’s plastic colors.
My Hypothesis
On top of the marbled plastic in general, I believe this to be a result of this specific foot mold, as these parts are both softer and less shiny in comparison to, say for example, Hahli’s legs, which also contain the same marbled process and have that signature Lego shine.
What I am more unsure of though is the primary cause for this to happen. My initial guess was that it was due to aging and that it is a new phenomenon, as I was unable to find anything online that referred to these cracks (or any cracking in general on the Inika), but then it hit me.
For some context, I am an out of state student from Texas and during the Winter and Summer breaks I pack my belongings in my car and drive the nearly 1700 miles it is from UMW to my parent’s house and back.
Furthermore, this year Eastern U.S. was hit by a massive snowstorm and cold front featuring freezing temperatures for multiple days. Thankfully, I avoided being in the snowstorm directly as I was always a day behind it, but the further East I went, the colder the temperatures would be. Out of the three nights I traveled, two of them were in freezing weather surrounded in ice and snow, and my car would be subject to hours of that weather.
Of course, among the belongings I packed while preparing for the drive back to UMW, was the Toa Inika in their canisters. I, in hindsight, rather foolishly decided to leave them in my car’s trunk rather than in the main cabin with other items such as electronics. And because my car’s trunk is both not air-conditioned or as well insulated as the cabin…
I believe that these cracks could be a result of extreme temperature shifts! Similar to how a small crack in a windshield can expand to a multiple feet wide monster after the weather temperatures repeatedly lower and rise, I think that something similar happened to these Bionicle pieces.
Here’s my full thoughts to explain my hypothesis. I believe that:
- the special marbled plastic is just naturally weaker than normal, single-colored plastic just due to the mixing process done by Lego, creating a GPS-like effect to a much, much less severe degree
- the specific foot mold used here has some light, but not invisible, stress in its structure that is only 99% stable, explaining why it would pass Lego’s quality control at the time, and also why the cracks form in the same place on each foot
- the nearly 20-year-old age of the pieces gave enough time for the previously mentioned ideas to wear out the strength on them
- this was all magnified due to the extreme temperature shifts, and poor placement in my car, during the long road trip from Texas to Virginia
What does this mean?
Unfortunately, I don’t have feasible means of testing any of these pieces of evidence, so the most I can do is find another copy of Kongu’s or Hahli’s foot at home and inspect them for cracks. Should I find one in good condition, I’ll happily swap it out with the damaged pieces.
But that won’t be possible for at least a few weeks as I won’t have a chance to return home until Spring break begins at the end of February.
Alternatively, in an emergency, I could purchase replacement parts on Bricklink, where I have previously bought all of these Toa and their canisters.
The bright side
Thankfully though, that doesn’t seem it will be necessary. I applied some moderately forceful pressure to the cracked areas to see if they would move, but experienced very little to no shifting whatsoever, meaning that the structure is still very strong. I have the feeling that it will hold up for a very long time, so the only true motivation to switch out pieces would be for beauty and decorative purposes. Perhaps another objective to reach towards later down the line?
Cleaning, Returned
I’ll continue to keep my eye out on those pieces throughout this project, but ideally the only update will be that I found undamaged versions of them to use.
I returned to cleaning the rest of Hahli, and also gave a closer inspection to Hewkii, Jaller, and Kongu, but found no other damage that was out of the ordinary.
What about Matoro?
If you are one of the people who noticed I hadn’t mentioned Matoro up until now, congratulations! You’re either very astute, interested in this series, or already a true fan.
Regardless, because Matoro is primarily white, I decided that I will only give him a quick all-around dusting for the most part, as I plan to bathe all of his white pieces in hydrogen peroxide like I had mentioned in my last post. This means that there are only 10 pieces to clean outside of that, and none of them are particularly filthy when compared to his poor yellowed parts.
Time to Hit the Bar
With the basic dusting out of the way, the next step for me is to remove any remaining grime with the use of some Q-tips and 91% isopropyl alcohol.
Just about every piece needed this treatment, so instead of filling up this post with more and more images, I’ll instead opt to only document any parts that I am unable to clean fully.
Matoro
Since he is still out in front of me as I write this, I’ll begin with Matoro. His bright silver torso and chest plate had some especially yucky spots on them, but had nothing that really stuck around.
However, I am noticing that his chest plate seems to be slightly yellowed, strangely. I’ll throw it in the bath with the rest of his white parts.
His poor Iden is also absolutely COVERED in gross dirt and grime. A light wash of alcohol removed a lot of the worst bits, but I’ll be so happy to fully bathe it with the rest of Matoro’s parts.
I sorted out his white parts and put them into a plastic container, along with his chest plate.
Hahli
Hahli had no parts worth mentioning. Everything that was not blown off was cleaned off easily.
I removed her white joints, along with her marbled legs, and put them in the bathing container.
Kongu
Kongu had nothing that was not already cleaned off by the compressed air, so nothing worth mentioning!
Jaller
Jaller also had nothing that didn’t get cleaned by the compressed air.
Hewkii
Hewkii had a few corners that needed to be loosened up with a Q-tip, but nothing stuck around after that!
Nuparu
The only part that I could not fully clean off was the claw in Nuparu’s left hand. There’s both a buildup of gunk in the corners, and a stubborn mark on one of the claws itself. I’m not sure it needs a full hydrogen peroxide soak, but I decided to put it in the container regardless.
What’s next?
With each of the Toa and their specific pieces accounted for now, that marks an end to the majority of my plan this week. I plan to spend a day soaking the gathered parts in hydrogen peroxide, which is a multi-hour-long process from what I’ve read.
Specifically, I am going to consult this webpage and its attached YouTube video for the process. While that tutorial deals specifically with light grey Lego bricks, I have no doubt that it will be any less effective for the white Bionicle pieces.
Although that being said, I have read on another page while researching this that hydrogen peroxide can wash out some colors, which does worry me when it comes to the blue on Hahli’s legs, but if worst case scenario occurs, I do have replacements. Ideally though, I’d like to avoid damaging something so vintage.
As for next week, I will have my definitive materials list ready to discuss with Shannon and Cartland, and assuming that we have no hiccups with it, I’ll begin the process of putting the display together!
Quite honestly, I am very nervous about it, but there’s still another 13 weeks or so to figure everything out and make this display be as amazing as it can be!