MORE TROUBLE WITH BUBBLE WRAP
Nick Richardson says: In MR249, George Dent described how bubble wrap had damaged the paintwork of a carriage that had been carefully packed away. I’ve had similar issues, albeit not with plastic models, but with lithographed tinplate. Over the past 25 years, I’ve been amassing a collection of pre-war American Lionel, Marx and American Flyer ‘O’ gauge tinplate and I had always thought it funny that they always came wrapped in old newspaper, even those shipped from the US. At first I thought that it was a costsaving measure but there was more to it than economy. There is one Lionel Service Station in the UK – Tennent’s Trains of Halesowen – and although John Tennent has sold the business he is still a source of good advice. It seems that the gas inside the bubble wrap has a tendency to ‘leach’ out over time. Unfortunately, a Lionel tinplate ‘Babe Ruth’ boxcar from the 1930s, that had been stored in bubble wrap, suffered a similar fate to George’s models, with a series of round ‘spots’ left across both sides of the lithographed finish. In fact, it was so bad that it’s probably beyond redemption, which was a real pity as it was one of the first items I bought. Once I realised that bubble wrap was the culprit, I went to my local stationery store and bought a pack of acid-free tissue paper. Wherever possible, all of my tinplate items are now wrapped in this tissue paper, followed by a sheet or two of old newspaper and then, if needed, bubble wrap. The items have always been well packed, as my professional career meant that I moved around a great deal; this approach seems to have worked. My ‘OO’ RTR and kit-built stock is all stored in plastic boxes using bubble wrap. Indeed, my friend Steve Jones (‘Sydney Gardens’, ‘Seend’ and ‘Chilcompton’) has successfully stored all of his stock in bubble wrap for many years without any ill effects. This, perhaps, confirms George’s assertion that the problem of surface damage by bubble wrap is linked to the use of certain types of lacquers/clear coats employed during the painting of RTR and kit-built stock.