Thread: disintegrating plastic tubes?

Store away from sunlight and from some types of vapours - acetone and similar can cause some sort of corrosion(??) cracking in some clear plastics.

If they are really cheap plastic cases, upgrade that to 'store in total darkness in an inert gas atmosphere'. I've had too many plastic things fall to bits or devulcanise for no readily apparent reason over the last few years

Originally Posted by neksmerj

A lot of my end mills etc are/were stored in those two piece telescopic plastic tubes.

All of them have disintegrated, I presume due to UV rays.

The only ones that seemed to have escaped are the white opaque ones.

What's the answer, store away from direct sunlight or something else.

Do you have the same problem or is it just Heidelberg weather?

Ken

UV rays? Do you store them outdoors? Indoors even thin single glass windows would completely block all UV-B and about half of UV-A. I have some of these telescopic transparent tubes that must be over 20 years old and still are fine. I store them in metal drawers though. They also do not seem to mind a moderate degree of Acetone and paint thinner fumes. And oil or coolant residue on the cutters after use has not been a problemeither.

One possibility for your problem could be Ozone, whitch degrades many plastics and rubber. Ozone can be produced in large quantities by large brushed electric motors as used in some tools - it has a very distictive odor so you would know about its presence.

I'm half-thinking that it's not just the UV content in light that'd doing it, it's the visible light component as I've noticed fading of inks on some book-shelved books - probably the least UV exposed position position possible. The fading is not the usual 'reds fade first' that you get from UV exposure, but an all over fading of the light exposed portion.

Damn daylight saving. Makes the curtains fade faster too.

Michael

I usually have offcuts of flexible clear PVC in the shop. I just sew up pouches and small bags as required.

A lot of my larger drill bits are carted around in the ute, so dont want them to rattle around in the tin.

It makes em more bulky to cart around, but beats em getting damaged.

I would hazard to guess that plastics break down over time (and short amount of time) due to their "green" policy that demands that they deteriorate because of bio degrade rules. As I said its my guess.
Just on an aside have you noticed how quickly Colorbond sheets on roofs go "powdery" in a short amount of time. Some of the green and red colours seem to go first and very fast. I would be very disappointed if I had a roof done with it!!