Zinkpest

Coming home after working in Singapore for close to 3 years, it wasn't surprising to find my old room looking nowhere like how I left it.  Half of the room still bears some semblance of my former domain, while the other half seemed like a warehouse used to store artifacts from ancient civilizations.  Apparently my family took the liberty of using my room to store the things they hardly use anymore.

Since then, I've been spending around an hour or two every weekend trying to sort through boxes and boxes of our stuff, deciding which items to keep or dispose of.  

During one of these sessions I stumbled upon one of my old die-cast model cars.  It was a 1/18 scale replica of "James Bond's Aston Martin DB5" which was still neatly stored in its original package.  Having been away for several years, I realized it was about time I gave this baby a maintenance polish.  

While cleaning my vehicle I noticed that the door on the driver side seemed to have warped and did not close snugly in place like it used to.  Upon further inspection I also observed numerous cracks in the door's paint job. Meanwhile, the rest of the model did not seem to be affected by this problem.  Finally, as I tried to gently push the door back into its place, the thing just fell off its hinge.

Dismayed, I surfed the internet for others who've encountered similar problems with their die-cast models.  It was during this time when I first learned about this thing called zinc pest.  From what I've read, this problem should have less likely been encountered at present time, especially since the process of die-casting have improved significantly over the years.  One could only assume that this door probably came from a poor batch of alloy.  Unfortunately for me, I didn't know that my model car was already deteriorating until it was too late.

I used to think die-cast models were durable, this event proved to be contrary to my expectations.  I'll probably think twice before purchasing another die-cast model in the future.


If you want to read more about this phenomenon I've linked some websites below:
Zinc Pest Strikes Older Beauties
Die-Cast Cancer