What type of plastic are Technic elements made of?

[Carsten Svendsen]

I know that normal bricks are made of ABS plastic, but what about technic elements? I would assume that axles and beams are made from another material than ABS. Connectors, joiners etc. are probably ABS.

But I also want to know what a "safe" temperature of the various elements are?

I can't seem to find anything on google

[bacem]

safe temperature? why? you want to heat them up?

[Faefrost]

I know that normal bricks are made of ABS plastic, but what about technic elements? I would assume that axles and beams are made from another material than ABS. Connectors, joiners etc. are probably ABS.

But I also want to know what a "safe" temperature of the various elements are?

I can't seem to find anything on google

Probably just different formulations of ABS. If anything I think you have it backwards. Axels and beams are more ABS. If anything the pins are a slightly harder, more styrene like plastic. This allows them to form a non binding rotating joint when attached to the ABS bricks and beams. The pins are a similar plastic to that used in minifig bodies. Overall I think there are at least 8 or 9 differing types and grades of plastic being used in current Lego production depending on the nature of a given part. (The vast majority of the differences from the standard ABS can be found in Minifigs. Especially the CMF packets.)

[Soluzar]

safe temperature? why? you want to heat them up?

Maybe the plan is to try to make custom elements. If you can heat the plastic, you can maybe join pieces together for rapid prototyping of a new type of connector maybe? Once you know it does what you need, you can then submit it as part of a CUUSOO project, perhaps. That is, if CUUSOO includes Technic.

[Carsten Svendsen]

safe temperature? why? you want to heat them up?

More or less, yes. It's for my airplane and I needed to know if I could use some Oracoat/Oralight to coat it with.

Probably just different formulations of ABS. If anything I think you have it backwards. Axels and beams are more ABS. If anything the pins are a slightly harder, more styrene like plastic. This allows them to form a non binding rotating joint when attached to the ABS bricks and beams. The pins are a similar plastic to that used in minifig bodies. Overall I think there are at least 8 or 9 differing types and grades of plastic being used in current Lego production depending on the nature of a given part. (The vast majority of the differences from the standard ABS can be found in Minifigs. Especially the CMF packets.)

Ok, that's good to know since ABS has a melting point of 105°C. The above mentioned stuff needs 90°C to shrink, so I guess I'll have to be a bit careful when/if shrinking.

safe temperature? why? you want to heat them up?

Maybe the plan is to try to make custom elements. If you can heat the plastic, you can maybe join pieces together for rapid prototyping of a new type of connector maybe? Once you know it does what you need, you can then submit it as part of a CUUSOO project, perhaps. That is, if CUUSOO includes Technic.

Nope, that's certainly not what I had in mind, read my first comment in this post.

[Meatman]

I am going to send Paul Boratko a link to this thread because he was trying to color dye light Blu gray bushings Black and he said certain technic parts would take the dye while others would not. This process involved boiling the parts in a color dye solution. I remember him saying that it appeared that different technic parts were 3 different types of ABS.

[1974]

I sell heatshrink for a living. I would not try to make a skin over beams/liftarms/axle(joiners) at all. While ABS have a melting point of 105C, they go soft before the heatshrink is in place, especially if the LEGO parts are allready somewhat stressed (as in your project)

Find some other skin, imho

[Carsten Svendsen]

I sell heatshrink for a living. I would not try to make a skin over beams/liftarms/axle(joiners) at all. While ABS have a melting point of 105C, they go soft before the heatshrink is in place, especially if the LEGO parts are allready somewhat stressed (as in your project)

Find some other skin, imho

I'll still try and make a test shrink first to see if it's possible. Don't wanna melt my multi-dollar project in one go

[Front]

A lot of Technic parts are made in other materials than ABS. The same thing can be said about a lot of LEGO parts.

You don't want to put anything on a plastic part, which is heated even close to the melting temperature of the given plastic material. You will get quite big local deformations even though the temperature is not at the melting point.

Erland

Part Design