Kraton Soaking plastics in wd40

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It does take on moisture. When molded, the raw material goes into a dryer to remove moisture from the nylon before it is molded. Moisture during molding adds fragile locations and splay to the molding. The plastic is perfectly strong upon cooling, which would be as dry as it will ever be.
(Picked up a few things years ago working at a plastic factory)?
 
WD40 has its role, it is critical to clean and than treat with WD40 and wipe, all steel parts, WD40 is very good for moisture and it is anti corrosive. I use it on chassis plate(cleaned first) after every run, that way you won't end up with corrosion on screws.
 
The water in boiling isn’t where the benefits come from, it’s the heating. You could use an oven or microwave to get a similar benefit. It’s very similar to quenching or tempering metals. You’re relieving stresses in the material from the molding process. If WD does anything it’s probably slightly softening the plastic enough to make it less brittle. Over time you may get the opposite effect as it breaks the sprayed part down. The thing is most of these parts don’t last for years and get replaced, so the long term damage isn’t seen. Kind of like the soft touch coatings on plastic they used about a decade ago. That stuff turns to soft sticky goo eventually. Whether that’s just the nature of the coating or the fact it picks up oil from your hands and that’s where the damage comes from I don’t know.
 
TBH, I don't know if soaking in WD40 is going to do anything. On the other hand, it depends on the "type" of nylon we're talking about.

Nylons are what's knows as "hygroscopic" —they absorb moisture (water) and all you need to do is boil them for between 3 to 4 minutes—longer than that and it's not going to do anything because nylon has a saturation point, so once that point is reached, it will take no more.

We've known to do this with nylon parts since the mid 80's (At least our circle was doing it thanks to the guys at BIR hobby Shop!). Also keep in mind that this is why nylon parts break more easily driving outside in winter; especially in temps nearing 35 and under.

Here is a good article on Nylon conditioning.

As for oils. . . I guess it depends on which *type* of oils and what type of nylons.

Generally speaking, Nylons have a good resistance to oils and hydrocarbons—including the aliphatic hydrocarbons found in WD 40, so it's hard to say if there will be any uptake at all.

https://www.essentracomponents.com/en-us/news/product-resources/chemical-resistance-caps-and-plugs

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemistry/polyamide.

The saturation amount of water absorbed is almost 3% in dry nylon. That's in an atmosphere with 50% relative humidity. NASA did an experiment with a particular Nylon and a particular oil and found that the Nylon that was used in the oil absorption test was only able to absorb roughly 0.6 % water afterwards.

So it's possible that oil can replace water (in some specific instances), but only a small amount of water can [re]enter previously oil-impregnated nylon.

Another good article on Nylons
https://weeklypellet.com/2016/07/22/understanding-nylon-and-moisture/

Personally, I would just stick with the 3 minute water boils and avoid the winter bashing.

EDIT: Simply heating nylons in an oven isn't going to introduce the moisture and in most cases is only going to dry it out further and make it more brittle and subject to braking.

Methinks it's time for the industry to get away from using Nylon for the plastic of choice in RC. There are other alternatives.
 
As someone who's worked with plastics quite a lot... There are only two groups of plastics... Amorphous polymers and crystalline...

Wd40 does absolutely nothing to the plastics used for a arms... The type of plastic is crystalline....

It will however break down the chains in amorphous polymers.

The hydrocarbons in wd40 cannot break the crystalline groups chains... Therefore has no physical effect

I had this confirmed by the director of one of the uk's largest plastics manufacturer earlier this year.

It's a placebo effect.... There's absolutely no chance of it even being possible....
 
So there's your answer. The myth is now busted. ??

Three to four minute boil every now and then and avoid using saturated nylon in winter.
 
I've never done it because it seems like a pain in the ass ? Most of th stuff you would soak in WD40 is cheap enough that I would just rather replace it ???
 
Exactly.

Out of curiosity, what companies do you recommend for aluminum parts? Technically, they should be similar if using the same grade, but with everything coming out of China, no one can be certain.
 
Branson_Basher said:
Boiling is supposed to relieve stresses is the plastic.

WD40 is supposed to be good because of silicone oil in the formula.

I dunno but it makes me feel good to hose plastics down in silicone oil instead of WD40.
Click to expand...
I degreaser lightly ,scrub,then wash, then wd40 then wipe over and finish with silicone oil spray last. Works very well for me. Hardly any rusty,sticky parts and easy to clean next time.
 
Well my typhon is still brand spanking nw fter 50 crashes in 2 days i cant belive this thing has broken nothing so far impressive af but my wing has devloped 2 cracks already my kraton wing started cracking after 8 months of ownership so im going to boil it
 
Doesit soften up TBR customer support as well??
I broke the top bar of their bumper after a couple of runs and have emailed them to receive their acclaimed lifelong guarantee but I only received one mail in which they asked me for $10 administration fee which is absurd for a 25 cent piece of nylon and since then no more replys.
 
DanielM said:
Doesit soften up TBR customer support as well??
I broke the top bar of their bumper after a couple of runs and have emailed them to receive their acclaimed lifelong guarantee but I only received one mail in which they asked me for $10 administration fee which is absurd for a 25 cent piece of nylon and since then no more replys.
Click to expand...
You need to email tbone on their website itself after they send you the warranty email they cant reply back after i think
The live tchat
 
Yeah, nylon parts made in the USA would (should) be inexpensive. These parts that are made over seas in China should come in potato chip bag quantities for about half the price of what potato chips cost.

Seriously.

You want to talk about companies marking up their goods orders of magnitude from the actual cost? Look no further than companies supplying these nylon parts for our sport.

And nylon isn’t the best choice given the types of plastics and plastic alloys available today (Regardless of what companies like RPM tell us). For instance, Delrin (POM-H/homopolymer) is superior to nylon in every single way compared to nylon.

To give folks an idea and to maybe open their eyes, consider the following:

DELRIN: 0.125" X 12" X 12" = $11.17
DELRIN: 2.000" X 12" X 12" = $115.05
DELRIN: 3.000" X 12" X 12" = $177.22

Nylon: 0.125" x 12" x 12" = $13.38
Nylon: 2.000" X 12" X 12" = $148.68

Delrin can be about 25 to 30% less expensive and it’s superior to nylon in every way that's important to our sport. Impact resistance, abrasion resistance (silky smooth) rigidity/stiffness. . .

Also consider that companies using this product in “scale” will be getting far better cost outs then someone buying relative small amounts.

On top of that, Delrin has superior machining qualities. Not even a contest.

It seems as though these companies know how to take advantage of us when offering plastic parts. Of course there’s always aluminum.

The trouble aluminum parts is that the companies don’t seem to be forthcoming with the type of aluminum alloy they are using. Are the parts “cast” or machined? Are the aluminum parts being fabricated out of alloys like aluminum 6061 or 7075? Hell, with arms and bulkheads fab’d (machined) from 7075 you could probably crash and flip at 80mph without having anything bend or fail.

Offer chassis option grades *starting* with Delrin. Offer arms and other structural components from 6061/7075 aluminum (anodized) (and Titanium links/turnbuckles) and 90% of the high-intensity “bashing” crowd would probably never need to change broken chassis or suspension part. . . Oh wait: how would they keep selling you stuff in the future?

My bad.
 
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RC X said:
Yeah, nylon parts made in the USA would (should) be inexpensive. These parts that are made over seas in China should come in potato chip bag quantities for about half the price of what potato chips cost.

Seriously.

You want to talk about companies marking up their goods orders of magnitude from the actual cost? Look no further than companies supplying these nylon parts for our sport.

And nylon isn’t the best choice given the types of plastics and plastic alloys available today (Regardless of what companies like RPM tell us). For instance, Delrin (POM-H/homopolymer) is superior to nylon in every single way compared to nylon.

To give folks an idea and to maybe open their eyes, consider the following:

DELRIN: 0.125" X 12" X 12" = $11.17
DELRIN: 2.000" X 12" X 12" = $115.05
DELRIN: 3.000" X 12" X 12" = $177.22

Nylon: 0.125" x 12" x 12" = $13.38
Nylon: 2.000" X 12" X 12" = $148.68

Delrin can be about 25 to 30% less expensive and it’s superior to nylon in every way that's important to our sport. Impact resistance, abrasion resistance (silky smooth) rigidity/stiffness. . .

Also consider that companies using this product in “scale” will be getting far better cost outs then someone buying relative small amounts.

On top of that, Delrin has superior machining qualities. Not even a contest.

It seems as though these companies know how to take advantage of us when offering plastic parts. Of course there’s always aluminum.

The trouble aluminum parts is that the companies don’t seem to be forthcoming with the type of aluminum alloy they are using. Are the parts “cast” or machined? Are the aluminum parts being fabricated out of alloys like aluminum 6061 or 7075? Hell, with arms and bulkheads fab’d (machined) from 7075 you could probably crash and flip at 80mph without having anything bend or fail.

Offer chassis option grades *starting* with Delrin. Offer arms and other structural components from 6061/7075 aluminum (anodized) (and Titanium links/turnbuckles) and 90% of the high-intensity “bashing” crowd would probably never need to change broken chassis or suspension part. . . Oh wait: how would they keep selling you stuff in the future?

My bad.
Click to expand...
Not that most plastic burning is a good thing, but delrin is especially bad in that regard. Don't remember what version, but used to work for a company that molded Volvo truck reinforcements from xenoy....could compact it multiple times, bend it back on itself...the stuff just wouldn't break.....better than rubbermade.....
 
Well I believe the flashpoint of Delrin is somewhere the neighborhood of 600°F so I don’t know of anything that gets anywhere near that Hot in any of these RC models but I could be wrong
 
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There is a video on youtube. The guy does multiple stress tests on the a-arms soaked in various things. They all broke at the same force regardless. The only test that showed good results were the rpm arms. I ordered a set to replace the stock arms.
Video
 
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