Tyler326 | 29 Oct 2020 12:24 p.m. PST |
Are most 28mm figures now made lead free? When did they stop using lead in making them. Asking for a friend. Thanks |
JimDuncanUK | 29 Oct 2020 12:38 p.m. PST |
Think it was the Yankies that started that ball rolling but probably made sense anyway. |
Grelber | 29 Oct 2020 12:54 p.m. PST |
I think it goes back to 1985-6, when some kids developed lead poisoning in New York state and there was a big liability court case. Dad collected toy soldiers, and the state tried to blame him. They kind of ignored the fact that the land had been a shooting range for 50-60 years, so that a check of the soil showed a significant amount of lead from bullets, also Dad kept his toys put away, as most of us do. My recollection is that the court case blamed the bullets, not the toy soldiers, but it had dragged on long enough for the US toy soldier industry to take a big hit that Christmas. Many companies decided to take the easy way out and switch to other alloys so they wouldn't risk being closed down in the future on the lead issue. Ral Partha's alloy was called "Ralidium," I think. That's my recollection from ancient days, and I've probably muddled some of the details, so I'm happy to be corrected. Grelber |
nudspinespittle | 29 Oct 2020 1:20 p.m. PST |
The switch occurred in 1993. |
IUsedToBeSomeone | 29 Oct 2020 1:37 p.m. PST |
A number of manufacturer still use lead in their metal alloys – I believe that Warlord use the same metal I use for Toy Soldiers which is lead based…. Mike |
robert piepenbrink | 29 Oct 2020 1:59 p.m. PST |
My recollection matches with Gelber's. The story at the time was that Dad's ex-wife was in the New York EPA, so winning didn't help us much. Dealers spent their own money for legal aid, and the New York EPA spent the taxpayers', so they'd keep on going until we were broke if they didn't win sooner. So effectively, the manufacturers won and then surrendered anyway. What neither side seems to have anticipated was that everyone was calculating the cost of the switch wrongly--the price of a given weight of lead against the price of of something else. What we ought to have been thinking of was the price of a given volume of lead vs the price of replacement metals. That was a much less drastic difference, so the hobby didn't take the drastic hit we had feared and the EPA left had looked forward to. |
Brian Smaller | 29 Oct 2020 3:30 p.m. PST |
I remember getting my first Connoisseur figs from the States when JT Miniatures had that range in the 80s and they used lead free pewter. I was amazed at how light they were. Something like a third to quarter the weight of the originals I had got from Peter Gilder. |
Sgt Slag | 29 Oct 2020 9:32 p.m. PST |
Most are now lead-free, but I believe some makers are still employing lead. I do not remember who, though. I used Prince August molds, back at the turn of the millennia. I used pure lead, for a while. I later switched to their Model Metal alloy: the casting became easier, the Model Metal produced better castings, much more consistently, than I could achieve with pure lead. I also experienced lead rot with a small number of my mini's. I do not miss lead. The modern alloys are much better. Cheers! |
Leon Pendraken | 30 Oct 2020 11:42 a.m. PST |
Most of the larger UK companies are still using a lead alloy, I believe most of the 'lead-belt' businesses are still using the original Games Workshop alloy from the 90's. Ours is similar but we've tweaked it a bit over the years so that it casts the smaller figures better. |
Triple000 | 30 Oct 2020 2:01 p.m. PST |
Grelber's memory is correct. Even the ground water was contaminated with lead from the shooting range where they lived. IIRC correctly they lived in an apartment above an indoor firing range on the property. Primer fumes are a major source of absorbable lead. The local school the kids attended had the drinking fountains disconnected due to high lead levels from its water well. The miniatures were an easy target for politicians/law suits as they had no association to help defend themselves in court. They were small time businesses that could not afford legal costs.It was a purely political motive to deflect from the actual cause. |
Nick Pasha | 31 Oct 2020 7:01 p.m. PST |
I was in the middle of this thing in New York. The time period is correct. Parents were concerned with lead poisoning and contacted the state legislators and the governor. Several industries used lead in their products, such as ammo, and lead fishing sinkers. Those manufacturers were too powerful to attack, especially in New York (fishing is big on Long Island and upstate) so they hit the small, relatively vulnerable miniature figure makers. I had a business relationship with the original Minifigs owner and got a lot of info from him. I wrote letters to assemblymen, state senators and the press. Saliva tests were made that showed that a child would have to suck on a lead figure for 30 min. a day to have some affect. At first I got nowhere but eventually the dust settled and the bill was never passed. However in the meantime many manufacturers switched to other metals, including pewter. Minifigs switched to pewter. Because of this prices increased. This bruhaha only affected NYS but outside companies who did business with NY were affected as well. Some companies stopped doing business in New York and concentrated on other areas. They did not switch to other metals. |
Marcus Brutus | 01 Nov 2020 5:55 a.m. PST |
I haven't found many manufacturers using pure tin (pewter). Metal figures are still made today with some combination of tin/lead or occasionally zinc/lead. I hate pewter figures because they are so hard and brittle to work with. |
Nick Pasha | 01 Nov 2020 8:53 p.m. PST |
After the dust settled many of the companies that switched to pewter switched back to lead. |