What is LEGO made of?

Shurtugal · Post by **Shurtugal** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 12:58 am

I know the bricks are/were ABS, but the power ranger swords are made of something different? Is pearl grey ABS, too? What are the new Exoforce hairpieces made of? Just wonderin'

Thanks

~Andrew

smcginnis · Post by **smcginnis** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 1:20 am

Well, I don't know any of this for certain, but I'm pretty sure that pearl grey in spears, helmets, and the like is ABS, and I'm also pretty sure that the KK2 swords and the Exo-force hair are Polypropylene (PP). You could try searching the forums, I know there's something about the swords' material somewhere. Not sure where to find out about the other two.

~smcginnis

cnelson · Post by **cnelson** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 5:31 pm

Polycarbonate is used in all translucent elements, and some parts like the lightsaber blade. One of the interesting things that I learned at Brickfest from the Lego designers is that it's very difficult to push a lightsaber blade through a trans-yellow 1 x 1 cone, but the same cone will easily fit on a 4L antenna. That's because both the cone and the blade are made of polycarbonate, and the coefficient of friction for polycarbonate-on-polycarbonate is very high. The antenna is ABS, so it's easy to do that.

ABS and polycarbonate also require different molds. That's why even a solid lightsaber blade is made of polycarbonate; it was intended as translucent-only element but then expanded to solid colors. Rather than create a new mold, they just did polycarbonate instead of ABS for it...

Carl

Post by **architect** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 5:45 pm

The off topic posts in this thread have been removed.

Ben