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Clearing out the attic, I noticed something a bit weird in the corner of the old fork crate. The source (sauce?) was the big red suspension elastomer from some retro Quasar linkage forks. I noticed it had gone a bit tacky last year, but nothing on this scale.
Quite appropriate for Halloween 🙂
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Guess it gets pretty hot in your attic.
The question is why now? They have been lurking up there for the last 20 years without melting.
Any STW elastomer chemists?
Is it actually soft now, or has it melted at some point since you last looked and has now gone hard again?
Sort of solid, but tacky and leaves sticky residue on your hands. Red stuff has gone straight in the bin - not the kind of stuff you'd want trampled into carpets. Definitely not the composition it was originally (1996 ish...).
Might rescue a bit and see what temperature it melts at.
That was a feature. If the suspension was asked to work a bit hard, it would self-soften. Obvs.
Some plastics and rubber just do that after a long period, I've had things held together with elastic bands and they've disintegrated like that, kitchen knife handles have done it when stored in a box at the back of the cupboard at room temp and some old lycra cycle shorts sort of melted/disintegrated in a storage box under the bed.