Plastics-The amazing, bleeding, flyswatter

[SansSuit 1]

9 or 10 years ago, I picked up a promotional flyswatter at a county fair. It has no wire, it is one piece of molded black plastic. There is printing on the handle advertising somethingorother.

Nine months out of the year, the flyswatter lives in a desk drawer, undisturbed. Undisturbed, but not idle. When I go to use it for the first time each summer, the flyswatter is coated in a very fine, rust colored powder. I clean it off, every year, and each spring, there it is, coated again.

The powder emanates from the flyswatter itself, nothing else in the drawer has any of this powder on it at all. One winter I put it in a different drawer to see if that made a difference. Nope. Same thing, the flyswatter is coated, nothing else is affected at all.

Anybody here have a clue as to what this phenomenon is? This happens year after year. I thought maybe some kind of release agent, but you would think that it would have run out by now.

Hey, is "Ripley's Believe it or Not" still around?

Peace,
-Dawson.
http://www.SansSuit.com
The Society for the Advancement of Naked Skydiving

[BillyVance 35]

I have no idea other than that the plastic itself acts as some kind of magnet for dust...

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[1969912 0]

Many plastics outgas, and can do it for a long time. The oily stuff that builds up on the inside of car windows in the summer is due to outgassing of the interior plastics.

My guess is that the stuff on the swatter is a product of outgassing, but some kind of mold that likes plastic might also be possible.

It would be interesting to accurately weigh it each year and see if it loses weight over time.

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG