Is wooden cabinet bad for resin?

Not as far as I've ever heard - all the shelves and cabinets in my house are wooden and I've had BJD's for over 15 years (and have wooden doll furniture)


Teddy

 

I think what type of wood and perhaps even more how it has been treated is the more important question.
I mean, if a cabinet is painted or varnished with an acrylic based product and properly cured, your dolls would never come into contact with the wood itself. If the cabinet on the other hand was freshly treated with something like linseed oil or oil based paints it would probably be a bad idea to but a naked doll into contact with it.
Some woods will have a natural high content of things like tannins and oils and those can probably cause the polyurethane to react. Tannins are in their nature very acidic and may force the plastic to oxidize faster and thus yellow at the point on contact.

But realisticly, unless the piece of furniture is very new or newly polished/sanded/treated I doubt the risk is very high.

 

You could also put down something before setting your dolls on the shelf—like contact paper or maybe a slip of fabric if you’re too worried.

 

I have some valuable documents that I store in archival boxes, because regular cardboard emits gasses that are harmful to them. Since cardboard is made from wood, I looked the subject up and found this article. It is in reference to document storage, which of course is not the same as resin storage - but I think that you raised an excellent question. Is the off-gassing of wood detrimental to resin over time? I have no idea, but this certainly made me think.

Edit: I just came to a belated realization. Aside from BJDs, I also collect animation cels, which are made from acetate. Like resin, they are a type of plastic...and like resin, they have the unfortunate inherent process of chemical change over time. Archival storage is imperative, because off-gassing is definitely known to speed their deterioration, especially in an enclosed space. I have seen 15 year-old dolls that still look great (heck, I own a couple of 12+ that do), but I have also seen 60+ year-old cels in fantastic condition, and that is a testament to decades of meticulous care. Again, I absolutely cannot speak knowledgably on the subject of resin, but drawing a parallel, for myself I think I will feel safer using glass and metal cases, or at least very well coated wood.

 

I mean, there are dryer woods that can be used that you could choose if you are more nervous about that sort of then, but most of the time things used for cabinets/enclosures aren't built out of woods where you'd have to worry about humidity/moisture. If you were truly worried you could always get a humidity sensor (they have them for reptiles and for humidors) just to be on the safe side. As Celga said, there is offgasing that can occur, but I'm not 100% certain the effect it would have on a BJD. I know tons of collectors who use wooden shelves for all sorts of figurines/models who have had them for years without any sort of damage (at least to the naked eye).

 

I’ve kept mine in both a varnished wood secretary desk and a chalk-painted China cabinet and my oldest doll has no signs of yellowing. My second doll has mellowed but I suspect it’s because of her brand’s resin as none of my other dolls have noticeably changed color.

 

I think we as a community are always willing to consider that something might be harmful to resin (because it’s no fun to think that you might be inadvertently destroying your possessions) but without an explanation as to why this person thinks so, I don’t buy it.

Partly that’s because I’ve never heard this claim before (and I’ve been in the hobby for 13 years) and partly because I’ve always stored dolls on a wooden bookshelf and then in a wooden cabinet and the ones that have been in there for over a decade consistently really haven’t yellowed in any extreme way. (As compared to a friend whose similar dolls yellowed pretty severely because they had them on a shelf facing a window.)

Could there be an interplay there I haven’t noticed? Possibly. But if it’s that negligible I don’t think it’s something to worry about. I’ve heard even air plays a part in initiating the breakdown of pigments in resin, but not to a degree worth trying keep your dolls air tight or, in this case, avoid furniture.

 

Yep.

Teddy

 

I suspect potential humidity would be no worse inside most wooden cabinets than it is outside them, honestly. Even a well-made display cabinet isn't anywhere close to air-tight. Also, lumber tends to be kiln-dried before it's turned into furniture, so there's not a lot of "extra" moisture there to worry about anyway. (That's done to to prevent potential warping and cracking after the pieces are cut and assembled.)

Gassing-off from stains and finishes might be an issue with very new pieces, but if the cabinet is a few years old, I doubt that's still going to be a big problem, either. Most of that process happens early on.

All that aside, for what it's worth my entire crew have been kept in wooden display cabinets with glass doors for many years and seem fine. What yellowing has happened has been mild enough that I'd chalk it up to simple age and the nature of the material they're made of. Even exposure to AIR is enough to cause some color shift in resin, after all.

 

I agree with @Amet

Just to try to put things into perspective, wikipedia has a good summary on what is known today of the conservation of plastics. If you look there at the "Effects of deterioration table" under "polyurethane", which is what BJD resin is, then you see that UV light and moisture are listed as the main causes of yellowing, and nothing else, not oxygen, not even warmth.

Most sources on the conservation of plastics, like the Getty museum, but also other museums and universities with departments dealing with the chemistry of plastic, state that there still is much research to do on the ideal conservation of plastic, and that every sort of plastic is very different in its properties and in what causes damage or is beneficial to its upkeep. What hurts documents etc, is a total different story still, although most sources seem to agree that storage materials emitting acids also can have negative effects on some plastic.

But they are talking about conserving museum pieces for coming generations here, like designer furniture and pieces of art that are mostly several decades old, and such like. Personally I don't see my BJD collection in that context, to be honest, I want to enjoy them now, in my living space, not conserve them. It makes sense to protect them from UV light and dust, but that's as far as I go.