GW colored plastic vs grey plastic

[Jukkiz]

The only difference in my experience is it's a bigger pain in the ass priming the colored sprues due to the base coloration always seeming to show through.

As duncan says, "two thin layers"

 

I know the pain, sometimes two primer layers helps, though gotta be careful when doing it as you may get smushed details

[sarabando]

take this with a grain of salt but a friend of mine who works in the industry told me that the boxed game kits IE the coloured ones are being made by a company who he works with from time to time who makes board game components. ive got no reason to distrust him but friend told me etc...

 

Personally i have noticed that the plastic is considerably more brittle especially around the vets where it will snap neatly around the "tube"

[Charlo]

The Red plastic in Blackstone I found to be mostly similar, if a little easier to break than the grey stuff.

 

Though, that could just be all the teeny tiny bits on the explorers!

[Lucio]

The pigmented sprues do have a slightly different reaction to the glue, and tend to expand a little. Not a lot, just a tiny amount.

 

The light grey sprue is pushing 15+ years old, so snapping is expected due to the age making it brittle

[No Foes Remain]

I have a question as I'm not that smart in these things: How does the colour of the plastic make the model more brittle or breakable? And if gw makes their plastic grey then what is the actual colour of plastic?

[Canadian_F_H]

Pigments are an additive. Additives introduce impurities, some additives improve strength or flexibility etc, some worsen it in exchange for a different trait (in this case a desired color).

 

As for the color of uncolored plastic... Surprising difficult to google because they only seam to want to show off the colored pellets... But as best as I can manage. A translucent whitish color?

[Gederas]

I have a question as I'm not that smart in these things: How does the colour of the plastic make the model more brittle or breakable? And if gw makes their plastic grey then what is the actual colour of plastic?

As Arkhanist mentioned last page, certain things can happen when colouring plastic that makes it far more brittle, the most well-known being Transformers "Gold Plastic Syndrome". Another well-known case is with Bionicle figures, after 2007 when they switched from Dark Green to Lime Green plastics for all green models, the lime green was NOTORIOUS for breaking at the ball-sockets. I myself can confirm this, when assembling one of the models out of the box, the piece snapped. This was a BRAND-NEW toy. And even though it was a new formula for the plastic, it was only the lime green ones, with yellow as a close-ish second.

 

But yeah, Canadian_F_H also explained it pretty well.