Post #57735 by aquarj on Thu, Oct 30, 2003 2:21 PM

That warping happens on a lot of cocojoe and HIP tikis. I've had that happen to some of the older cocojoes I bought in Hawaii years ago - straight and tall new, and now stooping and cracked. I wonder if it's a Dorian Gray effect.

Anyway, it may be the case that some were affected by a fire (although the legendary fire I know of was in the HIP warehouse), but it may also just be old age on cheap plastic. Some buyer tips - the older, heavier cocojoes do not warp, but the newer plastic ones often did. If you're looking at them, especially like in a photo on ebay, the less shiny ones tend to be older. Also, sometimes you can see little white cracks showing in the details of the "carving", revealing how the plastic has stretched or contracted. And if you see the back, if it looks liquid-y like someone pushed it in with their thumb, then it probably did or will warp.

Who knows what kinda crap went into the plastic composition of the newer ones, so if you wanna melt it, you might do it outside. I used to play around with melting LPs (you can make them look pretty bizarre) and learned pretty quick that doing it indoors was a dumb idea. In addition to smelling bad, burning plastic can play some mean tricks on you like dripping little burning fireballs on your carpet. Luckily my experimentation was mostly done in a college dorm.

-Randy