These guys are a little misleading -- the screw at the bottom makes you think they are simply held together with that, but the body is thoroughly glued together in addition.
- Carefully remove head from body -- my preference here is to soak the whole pony in boiling water until the vinyl has softened enough that I can safely pull the head off. This may also help to weaken the glue involved, but be careful not to leave in water for too long, since there are metal parts involved. The neck plug is attached to the top half of the body:
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(http://imgur.com/wUpaS3Y) - Unscrew the screw on the bottom and set aside (you will still want this).
- Very delicately, use a sharp object like an X-Acto knife and start cutting along the seam lines on the sides of the body. Under the tail, there is a long, flat seam, and it is easiest to start here. There is a curved seam at the front that you will need to cut along as well, and depending on how thoroughly glued your pony is, you will also need to cut along the sides. This is much easier to do with Coco Pommel than with the winged girls. Gently cut deeper into these seam lines until you can wedge the pieces apart. Here is an image of the body without appendages to give you an idea of where you want to cut:
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(http://imgur.com/dQfTiST) - Try to gently separate the pieces. Chances are good that once you open the body, pieces will go flying everywhere, so be careful! Here's a shot of what should greet you when you remove the top:
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(http://imgur.com/jXKqbTP) - The tail is a bunch of cut hairs held together by a metal piece and lots of glue. It is usually glued into the top half of the body, but it may have come loose and be easy to pull out. If not, you can pull it out with a pair of hemostats (or dig it out in the case of big globs of glue). This is a picture from Action Dash, but the tail is located in the same place on the basic ponies:
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(http://imgur.com/AymImtZ) - If you've done accidental damage to the seams trying to pry the pieces apart (which is very easy to do), this is a good point to take some sandpaper to gently sand the edges of the seams. I like to start with 400 grit, then take some 1000 grit to finish. If you've got visible spots still where you've sanded, a matte topcoat spray is a huge help to make things look nice.
- At this point, add a new tail following the re-tailing section (or this can be simply glued into place using your own method, but I'm not a fan of that so I don't cover it here).
- Re-fit the appendage plugs into the appropriate places -- the legs slot into the bottom half of the body, whereas the wings (if present) slot into the top. It's easiest to reassemble by having the lower body spread out on a hard surface, then taking the top and gently press it back into place.
- Hold the whole mess together and rescrew to keep everything where it should be. :lol: