Removing hair from a very gluey G3 head - halp?

[daisyd]

I'm working on my first ever G3 custom - first, and I swear, last one too at this rate ><

I've spent two days so far trying, in between other jobs, to remove her mane. There is an unreal amount of glue holding the roots in place.

I have, in no special order, tried - picking with tweezers, using a crochet hook, pulling single strands (time consuming, but so far the best success rate!), using near-boiling water to soften the glue and using nail polish remover to dissolve said glue. So far, I've managed to remove about half of the mane.

Can anyone give me some hints as to how the get the rest of the hair out? I've removed about as much as I can using tweezers from the inside, as they've got quite short blades, and I've bent two crochet hooks with trying to reach the hair further inside the head.

I don't have any craft shops near enough to be handy for a quick visit, so if anyone can thin of something using things that I might already have in the house, that would be useful *g*

[PrincessOfDarkness]

Try boiling it till the plastic is nice and soft, and if necessary, stomp on it! The head will return to its shape afterwards, but I find a good stomping can help break the chunks of glue up enough that you can get the mane out

[Eluluu]

i second the vote for pony violence... and if you add a good splash of foul language it yields the best results.

[rybett]

What they said.  A flat head screwdriver is also helpful for scraping the insides. 

[Maniah]

Tweezers are never a desirable tool to remove pony hair and glue in my experience. Add a pair of fishing hemostat pliers to the stomping and I think you will find a winning combination.

[ApertureScience]

Stomping?!  Oh my gosh, that's the weirdest idea I've ever heard, but it sounds so freaking awesome!

I scrape at it with a pick.  There was one time when the glue would not come out for anything and I applied some acetone to it with a Q-tip and it came out loads easier!

[Sarahlacewing]

I agree needle nose pliers are hemostats and pure acetone instead of nail polish remover. A good old fashion stomp fest can be extremely effective.

[bagginslover]

Only thing I can add is a warning with using acetone-I have had it melt the pony plasic before (it was a G3 Aloha Pearl, so don't know if her plastic is different somehow) when using it to try to remove glue, and ended up with the plug holed merging into massive holes! I did fill her head, so it might be ok if just using a dipped cotton bud, but to excercise caution!!

[daisyd]

Tweezers are never a desirable tool to remove pony hair and glue in my experience.

I've used tweezers ever since I started customising (which is almost ten years now) and this is the first timeI haven't been able to complete the job with them.

However, using a flat screwdriver (thanks Rybett!) and boiling water, I managed to prise the whole lump of glue off in one. I now have the added problem of getting said lump of glue out of the neckhole! It is that big - I think I'll have to spike it onto something and hack it with a scalpel until it's small enough to come out.

I'd never have used this particular bait, but she has one thing going for her - she's as pristine a white as I've ever seen, it was just her ragged haircut that put her into my bait box. I just couldn't be bothered with having to spend ages prepping and painting another pony to be white when this one was sitting in the box.

[rybett]

That's one I dreamed up when my hemostat when AWOL. You have a stubborn hunk of glue there.  Watch your fingers!

[Sarahlacewing]

Many people will cut a little triangle wedge out of G3 neck plugs to make them easier to insert and remove from the body, especially if sculpting is involved.  Maybe if you do that the neck would give a little more to allow the glue to pass through.  Sounds like you got one tough cookie here.

[daisyd]

I got it in the end ^^ the glue blob was shaped like a weird pointy C shape. I guess it must have reached up into the ears to have been that sort of shape!