Recent purchased G1 ponies and hard plastic

[lostpony]

Clipper, my three gingerbreads are all soft and two have condition problems (age spots and deep discoloration on one) and the party time I have at hand is surprisingly hard...as in I didn't notice until checking now.  Her head is interestingly quite soft, hm...

Emberly that's an interesting result from bleaching.  How strong did you bleach for how long?

LunaMoonCustoms1212, summary of my age spot study so far under a spoiler to save space as it's off-topic.  In short, boiling got rid of the spots...somewhat.

Spoiler

I bought a Bright Eyes that seemed cheap until I discovered she came with a cancer spot on her forehead (turns out it was described, I was just lazy when buying) and I had previously done some other experiments including dissection (found particularly interesting characteristics) on a Moonstone so I tried the prescribed boil for ten minutes suggestion to "kill" it in case it's life (jury's still out on whether it is life or a chemical reaction) on the general assumption that boiling anything alive for ten minutes kills it (not entirely true but worth a shot right?) and I don't remember why but I boiled her for longer and found that the spot faded in color to an off-white and seemed stable for many months but now almost a year later could be returning to its age spot color....as to the Chief, I have one that seemed spot-free until I found a very small spot which I boiled for an hour and it disappeared completely and so far hasn't returned.  I bought another Chief with much larger, more advanced spots and they not only went white, but raised physically making bumps on the surface, a taller bump where the darker area had been and a less raised area where the lighter area had been.  This happened within two hours of boiling but when back-lit, darkness inside the material could still be seen so I boiled for a long time, basically a three-day weekend, and couldn't get rid of those areas visible in back-lighting.  I found when I sanded those raised spots off with some 400 grit, a very light brown was revealed and I plan to re-boil and see if they fade further or not.  Also what happened with the extended boiling was the whiteness of Chief yellowed a bit, but that cleared right up and he became crispy white in a few days of peroxide-immersed sunfade.  Which fades symbols and discolors hair if left uncovered`so if you try this be sure to mask with foil or something better--I used foil so it can't react with or dissolve in the peroxide.  I didn't try a dry sunfade which might work, needs to be tested out. 

Next, I have a Gingerbread donated to me by a member here with several advanced age spots, which has a different plastic formula but found out she tans not whitens in dry sunfade so plan to take some samples from inside her neckseam and see what the peroxide sunfade does to her before I put her to the boil.

Further, the Bright Eyes I boiled almost a year ago and seemed stable for all that time went with me to a halloween party and I noticed when I was getting her spiffed up to go that her "cure" might be relapsing so there is much more to do, to study this to reach meaningful conclusions and when I am satisfied I have learned something meaningful I'll have Fardreamer add it to her mlppreservations.com (might have misspelled the url) website...I have a second gingerbread with a small age spot on her forehead who will be my "control group" for long-term observation to see how whatever I did to the first gingerbread compares to an un-treated one.

It's rather fortunate that long-term observation serves to test the long-term effects because I've been too busy with other things to resume my little pretend-to-be scientist experiments.  I have quite a volume of pictures at various stages and scanty log entries and when I resume the study I will take much better notes and more thorough pictures and hopefully add a lot more specimens from different ponies and have as many ponies in the control group as possible, and compile everything in a meaningful report with lots of documentation and picture evidence.

Conclusion:  Less advanced spots on Chief seem to go away and stay gone a year so far with an hour of boiling, more advanced spots go mostly away leaving raised spots but you might have to leave those raised areas if you want to keep your results, and it's not clear whether they will stay gone over time. 

disclaimer:  it's not an FDA-approved treatment yet either, haha. 

**standard bleach admonition for everypony:  Please don't bleach ponies.  I tried that, had some good results before I was warned by more-experienced restorers.  We don't know the long-term impacts on the subject ponies and it's a risky double-edged sword that is entirely unnecessary.  There are alternatives that work as well or better with less risk to the pony such as Oxiclean, sunfading, and in the case of the Sharpie marker I think acetone might have done the trick...

[Pheasant]

some where made that way.. I know my flower fantasy flowerbelle was hard as a rock as a kid.. I've never found a soft version of her ever.. Also twinkle eyed ponies you can find both versions. I think it is possible over time they could turn hard from the plasticizer leaking.. But I really think that some batches of ponies were made this way..

I've always wondered about the TE ponies. There were some that no matter how many of that pony I have they are always hard. I assumed it had something to do with the ability to put the eyes in the pony and have them stay that way. If they were soft it might have been hard to get the eyes to work?

My theory is that, unless you used an industrial-strength glue, children could have more easily popped the jewels out of softer ponies. Most of the G1 princess ponies I've owned were also made of a harder material. It may have been a safety thing.

[Jorgito93]

some where made that way.. I know my flower fantasy flowerbelle was hard as a rock as a kid.. I've never found a soft version of her ever.. Also twinkle eyed ponies you can find both versions. I think it is possible over time they could turn hard from the plasticizer leaking.. But I really think that some batches of ponies were made this way..

I've always wondered about the TE ponies. There were some that no matter how many of that pony I have they are always hard. I assumed it had something to do with the ability to put the eyes in the pony and have them stay that way. If they were soft it might have been hard to get the eyes to work?

My theory is that, unless you used an industrial-strength glue, children could have more easily popped the jewels out of softer ponies. Most of the G1 princess ponies I've owned were also made of a harder material. It may have been a safety thing.

I don't agree for the princess ponies, all my princesses are super soft except for my sparkle which is still soft even if she's not as soft as the others

[lostpony]

Masquerade has a very strong industrial glue holding her eyes in and I suspect that entire earlier group of TEs are like Masquerade, and Bright Eyes has gems that are several millimeters larger inside than at the surface to hold them in and presumably the rest of the later TEs are like Bright Eyes.

[LadyMoondancer]

The first set of TEs has a sort of molded "cup" on the inside of the head that holds the gem in.  I tried to make a new TE out of Sweet Stuff once (replace the eyes, etc) but it proved impossible without cutting through the eye-pockets.

IIRC, the gem itself is not actually round-ish like a real stone.  The front is faceted (the part visible on the pony), then there's a skinny bit, then there's a large plug which fits in the cup.

Like this (sideview):

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Whether the second set had any changes to this set up, I don't know.  Bright Eyes and Locket are the only two I ever see with "sunken" eyes, which suggests the problem is related to their molds.

[dragonfly]

it's normal. Even when I was a kid some of the ponies were particularly hard ... or soft plastic!
I remember in particular the TEs and Big Brother ponies were hard.

[lostpony]

Ladymoondancer, you can get the eyes out of TEs by dunking the head in boiling water to warm them enough to soften them, the use a finger inside the head to push up on the socket.  In the ones with the deep anchor like you sketched, they will pop right out, and in ones like Masquerade where they are glued in you still have to fight the glue too.

Theoretically it could work with water that is warm but not boiling, I just happened to have boiling water.

I thought Masquerade was the early set and Bright Eyes was the later set, do I have those backwards?  Or possibly my assumption that each set has the same socket designs is incorrect.  I've only examined these two.

"Hard Pony" sounds like a tough interview talk show where they ask ponies the revealing questions.