Show me your.... Regrinded ponies!! :D

[BabyIceCrystal]

Yes, regrind is when old is mixed with new. Plastic is made as a liquid which is poured into a mould. As it cools it hardens and there's a chemical change that happens. Regrind is when old (therefore already hardened) plastic is ground up (thus the word re-grind) and added to the batch of brand new plastic when it is still liquid. The idea is that it melts in and adds to the volume so there's less waste and more cost saving. When this is new you can't tell the difference. The problem is that chemically the old and new are different and can never truly merge with each other. The result of this is that the old and new plastics age differently. The dyes pool and break down and react strangely over time and you get those blotchy patches developing all over as this happens. (Think about what happens if you melt a chocolate and then put it in the fridge to reharden. Once it's melted the second time it changes and will never taste the way it had originally.)

Hasbro did this with certain batches of ponies during a certain time period. That's why certain ponies are prone to it and others will never get it. Examples are Party Time and a lot of the flutters. I think there's a lot of misunderstanding of what regrind is in the community. There's a tendency to believe it's pink patches that appear on ponies. That's not strictly true. You have to remember that the old plastic used for regrinding already had dye in it and therefore they could only be used in new batches of plastic with a similar colour. Hasbro wouldn't have thrown blue old plastic in a batch of new yellow, it would change the colour. That's why you see it as splotching on ponies like Party Time. The old pink was close enough to the orange that it wouldn't have changed the overall colour too much. It's also a small part of why some ponies get so much variance in colouration (think Galaxy).

Unfortunately as the dyes leech and the plastic breaks down differently certain moulds and bacteria are attracted and you can easily get brown splotches developing where they break it down further (cancer) on top of the regrind discolouration. Lady Lovely Locks dolls are great examples of this.

That's why that Starry Wings and Majesty aren't really regrind spots. Pink wouldn't have been added to those batches of plastic. I would guess that the Starry Wings really is an old lipstick stain. The lipstick would have been washed away long ago but the dye from it stayed. Might also have been pink marker used as pretend lipstick.  Majesty may have been stored up against something that leeched its dye onto her, like another toy or accessories in Goodwill for example. When my ponies were first in storage for a few years they had no protection and Sunbeam leeched pink dye onto Scoops, Parasol, and Crunch Berry. I suspect both Starry Wings and Majesty would be fixed by sunfading, where true regrind can't be.

[Ponypuffs]

Very imformative, BabyIceCrystal.

[Shenanigans]

Ooh, I just found out what regrind is, I always wondered! I checked my Party Time (whom I thought was just about mint!) and it appears she has regrind as well, poor thing! Not real noticable though since the bright pink regrind on her bright orange body look very similar!

[Vampasaurus]

I've heard that Partytime is like the most common regrinded pony so I got out my much beloved childhood party time to take pictures. but looking him over, he doesn't have any at all!  I haven't looked him over with a collector's eye in years and I thought for sure he's be a total mess, but I can't find a flaw on him. This thread just made my day!

[NoDivision]

thank you baby ice crystal - that sums it up so well. I see people claiming a pony has regrind a lot whenever it has a pink mark, and I can never seem to get them to understand it's not

[BabyIceCrystal]

Oh good, I was wondering if I was just adding to the confusion by not being clear enough!

In the original spirit of the thread, here's Sky Dancer with regrind so bad her body looks almost entirely hot pink! You can see she's still a bit more normal pink on her back leg and if you look at her shoulder in front of her wing you can see a pattern. What's funny about her is that her head appears to have been made with a batch containing no regrind at all so the contrast is quite noticeable.
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And for good measure, a Party Time and a Pinwheel.
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[Jocelyn]

Thanks for the info, Icecrystal! I have always been confused about regrind. I usually hear it's like pink highlighter marks and that's what I saw on Majesty, so I assumed that's what she had. But being dyed from another pony does make a lot more sense; it's on that spot of her side that's most rounded/sticks out the most.

And thanks for the compliments, I felt pretty lucky when I found her in such vibrant condition I've never had luck at thrift stores or Goodwill until recently, apparently!

[hathorcat]

Excellent sum up BabyIceCrystal! I have said in the past that "regrind" doesnt have to always be pink - it can and will show in different shades depending on the colour of the pony - the yellow marks seem sometimes on a pony like Majestys are probably regrind on her. Likewise I believe that sometimes the "shiny" patches ponies can develop may well be plastic regrind when the regrind used was a transparent plastic.

[Mintymints]

I have none to add, but if I find any, they aren't going to be baited, they would make a special part in my collection, they are so lovely