Restoration Experts - glitter rust and hardened bodies?

[Katika]

I'm leaning towards the "no hope" option for both of these conditions, but somehow *just* found out about whitening dingy ponies with hydrogen peroxide so know that there are things that I still don't know and thought I'd ask 

Anyway, is there any hope of I guess fading out the "rust halos" that the second set of G1 Rainbow ponies are prone to getting?  I've half-heartedly tried tooth paste (since it gets rid of tail rust) and a product called Basic H (since it cleans pretty much anything) with no luck.  I'd give CLR a go but don't really like using it for much of anything, anyway, and have a feeling it'd do bad, bad things to a pony.  Any suggestions?

My other question is, is there any way to re-soften G1s after their bodies have hardened?  It seems like only my HTF G1s that have hair cuts (and thus need rehairing...) are the only ones that have this happen to them.  I'm assuming it's something that broke down with the plastic and that this is pretty hopeless, but might have found something about fixing hardened plastic in antique dolls with sewing machine oil?  I'm not sure if it was answering the same question that I was after because they were using a LOT of doll-world jargon that I don't know.

Like I said, I'm pretty sure both of these are "Sorry, your pony's going to have to stay sad" answers, but I do know that there are some people in this community that are much more adventurous than I am in finding cures for such ailments   Thanks for any light any of you can shine on these questions!!

[sd_dreamcrystal]

I'd be careful with whitening with the hydrogen peroxide. While it does wonders in a lot of pony discolor issues, bringing ponies back in the sun can cause problems (has been there and done that )

Most of the rust halos I've had have been minimal thank goodness. so hopefully someone with more experience will be able to help

As for the harden bodies... there is no cure for this. Hard pony bodies are due to... well I can't think of the spelling of the word but I believe it's platizer leak or something like that...

[SeashellnBubbles]

Unfortunately, unlike people (particularly me) hard bodies are permanent on ponies. It doesn't tend to affect how a pony looks on display, however some my be shiney due to the plasicizer leeching out of the platic. The -izer part is what keeps the pony pliable.
As for halos i don't know. I've yet to come across them, but have found that the toilet bowl cleaner that i use is AMAZING on tail rust yeah, i've been experimenting! I don't know what it might do to spakley symbols.

[rosietrot]

I'd be careful with whitening with the hydrogen peroxide. While it does wonders in a lot of pony discolor issues, bringing ponies back in the sun can cause problems (has been there and done that )

Most of the rust halos I've had have been minimal thank goodness. so hopefully someone with more experience will be able to help

As for the harden bodies... there is no cure for this. Hard pony bodies are due to... well I can't think of the spelling of the word but I believe it's platizer leak or something like that...

What happens to peroxided ponies in the sun? I use zit creme, so it's benzol peroxide but I suppose it would do the same thing as whatever it is that you are talking about.  Expound!

Post Merge: March 17, 2014, 10:25:24 PM

Unfortunately, unlike people (particularly me) hard bodies are permanent on ponies. It doesn't tend to affect how a pony looks on display, however some my be shiney due to the plasicizer leeching out of the platic. The -izer part is what keeps the pony pliable.
As for halos i don't know. I've yet to come across them, but have found that the toilet bowl cleaner that i use is AMAZING on tail rust yeah, i've been experimenting! I don't know what it might do to spakley symbols.

I wonder if plastic conditioner, over time, like the kind that you put on the vinyl in cars, would help

[diamondshy]

I'd be careful with whitening with the hydrogen peroxide. While it does wonders in a lot of pony discolor issues, bringing ponies back in the sun can cause problems (has been there and done that )

Most of the rust halos I've had have been minimal thank goodness. so hopefully someone with more experience will be able to help

As for the harden bodies... there is no cure for this. Hard pony bodies are due to... well I can't think of the spelling of the word but I believe it's platizer leak or something like that...

What happens to peroxided ponies in the sun? I use zit creme, so it's benzol peroxide but I suppose it would do the same thing as whatever it is that you are talking about.  Expound!

I don't personally have experience with peroxide on ponies, but I know a little about the chemistry side of it!  Generally in the peroxides, it's the extra oxygen attached that's doing the damage, especially in acne treatment-level chemicals.  Oxygen radicals are very good at breaking apart other molecules, especially when there are hydrogens or certain kinds of carbons around--which are usually what make the long molecule chains in plastics!

I've seen many people around the boards talk about how acne creams can cause discoloration in time and often quite suddenly in ponies, since they work deep into the plastic and stay there.  Perhaps it's the oxygen chewing at the ends of those plastic molecule chains and interacting with dyes and/or plasticizers that makes it happen?  That'd make sense if sunlight catalyzes the reaction, but I'm not sure what's going on where a pony can sit for a long time and only have a sudden onset of discoloration after enough time...

[CopperBluJu]

Boiling those hard bodies will soften them for a short while in order to rehair them. A thumbtack will open hair plugs long enough to pull hair through. I don't think there is a permanent fix to hard bodies. As always with something new I test it out on a fakie or a baity pony.

[FarDreamer]

Do you have photos?  That would help. 

I don't know why trying sunfading or a peroxide/sun soak would hurt them.  I do peroxide soaks all the time and the only damage I've ever done to a pony was when I forgot he was outside and left him in the sun for a week, faded his hair to white.  It was a Majesty and it didn't hurt his symbols at all, but I think the first set of rainbow ponies have the most sensitive symbols of all the glitter symbol ponies.  So yeah, don't forget that your ponies are outside I guess.

Maybe some of this will help:

http://www.mlppreservationproject.com/body.html#Plasticiser

http://www.mlppreservationproject.com/body.html#StainRemoval

http://www.mlppreservationproject.com/body.html#Yellowed

I usually use regular sunfading for small spots and peroxide soaks for large stains or general yellowing.  She's from a different set, but this definitely helped my Tickles:  http://www.mlppreservationproject.com/mycollection2.html#RainbowPonies2

[hathorcat]

On the hard bodies, as others have said, unfortunately you cant restore them. Its simply that all [or a lot of] the plasticiser has come out of the plastic and left the pony less malleable. Boiling the pony or focusing a lamp or a hairdryer on the hair line should soften it up a little to perhaps making it easier to rehair but it will go back to the harder condition eventually. The only good thing is if the plasticiser is already out it should be less likely to discolour over time or develop age marks

There are not many things I would tell people never ever to use on ponies because its a person's pony to do as they wish with - but acne cream is one of those things I would always advise people not to use. Mainly because if you sell that pony it could only show reaction to the chemical after its been sold and I think that can be unfair. Benzol peroxide has different properties to hydrogen peroxide. H202 will work as sd_dreamcrystal says but it often depends what you are fading away. If its something like a chemical breakdown like age marks then you will fade them but they will probably come back as its the plastic breaking down which is causing the marks and which will cause more stains. If its something on the surface then using hydrogen peroxide will often work to remove it and its not going to come back.

As to the rust stains; they can be a nightmare. The little individual flecks of glitter get right into the plastic pores and then start to rust. Its not always possible to get it all and unfortunately the removal techniques will cause you further issue. Because no matter what you will loosen more glitter, which along with the water will get into the pours and then cause further rusting a little later down the line. A soak in hydrogen peroxide/oxy is a good initial plan and the best bet to fix something up - just be careful as while it only happens very occasionally, I have seen some ponies loose their symbols over it. If glitter is easy to rub off just from play you can bet it comes away with exposure to even mild chemicals.

[Katika]

Wowie!  I'm learning a bunch from you guys!  Thank you so much

I figured the hard bodies were a complete lost cause (as far as actually softening them again goes), and I'll have to wait to see how industrious I end up feeling as to whether or not I'll even bother to temporarily soften them enough to rehair

[sd_dreamcrystal]

I had a personal experience with the hydrogen peroxide sun fading.
I worked on a badly cancered baby moondancer with this method and one of the problems I ran into was not symbol/eye fading... but if I had tried straight sun fading after fact she got pony sun burn... and I was told after that it wasn't a good idea to have the pony set in the sun after doing the treatment.

[FarDreamer]

I've used a mix of regular sunfading and peroxide soaks on a couple of ponies without harming them (ponies with a combination of issues).  I've also used peroxide/sun soaks with no issues on ponies that are known to burn during sunfading (although it usually doesn't remove the stains on these ponies, weird huh?)

Hydrogen peroxide breaks down into Oxygen and water.  That's it.  It start breaking down as soon as it's exposed to light and once the pony's out of it and dry there's no additional chemicals left on the pony.  BUT it's very possible that while it's safe on some ponies, it wouldn't be safe on others due to the materials they're made out of and how these materials are responding to age, as well as the history of whatever the pony was exposed to during it's life.

There's been all sorts of reports of weird reactions to stuff we use on ponies every day, like acetone and OxiClean.  I'd wager that pretty much all restoring techniques are safe for a majority of ponies but that there will always be exceptions.  Everyone should use their common sense and try things on small scale first.  Try a peroxide soak for an hour before an entire day, then for a day before any longer time.  It's the same idea as trying cleaning products on non-visible parts fabrics before cleaning your entire couch with it.

Everyone needs to remember too that a lot of techniques are still relatively new in comparison to the age of the ponies, so who knows what effect they might have on them in another 30 years.  I personally worry more about harsher chemicals like acetone and rust remover than things that are pretty basic like OxiClean and Hydrogen Peroxide.

Now I totally forget where I was going with this . . .   

[mlp4me]

I've had success with H202/sun whitening-brighteneing. Be wary of sugarberry's hair color and fluorescent yellow; they bleed.

If you find yourself going the crème route I find this photo is a great example of what acne crème type product is capable of.
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Be careful how you store your pony after using it on the body. Even with the best of cleaning it may spread to other ponies. Also, like this gal, it may mysteriously spread to other parts of the pony afterwards...

I've dealt with quite a few ponies with symbol rust. Haven't found a cure besides another layer of glitter right over it or a fbr for a custom...