Help with G4 Neckplug NIGHTMARE.

[PJSparkles]

Hey everyone.

Just yesterday I picked up a duplicate tall-body alicorn twilight sparkle at a cheap price in hopes of making a show-accurate princess luna custom. This is the first custom I've ever attempted.

After looking at several tutorials, I tried a my plan of attack on the neck plug with an exacto knife....and....well....I botched it. BADLY. I even broke the neck peg.

Spoiler

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

In addition to cutting in the wrong place, my accursed shaky hands made it extremely difficult to not slice up the plastic.  Pictures below show further damage.

Spoiler

visitors can't see pics , please register or login
visitors can't see pics , please register or login

At this point, I have little hope of retaining a moving neck (I kept the peg, though, just in case), but I would like to remove the plug, if possible, to try  to remove the remainder of the old tail and possibly insert a new one later.

With it this damaged, I'm reluctant to do anything else without consulting you customs experts Is there any hope of salvaging the plug and getting it out? I've tried running it under hot water, but the broken peg makes it really difficult to wiggle it back and forth, not to mention all of the cuts make it hard to tell whether or not I've removed any glue. I haven't tried boiling the pony yet, though.

Please, if anyone could help me, I'd really appreciate it. If nothing can be done, I can glue the head on, paint everything, and just do some model magic for the mane and tail, but I don't want to give up hope for a brushable custom yet if someone has advice! Thank you for reading.

[SunPony]

I think you could salvage it enough to finish your custom, but I don't think head-turning will be possible.  I think you will have to use a lot of glue to secure the head when you are done. 

I would definitely recommend boiling the body, that always helps me get the neck plug out.  It helps the x-acto knife slide in nice and easy.  Then you can kind of carefully saw/slice along between the neck and the plug.  You can kind of feel your way around because the pony will be soft while the plug remains very hard.  Yeah, it will be hard since the don't have the tip of the plug to grasp, but it should still be possible.

Good luck with her!

[CoonhoundBetty]

I've de-plugged a few G4, and boiling is an absolute must!! I have found that an exacto knife isn't the best for getting between the seam. I use a small, thin flathead screwdriver, and I've also seen someone use a rounded edge scrapbooking tool--it works to split the seams without slicing up the body. I'm glad you didn't cut yourself!

[archidraca]

If you kept the part that goes in the head it's not completely irredeemable. The head can still turn afterwards but it will be a loose/shaky connection. Even if you do go through the steps to make it turn, you may simply glue it down after.

First, gently remove the base of the neck plug. You don't want to totally destroy it's shape or the rest of the neck. Hot, nearly boiling water to soften the plastic. A dry towel to help you grasp the body as you carefully and slowly edge around the plug with the blade vertical.

Once the base is out things get easier. Take a bread twist tie and securely make a bulb/knot type part on one end. This will be like the head of a nail. you can Apoxie or glue it to immovability if you desire. It just needs to be a larger bulb than the hole in the plug.

That goes through the top of the head plug and down through to the base to act as a brace.

The other end should be wrapped around a piece/ball of foil large enough to get stuck in the base of the bottom opening until tight as you can get it. After gluing the whole bit back into the neck you can use a clear gel glue to smooth out the sliced edges. If you do it right, and get lucky (believe me... ) it takes a good eye to see where the cuts happened.

Sometimes it won't fit quite right when you reattach the head but if you're doing a FBR you can opt for a bit of Apoxie help in that to fix the neckline. Or some other air-dry clay I suppose. That's just what I'm used to using.

I've had two that I've done this to whose heads I managed to fix enough to turn.

This one was super a lot of sculpting so I just had to make the neck fit whatever I felt like.

Spoiler

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

This one I ended up adding a necklace to cover up the collar I made for her.

Spoiler

visitors can't see pics , please register or login
 visitors can't see pics , please register or login
 visitors can't see pics , please register or login

Good luck! 

[moevelvet]

I'm not sure if they're exactly the same, but I took apart a Celestia a few years ago (and similarly botched it) and her neck did NOT lead to her tail - I had to remove her wings to get to it.

[PJSparkles]

wow! everyone got back to me so fast! 

@sunpony, coonhoundbetty - I'll have to try boiling, then! I do have a tool that looks sort of scooped and has a nice, dull edge-- I just need to figure out what's hard plastic and what isn't first!
How do I go about boiling the pony? Do I heat it up in a pot from cool to boiling, or do I put it in after it boils?

@archidraca - Wow! You sure know a lot! I'll definitely try that to try to fix the neck if it doesn't work quite right.

@moevelvet - interesting...the body I'm using is like the royal canterlot wedding cadence, I wonder if it's set up the same? If so, I might just glue the peg back on, skip removing the plug altogether, and attack the wing seam. I need to do some further research, it seems

Generally, it sounds like I need to boil and then go from there. I'm pretty sure the wings are of a different plastic than the body, so boiling might help me make cleaner cuts.

Thoughts, anyone? Everyone's been great so far!

Post Merge: August 24, 2015, 11:49:23 AM

a little update on the progress of this project....
turns out for the princess cadence bodies, the tail is indeed only accessible from the wings. I confirmed this by doing a quick search for how to remove a celestia tail and I was directed to a thread on this very forum showing a cadence body with a removed tail. whoops

So basically, I no longer need to remove the neck plug. I'll try to fix it as suggested in the earlier posts.

[SunPony]

Ah, it is good to know you won't have to remove the plug after all, eh?

For the boiling, I heat up a small saucepan of water until it boils, then turn the heat off or just down very low and add the pony.  I let her sit for a few minutes, then take her out and work on her until she starts to cool down.  Then put her back in until she gets super hot again, etc etc. The water will stay very hot for awhile.  It helps to have something to get the pony out with, I use a pair of needlenose pliers or chopsticks, but tongs would also work.  And for holding the pony while you work on her, a potholder or folded up kitchen towel works well.  Be careful of boiling water coming out of her body/head when you take them out!

p.s. boiling will also help loosen the mane plugs/hair glue up inside her head   

[CoonhoundBetty]

Be careful of boiling water coming out of her body/head when you take them out!

THIS. Seriously, underlined, bold, italics, flashing marquee--be careful!

[Uninu]

Yup, be very careful when handling the pony after boiling water treatment! ANd good luck getting the wings out, they can be a pain to remove but worth it.

[PJSparkles]

@sunpony - cool, thanks! I'll definitely keep that in mind if I do more customs in the future or need to re-tail a pony

@coonhoundbetty - It's easy to forget that the ponies are hollow and can potentially leak boiling water, so i'll make sure to wear gloves if I boil in the future

@uninu - I actually got the wings out with my exacto knife with minimal scarring I kinda learned how much give plastic had when I attempted the neck, so I'm getting a bit more comfortable with using it.