Care and Feeding of your Pony

[Fhaolan 4,468]

This was requested: an official thread for sharing your tips and tricks for cleaning, repairing, and other maintenance on your Pony Merch.

Please be as specific as possible with your advice, as toys and figures might be made of different types of plastic or materials depending on lots of things like year of manufacture and the like, leading to them reacting quite oddly to various chemical cleaners. The last thing we want is to accidentally melt someone’s vintage figure. 

[AriaTheLovely 578]

Basic tips that have helped or things I have learned through working on mlps

1. Never Oxi clean a gen 1 princess pony with her jewels still in. It will take all color off of the jewel and the setting.

2:Straighteners can be your friend but with the proper precautions taken into account. One never use it on a pony with tinsel.If you do use a dryer sheet to protect the tinsel from the heat. Two make sure the hair is wet or it will melt the hair. Three make sure your straightener is at a low heat.

3. Never put a pony with red hair in peroxide to make them white again. Yes it does work but It damages the hair turning it neon orange making it fall out in clumps. So its better off taking out the hair and rehairing it.

4. Acetone is good for getting stains  such as nail polish and ink out of the vinyl. It is also good at  getting symbols,eyes,cutiemarks and so soft flocking off. So if you want to keep any of those be very careful with it.

5. Take extreme care when taking the head off since you could cut into or rip the neck plug out. Gen 1s and gen 3s  can have pretty stubborn heads to take off so its really easy to accidentally do either one of those.

6.When you wash a pony make sure you sit it on its butt. This will prevent any mold or tail rust from happening.

7.Never use harsh chemicals since it can damage the vinyl. Cleaning products that are good to use are dawn dish soap,oxi (only in cases of pony cancer,pin dot mold or tail rust) and mr clean magic eraser (just don't rub to vigorously over eyes,symbols and cutiemarks it can take them off). Shampoo and conditioner that are good to use on pony hair is a de frizzing shampoo and aussie 3 minute miracle. You can also scrub the hair with dawn dish soap to give it some extra shine before washing it with shampoo and conditioner.

8. When cleaning plushies never throw them into the washer and dryer. It's going to either make it full of mildew or its hair is going to melt and clump up. It is just just best to use a clean cloth and hot water with oxi in it. That does pretty much get any stain out of the fabric and the hair.

Edited August 1, 2017 by PrincessOfCompassion

[ManaMinori 4,143]

Thanks for making the thread, @Fhaolan. I recently purchased some ebay ponies, and am waiting for them to arrive. But I worry that after seeing headless horsies covered in mold on the inside, on other pony boards, that my new arrivals will be in similar conditions. Is there anything I should do once the new ponies come, aside from basic inspection? Quarantine or boiling, to be on the safe side, no matter their conditions?

[Leave a Whisper 703]

Pour oxyclean and hot, but not boiling water inside a rusty pony and scrub it out.

Your shampoo and conditioner is usually good enough for their hair.

Never use oxyclean on Twinkle Eyes, it will take off the iridescent coating.

Dawn is gentle for those G4s that have that weird, oily feel on their bodies.

Acetone will remove the symbol and eyes. Bad for cleaning, great for customizing.

Using acne cream to whiten ANY yellowed plastic can wreak havoc for years afterwards.

Never use nail polish on a pony, it will ruin it.

Never use hot water on a so-soft, it will ruin the flocking by loosening the glue. Oxyclean spray and cold water with a baby toothbrush or wash cloth will work just dandy.

You can sunfade certain white ponies to whiten them, others will discolor further. e.g Gingerbread, Confetti, Cherry Treats, Starshine, BnG Bouquet. I'm unsure if there are any G2s/G3s/G4s that are made worse by sunfading.

Small swavorski crystals are said to make great replacements for the jewels in g2 eyes.

You can replace washers in tails with zipties. This helps avoid tail rust later. 

A mix of Ritdye petal pink and a teensy bit of sunset orange are great for ponies of any generation with fading pink hair. I find cutting holes in plastic bags to hang the manes and tails out of will protect the pony's body from being dyed. 

On 8/2/2017 at 0:48 AM, Nightmare Muffin said:

Thanks for making the thread, @Fhaolan. I recently purchased some ebay ponies, and am waiting for them to arrive. But I worry that after seeing headless horsies covered in mold on the inside, on other pony boards, that my new arrivals will be in similar conditions. Is there anything I should do once the new ponies come, aside from basic inspection? Quarantine or boiling, to be on the safe side, no matter their conditions?

If there's nothing wrong with them don't do anything aside from a gentle, basic cleaning. No need to go all out with chemical treatment if they're fine.

Edited August 4, 2017 by Leave a Whisper

[Star Petal 215]

My number one rule for keeping your pony merch in the best possible condition is this~!
 

 

[PittyPaws 118]

On 8/28/2017 at 0:08 AM, Star Petal said:

My number one rule for keeping your pony merch in the best possible condition is this~!
 

 

That's why i sometimes buy two. One to remained boxed and one to be opened. 

[Khoufu 43]

Age spots, regrind and faded pink hair can still happen to toys in box, though fading pink hair can be preserved by keeping it away from light. Also, fading pink hair is not only a G1 thing. Be careful with any light light pink hair.

I'd also like to stress: don't use acne cream on ponies, especially G1. The chemicals can remain active inside the plastic and cause discoloration that gets worse over time. It may work on some toys, but not toys made of colored vinyl.

[Brandywine 8]

On 8/28/2017 at 1:08 AM, Star Petal said:

My number one rule for keeping your pony merch in the best possible condition is this~!
 

 

Oh my God I remember that! Love that show.

Can't say I have never removed collectors item from its box though.I received that Funko Pop Luna ( the hot topic exclusive) as a gift sometime back. When received her I just couldn't resist taking her out to look at her. So pretty then carefully put her back. 

As far as cleaning goes though an old tooth brush and some soap does the trick.

[tailrustedtealeaf 7]

Since this thread has less G4 specific advice but was bumped recently, I'll give a simple rundown as many G4 are starting to appear at flea markets, thrifts, etc.

-A big killer for pony value is haircuts (sorry, show accuracy folks!). If you anticipate wanting to sell your collection in the far off future, it would be best to avoid cutting their hair. You can use various methods of twisting the hair and securing with elastics that will emulate the look of a forelock.

That said, a lot of the G4 ponies that are out right now don't have lots of collect-ability. Your run of the mill Twilight Sparkle isn't going to get you big bucks simply due to the sheer amount of them available. If you have a pony with a rooted forelock (two stripes of hair plugs running horizontally across the pony's forehead), do try to avoid cutting that hair (only Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Cheerilee have this). These were early releases of the ponies and are more valuable than others. Certain variants of mane 6 ponies can also fetch some value in the future, such as the Cutie Mark Magic releases or the Rainbow Power, and you may want to avoid touching those. Any non-mane 6 ponies are up there in value as well.

-If you have brown coming out of the tail plug, that's tail rust! Ponies have metal in them to keep their tail in place, so this just means that some moisture got in and started to rust up the washer. You can remove the head and neck plug, and then remove the tail. Scrub with whitening toothpaste, or be careful with some rust remover. It may be a good idea to remove the metal washer entirely and replace with a ziptie to prevent tail rust in the future.

-The reboot/movie/G4.5 figures have VERY fragile necks. If you are removing the neck plug to customize or restore, do be very careful and patient when you are removing the plug or you will slice right through the plastic.

-You can rehair without using glue or a rehair tool! If you use a doll needle (a sewing needle would work as well) and some floss, you can thread a loop of floss into a hair plug, put some hair into the floss loop, and pull through. There are many tutorials on how to do this method.

-For some gunky hair, you can soften it up with fabric softener or conditioner. I've had more success with fabric softener on some of the newer hair, but a lot of it is dry as ever. If anyone can find a solution for this, please share...

[Shigaraki 270]

Does this count?

So l design my own ponies and l want to know of how do you take off a MLP G4 newest design head off without breaking the ring inside? Like any tricks because l have a hard time taking off the head.

[ZiggWheelsManning 7,368]

On 2017-08-28 at 3:08 AM, Star Petal said:

My number one rule for keeping your pony merch in the best possible condition is this~!
 

 

Keep concealed in clean box.  Got it