Advice in cleaning ponies?

ponycollector101

Teeny Tiny Baby Pony
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Apr 30, 2019
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Hey everybody. I’m new to these forums so I am sorry if I am posting this wrong.

I am a collector and I have bought a lot of g1s and such which as you guys all know they can have a lot of problems (ex. Cancer, mold, random highlighter spots) I feel I am kind of an amateur collector even though I have 100+ ponies in general and have had them for all of my life.

I have been concerned that some of my ponies could be growing mold inside, but it’s hard to tell. I’ve never taken off a head of a MLP. Is it worth doing it to all of them even if there is no problems? For example I have a g1 Gusty and she has what looks like smooze all over her, I’m not sure if this is from mold growing inside or just vinyl aging. So should I remove her head to clean inside? The same goes for my ponies suffering from pony cancer/regrind, does anybody know if the discoloration is caused by mold growing inside or is it just random?

When you remove the head, do you glue it back on? Or does it just plug in. I have tried to find a YouTube video or thread on cleaning mold from inside but I have no luck. If you guys have any tips or advice of what I should do it would be helpful. I’ve heard of soaking moldy ponies on the inside in colorox, but is that the best way to get rid and will it damage the hair?

I am sorry if this thread is too long. I am just stuck on what to do and I am buying more ponies currently and I don’t want to end up infecting my whole collection and I need to know what things I should buy. I try to keep my ponies in good condition. Thank you for reading!
 
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The MLP Preservation is a very comprehensive website that can answer a lot of your questions.
Lemme try to sum up what you need to know off the top of my head:
1. G1s from the earlier years have much easier heads to take off usually than those from later years. If you notice a significant amount of outside dirt or stuff creeping in from the hair plugs, tail, etc. you will want to remove the head. If you have some early year G1s it should be easy enough to pop the head off to check inside, but I would be more apprehensive about removing other ponies with completely intact neck seals with no other problems.
2. By smooze, do you mean the in-ground dirt? You are welcome to remove the head to check inside (shouldn't be too hard?), but if it is just dirt then you need not worry about the vinyl aging so far.
3. Pony Cancer and regrind are not interchangable. The brown spots are either fungus, vinyl breakdown, or both. You may have luck with a hydrogen peroxide soak depending on the pony. Regrind is just a breakdown of the dye colors and cannot be fixed.
4. Here is a pony head I just popped off:
20190430_222958.jpg

As long as you leave the neck plug intact, there is no need to glue the head back on. :smile: I also find it easier to simply leave the neck seal broken in case I need to get in in the future. Cotton Candy here is nice and flexible, so it is hardly any trouble at all to remove the head and put it back in. If your plastic is harder, you will have to heat it up with water or a hair dryer.
5. For mold, Oxiclean seems to be a go-to. There are certain kinds of ponies that should not be oxicleaned, and you can also scrub with an old toothbrush or bottle brush. Oxiclean can tend to dry out hair, and there is a chance that certain colors may bleed.
If you post pictures of the ponies affected and their flaws, we can help a bit more! There are a lot of special cases depending on the type of pony, gimmick, colors, etc that may make certain methods harmful.
 
You can use rust remover on the tails once you open them up, too. A little dab of glue will hold the head in place when you put it back on. They even put convenient lines to match.

Poor gusty! I wish you success in restoring her!
 
I did scrub my gusty with a brush and hot water and dish soap the other day so it doesn’t look as bad. It looks as if she has little dots like pores on her. So I’m thinking when I scrubbed her the other day it helped but I’m really concerned what could be inside since the outside keeps getting these dots on her. I’m sorry these if these photos are hard to tell.

Thank you all for the advice.

For my ponies suffering from plasticizer breakdown, speedy and party time (they also have cancer), I wash them with warm water and dish soap and scrub with a brush and dry them off and put baby powder on them.

So if I have a pony full of mold would it be easier to soak the whole thing in oxyclean or just fill the pony itself up with oxyclean to avoid colors bleeding in the cutie mark and hair?
 

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If it's just dirt then what's inside shouldn't be much of an issue, but you can always check inside to see!
Since you have a Twinkle Eye, the pearlizing medium used on their gems tend to rub off in oxiclean baths, so pouring it inside the pony is the best way to go.
 
I see! Thank you. I wasn’t sure if it was smooze or just bad inground dirt. Should I take the tail off when I pour in the oxyclean?

Also is it common for G3’s or any other generations to have mold growing inside?
 
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I see! Thank you. I wasn’t sure if it was smooze or just bad inground dirt. Should I take the tail off when I pour in the oxyclean?

Also is it common for G3’s or any other generations to have mold growing inside?

I've only seen it in g1. Fizzy is even better than gusty. I loved her in the show. I've used a toothbrush or a fingernail brush with dish detergent to get tougher spots, but you can't get it on the eyes or symbols.
 
I see. I wasn’t sure if it was with other generations. I have a g3.5 with terrible tail rust but I’m not sure how to try to fix that pony because their body is so different.
I will have to remove Fizzy’s tail. I hope this will be a successful cleaning!

Gusty and Fizzy were both of my favorite characters growing up. Gusty is the second g1 i ever bought. I use a finger nail brush too
 
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Is this applejack safe to soak in oxyclean to get rid of this smooze?
 

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I’m sorry if I should not bump this thread, but I actually took the head off of Sundance the other day and boom - mildew/mold inside and I finally have bought the oxiclean too which is why I have not updated this in so long. Is it safe to pour the oxiclean inside of their body with the tail still in or will that be damaging and cause rust to it? Thank you guys all for your help also!!
 
Does oxiclean small perfume I have asthma and allergies is certain perfume smells like for example I have to use non-scented soap
So does it small
Oxiclean is a type of bleach so it will trigger asthma even if you get an unscented kind. Wear a mask and go slowly at first! Or use a different stain remover instead.
@ponycollector101 i've never cleaned a g1 so i can't help you but you might get a quicker reply on the tutorials&faq forum ^_^
 
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