The Free Site | vBuddy - make friends, share photos, blogs, have fun | Cheap Web Hosting - starting at $5

Fixing Up My Horsies

If you're a Grand Champion collector, your biggest problem is likely fixing up the poor old nags you get secondhand, so that's what this page is about. You've just found a horse at goodwill, or maybe gotten a ratty one from another collector who hasn't had time to give it attention, or maybe a box of shippies has just arrived in the mail from ebay... You'll need to get to work.

Here's what I do in such a situation:

Step 1: Cleaning the Body

The first thing I do with secondhand horses is Remove All Germs and Cooties by cleaning the body surfaces. Even if I don't intend to do a full fix-up job, shippies that have just come from ebay or some other dubious background (Especially Goodwill. Ugh) need to be cleaned before I can handle them without getting all grossed out. I think it's possible to get icky diseases from toys, especially if they're old and have been handled by millions of grubby little germy hands. And even if there aren't any active pathogens on the horse, there are plenty of dead ones and you'd be pretty grossed out if you looked at that GC under a microscope and saw these fields of dead germ bodies and oil from people's skin and thousands of dirty fingerprints everywhere.

Grody to the max. Anyway if you're even somewhat a germphobe (and I am) or just irked by the idea of where previous owners' hands have been, or just don't want to end up having to explain to anyone about how you got Chlamydia from a horse, you'll want to give your new shippies a nice bath in soap and semi-hot water. I use a soft sponge and antibacterial soap (like Dial or whatever fruity liquid hand soap is in my kitchen at the time), but pretty much any soap will work. Cleaning can be tricky depending on how much body shading

your horse has, and you don't want to scrub too hard and rub it off. (It's remarkably easy to rub off shading.)
I don't have much great advice here because I'm picky about condition and I generally customize anything that isn't rare and has a lot of rubs or shading wear. So basically, if it has a lot of shading and a lot of dirt or marks, it usually gets a solid scrub and goes right into my customizing box.

I try to clean every part of the horsie, even inside the leg pits and ears and stuff. Usually I just soap and rinse until he feels "squeaky," and I can feel that the smooth, invisible layer of ICK that was on him is gone. When he's clean, his texture should squeak a little and offer some drag when touched.

I avoid using the scratchy part of the sponge, even if the horse has no shading. This is because all GCs have a particular finish to their bodies. Some are satiny and others are more shiny, but a scratchy sponge can actually scratch and buff away the factory texture, leaving the surface dull and unnatural-looking. I learned that the hard way, and I don't think there is a way to restore the surface once it's been damaged in this fashion.

Step 2: Stain and Mark Removal

Depending on how many marks and stains there are on the body, and where they are in relation to the body shading, the horse's fate will be sealed. This is because there's no way (as far as I know) to remove marks without also removing a certain amount of the body shading, and sometimes it's better to leave a mark there rather than put a hole in the shading to remove it. This is all up to your discretion, of course, and you may be more tolerant of marks in your personal collection than I am.

To remove marks, I use citrus oil in the form of Goo-Gone, the kind you can find at most grocery stores. I put it on a Q tip and try to use as little as possible. I don't think there are any negative effects of Goo-Gone on plastic, but since these are collectibles and they may be around a hundred years from now, I like to be conservative just in case.
There are a lot of different brands of citrus oil out there now, and some are caustic and can act like solvents. It's a good idea to test the stuff in a place that doesn't show if you're not sure about how safe it is to use on your GCs. Some citrus oil concoctions will eat right through plastic, or sort of melt it, or ruin the finish on it. I don't know the citrus oil brands very

well. I just use Goo Gone because I've had success with it and haven't noticed any deleterious effects.
Re: Acetone/Nail Polish Remover, Goof Off, WD-40 and other products.
I'm sure these will work to remove marks on GCs, but they are a little more potent and so should be tested first and used carefully. Also they have more noxious odors to them, may be toxic to pets, and are flammable, so be sure to get loopy and set stuff on fire.
In your search for a good cleaner for your Grand Champions, you may discover some neato products that can be of great use around the house. (WD-40 has a million uses.)

Some stains on Grand Champions can't be removed, as far as I know. This includes yellowing from age, yellowed glue along seams, and shading or paint rubs. If you have an airbrush machine and know how to use it, you might be able to match the shade color and re-shade your horses.

There may be some product out there that could remove yellowing if you soaked your horse in it long enough. Oxi-Clean claims to be able to clean away age-related yellowing on some surfaces, so maybe that would be worth a try. (Or bleach?) I've not looked into this with any dedication, but someday I might. The problem might be similar to cleaning yellowed So Soft MLPs, and there are some people who swear by particular cleaning products (usually special-formula laundry detergents) for restoring these.
Yellowing is not too much of a problem right now - it's usually only white-molded '88s that suffer it - but in the future I think we will see everything yellowed, from Foxcrofts to Moonrivers. It would be prudent to experiment with fixing it now.

Step 3: Conditioning the Hair

The first thing I do with hair is condition it. That seems simple, but there are a million different kinds of conditioner out there, and some of them are just shit on a stick in a bottle. I haven't noticed a correlation between price and quality, either. I usually just get a couple of the cheap kinds (like $2 a bottle or less) and test them out. I can tell right away if the conditioner is shit, because it will feel sticky or whatever. (You're trying to avoid the shit ones, btw.) A good conditioner for model horses is one that feels all smooth and slimy at all times, even as I'm rinsing it out.

I usually find a good conditioner and stay with it until they stop making it, or until I move to a new town that doesn't sell it anywhere (Both of these things are inevitable for me), and then I have to test again to find a new brand. Right now I use Suave Naturals 'Tropical Coconut Conditioner.' It's a white bottle with a blue top, and Suave is one of the least expensive brands. It also smells nice and coconutty, and some of us are obsessed with fruity smells.

When I'm first working on a horse, I put some conditioner in there right away and keep it in there (no rinsing), because it helps take out all the tangles smoothly and reduces ripping and pulling while I comb the mane and tail out for the first time. Then I rinse out and see what kind of work the hair needs. If it's wavy from being braided, or even a little frizzy, it will need to be heat-treated to smooth it, but sometimes it's just dry or dull or stiff or whatever. In that case I condition it "for real"... For me, that means putting conditioner in the mane and tail and letting it sit in there until it dries. That usually takes a day or so, and the hair will be stiff. Then I rinse it out to the desired moisture level.

That sounds a little involved, I guess. Well basically, I've found that GC hair often needs more than just a condition with a quick rinse out. Leaving it to dry in there makes the conditioner really "stick" to the hair, so it gets very silky and moisturized afterward. I rinse it out with near-hot water for a few minutes, until it feels kinda slippery but not *too* much. (After doing enough horses this way, I got to recognize the right texture.) Sometimes I leave a little too much conditioner in there, and then the hair will gather too much and be too heavy when it dries. In that case, I just rinse it again and it's usually fine.

Some GC hair colors react differently to conditioner than others. By far, white is the stiffest hair I've seen, and it does not take conditioner very well because it just does not absorb any kind of moisture very well. It's not unlike the new My Little Pony hair, where you hear people saying that it just "won't get wet"... But most of the other colors come out all soft and nice after being conditioned, and sometimes that's enough to tame minor frizzies or puffiness, and heat treatment is not required.

Step 4: Straightening the Hair and De-Frizzing

The best way to fix frizziness is with heat in the form of a curling iron or just a regular iron. I guess this is still something of a secret among the horse and pony people, because it's not hard to find websites that include "cutting out the frizz" in their care sections. I used to do that, too, so I can't fault anyone for it.
Seriously, though, most frizz is quite treatable and can be reduced a lot and often eliminated completely with little trimming involved. I have been using heat on GC and My Little Pony hair for about 6 years now, after reading the technique at a hair-care site myself, and I am very pleased with the results.

For really bad frizz in a tail, I used to use a regular hot iron. But now I have a hair straightener, which is like a clampy thing with these flat ceramic panels on it, and it straightens the hair like magic. For frizz in manes, I use a curling iron. These techniques are kinda intricate and this section got a little long, so I decided to put the Frizz Fixing Stuff onto its own page, which is HERE!
Or here is a nice big link for you if you're one of those people who doesn't like clicking on random little words:

How to Fix Frizz

There is another type of frizz that I think is caused by plain old damage and ripping. This kind is uncommon and manifests as something like split ends, where the strands of hair are crinkled and also have little broken strips hanging off them. For hair like this, the De-frizzing will straighten the crinkles, but I have not found a way to remove the stripped little hairs or smooth them down. Fortunately, this split-end type of damage is rare in GCs.

Step 5: Adornments

Once your guy is clean and has nice smooth hair, you can dress him up as you like. I have a big trove of tack and ribbons and stuff, but usually by the time I've finished fixing up my horses, I'm too tired or bored or lazy to dress them. I have the attention span of an onion, so a lot of my herd stays nekkid until I get inspired.

A good place to get fancy stuff for your guys is a craft store like Michael's or Jo-Ann Fabrics. They have all kinds of neat ribbons and things to fancy up the bridles and tie the tails and whatnot, and most of it is not expensive, since you can buy it in small little lengths. I like ribbons and get them in all colors, often by the spool, and I make my own saddle pads (again, when I'm not too lazy). I get all my supplies at the local Jo-Ann Craft store where I live, and they have all the trappings to turn out nice, decorative saddle pads. I go to the quilting section to get the fabric I use - There are these "Quarter Flat" things that are little rectangles of fabric, and they come in a million different colors and patterns and are a dollar and something, so it is a cheap way to get just the little bit of fabric you need. It has a good texture to it, also- it folds well and is not too thick, and it doesn't stretch or distort, so you can cut it to exactly the size you need. (I think that is the most important thing when dealing with a little pad that has to be symmetrical in size; even a few millimeters of stretch difference will throw the whole thing off !!)

For hairstyles on my GCs, I usually leave them pretty plain except for tying in ribbons. One thing I do like, though, is to cut some distance between the forelock and the rest of the mane, to give the horse that showy look. This means cutting the top portion of the hair, though, so I tend to do it more on common horses, or those that really can use the help in their appearance.

Go Back...
To the Grand Champion White Zone
To the Blue Paradise Stables Home Page

Š2004 Sloane Eljay
Blue Paradise Stables -->