Adventures in Sunfading

Alstroemeria said:
No kidding. I guess we just have to call these a learning experiences and move on. I do dislike when it costs me, though.

I'm also trying to get nicotine stains out of my childhood ponies. Yuck. It's taking longer then expected on Starflower.
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I’ve grown up around a smoking family, I don’t do it but other family members do and it makes me wonder how bad all my childhood toys must stink of tobacco. They don’t go near my ponies though

So… I think she’s done! However I can see some “shadow” parts of the tattoos and the yellow staining is still on her neck so she’s gone back in the UV chamber again after I fixed the door on it that broke a bit and I unwrapped her hair to check. Since this photo was taken before she went back in after rewrapping, I’d say this is a photo of day 45!
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I’ll keep her in there for a couple more days. I am aiming for at least… Wednesday or Friday, perhaps. Then that’ll be that for me. Wednesday would be day 48. Friday would be day 50.

Those yellow stains won’t show up well on pictures
 
StormMaeker said:
I’ve grown up around a smoking family, I don’t do it but other family members do and it makes me wonder how bad all my childhood toys must stink of tobacco. They don’t go near my ponies though
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I don't smell it on mine unless I get them hot. And it's faint at this point but everything is discolored. My mom was a 3 pack a day smoker. I never picked up that habit - I prefer to collect stuff instead!

I've more recently had an ebay lot that was ridiculously cheap. Really nice seller, but the box smelled like an ashtray.

Dish soap scrub and then multiday oxyclean soaks can get most of the smell out.

And I know what you mean about some stuff not showing up on photos. I suppose that's good for veiwing purposes. But you still see it yourself and know it's there. Your progress has been amazing, though.
 
Alstroemeria said:
I know what you mean about some stuff not showing up on photos. I suppose that's good for veiwing purposes. But you still see it yourself and know it's there. Your progress has been amazing, though.
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With detail and stuff I have an annoying eye for noticing the tiniest things but it is a bother when it doesn’t show up in pictures because I’m trying to show the steps and things that have happened to help other people and show the progress and I don’t feel I am too good at explaining and describing in words stuff
Thank you for following the journey :Flutter4:
 
Yesterday was Cherry’s final full day in the UV chamber. A faint shadow remains on one bit of her neck and she also has those yellowed stains still but not really that noticeable unless you’re trying to look. Of course it doesn’t show up well in the pictures.
Here is a before we began and and after her wash:
IMG_7745.jpeg
In that tissue is her tail.

Here is the full timelines:
IMG_7746.jpegIMG_7744.jpeg
Day 33
August 24th
only in the chamber the morning of August 24th
Photos taken August 30th

Day 42
Sept. 7th
Half the day in the UV chamber, moved outside since it’s a heatwave and won’t be going cloudy, will move back in the UV chamber in evening

Day 43
Sept. 8th
Half day in the sun, yellow staining appeared from the yellowed cream. Moved back into the UV chamber only. The side that faced the sun yellowed too.

Day 45
Sept. 11th
Faint shadow areas of the pen still remains
Yellow neck stain is more noticeable than the hoof

Day 47
Sept. 13th
Photo taken Sept. 14th.
Final full UV day was yesterday.
Slight shadow on neck but hardly noticeable, yellow stain remains.
Honestly, I have no idea how well those are going to show up and how readable they are but I added a spoiler box there for the text. The text is the same on both timelines. Those pictures are long! And I did a full body timeline even though there isn’t anything too clear on them.

I assumed I could go ahead and do a simple hair fix like Confetti but… well… her mane is now a different shade to her tail which is very disappointing for me as I love the shade. And also even though the red I have should have been the perfect match, it no longer is. I thought perhaps I could rehair the front and add bits along the mane to make it blend but the change is so drastic. It doesn’t show up well in pictures. I’ll describe it more as an orangey/peachy red, her mane. Still red but more leaning those ways compared to her tail.
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So, what am I to do? I continue taking out all the trimmed plugs (and accidentally removed more than I wanted) since I want to preserve as much of the original as possible. Some people may dye it, some people may go for s full rehair…
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I think what I’ll do is try and fade however much I may need of the new nylon to see if I can get it to match the mane. Let’s see how this goes!

EDIT:
Okay it’s in. I’ll have to keep the closest eye on it and flip it. I sure hope this works…
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Twinkle-eye said:
So thorough :O
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I have a feeling it comes from me feeling the need to explain myself a lot and probably also when back in college I ended up with about 6 journals in one year from filling them up to the point of needing to add more pages all because I was the only one explaining in every single tiny detail each step of what I was doing. I also took so many photos all the time of every thing I did. It was an art course

And maybe also how I save photos of projects I do in case I need to look back to find out how I did something

Hopefully this thread can help someone though
 
Draco said:
so satisfying to see! Thanks for sharing!
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I find the timeline of closeups the most satisfying part.

Here I was putting back in bits of her mane that were fine when suddenly I had an idea… what if I mixed in some of her tail to preserve more of it? Well… the shade difference is too great for my liking
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I kind of wish I didn’t open up her tail now. I only opened up her tail to remove cut parts and replace it but no matter how much things I put in place so it doesn’t tangle up and get messy, it still does
 
Rebeldream said:
So satisfying!! Thank you for documenting the process!
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Thanks for following! :Flutter4:

Just as you replied I literally updated it saying I put the hair in the chamber. I really hope it works, make it an even shade…
 
Finally… Cherry Treats is finished!
I am very pleased with how she’s turned out. Trust the day to take her final photos be the day the sun decides to go in and have a cloudy photoshoot. Freshly unwrapped:
IMG_8082.jpegIMG_8083.jpegIMG_8084.jpeg
So what happened to the hair shades?
First of all I forgot to mention that I tried acetone on the yellow marks again after she came out the UV chamber. Didn’t work. Figured that when she’s all unwrapped and had her paint removed that it would take away focus from those areas and it does.

And for the UV hair? It felt like it was turning it more of a hot pink that didn’t match up with any of the main of tail. Closer to tail but still not the same. So I took it out after two days. Had a break day then yesterday I went back to continuing to untangle the tail. I decided to go to my idea of putting whatever cut pieces are longer than the mane but shorter than the tail than in her mane. I had gotten used to seeing those two pieces I put in her head over the couple of days. When there wasn’t any left for her mane I used the new nylon, the UV’d stuff. Turns out I cut exactly what I needed and it hardly changed shade.
I spent the day sorting out the tail piece by pieve. Strand by strand. I really wanted to keep as much original as I could. Then I thickened it up with the new stuff. I had to put the tail back in twice because it was uneven at first. I put some fabric glue inside her head, got some shots, wrapped her up overnight and tadah!

Oh, and by the way, she does have some slightly trimmed mane somewhere but I didn’t remove it because it wasn’t major and also didn’t want to take too much out of her original mane. In fact, I hardly see it. If it doesn’t bother me I’m good. I know I’ll end up forgetting it’s even there.
And I forgot to mention, according to ToySisters, “In the US, she was made in Hong Kong. In Europe, she was made in China. That version has no forelock.” so mine has no forelock.

Here are photos of the shade differences. The camera makes it even more redder than it is and isn’t accurate:
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Photos from fresh completion to show before and after and also the side where her underside new shades are:
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Thank you very much for this opportunity @Twinkle-eye !
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StormMaeker said:
Finally… Cherry Treats is finished!
I am very pleased with how she’s turned out. Trust the day to take her final photos be the day the sun decides to go in and have a cloudy photoshoot. Freshly unwrapped:
View attachment 78352View attachment 78353View attachment 78354
So what happened to the hair shades?
First of all I forgot to mention that I tried acetone on the yellow marks again after she came out the UV chamber. Didn’t work. Figured that when she’s all unwrapped and had her paint removed that it would take away focus from those areas and it does.

And for the UV hair? It felt like it was turning it more of a hot pink that didn’t match up with any of the main of tail. Closer to tail but still not the same. So I took it out after two days. Had a break day then yesterday I went back to continuing to untangle the tail. I decided to go to my idea of putting whatever cut pieces are longer than the mane but shorter than the tail than in her mane. I had gotten used to seeing those two pieces I put in her head over the couple of days. When there wasn’t any left for her mane I used the new nylon, the UV’d stuff. Turns out I cut exactly what I needed and it hardly changed shade.
I spent the day sorting out the tail piece by pieve. Strand by strand. I really wanted to keep as much original as I could. Then I thickened it up with the new stuff. I had to put the tail back in twice because it was uneven at first. I put some fabric glue inside her head, got some shots, wrapped her up overnight and tadah!

Oh, and by the way, she does have some slightly trimmed mane somewhere but I didn’t remove it because it wasn’t major and also didn’t want to take too much out of her original mane. In fact, I hardly see it. If it doesn’t bother me I’m good. I know I’ll end up forgetting it’s even there.
And I forgot to mention, according to ToySisters, “In the US, she was made in Hong Kong. In Europe, she was made in China. That version has no forelock.” so mine has no forelock.

Here are photos of the shade differences. The camera makes it even more redder than it is and isn’t accurate:
View attachment 78360View attachment 78357
Photos from fresh completion to show before and after and also the side where her underside new shades are:
View attachment 78358View attachment 78359
Thank you very much for this opportunity @Twinkle-eye !
View attachment 78355
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Look at herrrr!!! Such a lovely rescue story, and you were very helpful to me in my own sunfading efforts. Thanks for all the updates and info!
 
peepersponies said:
She turned out beautifully!! The mane and tail look great too, would never guess they had any kind of alteration done!
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Ah, thank you!
It’s a little more obvious in person but I am very happy with how close they look on camera. The colours are more neon
Rebeldream said:
You really did a fantastic job!!
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Dreamer said:
That's an amazing transformation!
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Thank you both!
SporadicallyObsessive said:
Look at herrrr!!! Such a lovely rescue story, and you were very helpful to me in my own sunfading efforts. Thanks for all the updates and info!
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I’m glad this lengthy thread was able to help out. Thanks :Flutter4:
 
Wow!! Amazing work!! I just got caught up on this thread (I've been a bit busy with school) and I am just amazed by how much those ponies have changed! It's very admirable the amount of time and effort you have put into restoring them while keeping them as original as possible. I bet the ponies appreciate all you have done for them :redheart:
 
ponyville said:
Wow!! Amazing work!! I just got caught up on this thread (I've been a bit busy with school) and I am just amazed by how much those ponies have changed! It's very admirable the amount of time and effort you have put into restoring them while keeping them as original as possible. I bet the ponies appreciate all you have done for them :redheart:
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I sure hope that they appreciate it. I like to think they do.

Thanks for catching up! I hope it wasn’t too much of a long read :rolleyespony:
And hopefully school is going okay
 
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