Hey Lady!! You got any advice for taking eyes off hard plastic? I got a my little pony that's like... a snow globe basically; the legs have water and glitter in them. But the head part is a hollow, very hard plastic and I want to take off the eyes to repaint them if I can. I tried alchohol and it didn't work, but I might be able to scrape them off with a razor blade. Figured I'd come ask you for advice before taking to Google, or accidentally fucking it up.
Oh didn't know I could include photos... lol
I am not entirely sure, to be honest!
Most vinyl, you can just take acetone to it, but as soon as we start looking at the harder tappy kind of plastic, acetone is more likely to instantly start dissolving it. I’ve used acetone on surfaces it’s not technically recommended for just Very Quickly to get rid of things I didn’t want on thrift store finds, but they weren’t this clear plastic and so wouldn’t be affected by the cloudiness that would probably follow an acetone stealth attempt.
I hear action figure kids like using lighter fluid for cleaning, but I think they do so explicitly because it doesn’t remove factory paint.
Potentially a Magic Eraser for minimizing the impact on the clear plastic rather than sandpaper.
I’ve got several other ‘put chemicals on the plastic and see what it does’ doll friends here, I will throw your question into the tumblr ether for them. Perhaps together we will come up with something.
A lot of people used to swear by Windsor & Newton brush cleaner to remove paint from hard plastic, but I’ve never personally used it. A Magic Eraser and a. lot. of patience will remove paint from hard plastics.
It is mildly possible the head is vinyl, just without the plasticizers that make it squishy, but I only wonder about that because it looks like the hair is sewn in like a regular vinyl head is rooted? You could check by seeing if it gets soft when dunked in boiling hot water.
Buuuut I’m only guessing, so this is a boost to the MLP people!
Acetone works on those heads (that line is called water cuties) but only use a small amount and wipe with water right after, or if your nervous just repaint over them
