Questions for cleaning and restoring some old dragons!

Okay- don’t be scared, but your gunk? That’s actually years of caked on dust!! Dust can be any sort of small particle that settles on something, which includes pollens, pet dander, ‘fabric’ dust, and.. well, we humans produce a lot of ‘dust’ from shed skin and hair particles! Over time, like… years and years, if this settles onto something and sits there it will form a thick residue as humidity from the environment compacts it into a solid. Yuck!

Try a soft, dry paintbrush at first. If it’s too stubborn for that, try a dry toothbrush, and watch that none of the paint flakes off. If you own an air compressor, you can try using that to ‘shoot’ air at the dusty areas… but be careful, with enough PSI you can start shooting the paint off.

This may take a while.

If it doesn’t work, you can try getting them moist with plain water and using the toothbrush, but as you’ve mentioned sometimes this can start lifting the paint off since they were neglected.

If you decide to use any chemicals (which we really advise against), test them in a small spot (the bottom maybe) and then let it sit at least 12 hours before continuing. Sometimes a chemical may not have a reaction right away- sometimes it takes a few hours, and there is nothing worse than using a chemical only to discover hours later that it is doing something terrible to your pieces!

Best of luck!

Out of curiousity, is there anything besides regular dusting (Housework!?!?!……NOOOOooooo) that needs to be done to these guys? I know from living in a house with forced hot air heat, my oak furniture needs to be treated once in a while with lemon or orange oil. Is that the case here, or is it just dusting?

I’ve had good luck cleaning using distilled water, Q-tips, and toothpicks. The water is used sparingly on a Q-tip to soften the dust or gunk. I don’t let the water get on any chipped areas, though! Q-tips make pretty good scrubbers that generally won’t harm the paint (although some of the older Ruby pieces do bleed their color). When the gunk is really on there, I’ll take a fresh toothpick, chew the end a little to make it softer, rinse it in water and use it like a tiny scrub brush. Chewing the end is optional, though. 😉 Don’t scrub too hard; it’s better to let the water soften the gunk for about fifteen seconds first. If the finish on the Windstone looks like it might not be perfect, be really careful about how much water you use. I haven’t had any problems yet, but if water got into the gypsum or onto unsealed paint I don’t know what it would do. :/

Kyrin

Says the person who does meticulous repairs 😀

Q-tips (cotton swabs) work well; key is to remove as much as you can via dry methods first if possible. Use a wet cotton swab as a last resort, and don’t use them on ‘sticky’ areas as the cotton will tend to stick and make things worse (sigh.. experience talking on that one! :lol:).

I know that you are cleaning peacock and old green pieces here, but for anyone reading this thread in the future–

If you suspect you have an ‘old’ ruby dragon- that is, one of the first batch that is a darker cranberry color- use water at your own risk!! The paint tends to come off of those dragons very easily with water! Be careful!!