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Hello all! I purchased a trio of dragons recently, and they finally came in the mail yesterday. I opened the box and was thrilled to find these dragons were all quite old. There’s a ‘frown-eyed’ peacock male with lovely aged gold accents, and a peacock young, both quite dark. Then there’s an old green mama, who doesn’t even have a felt pad, just a Windstone stamp on her base. UNFORTUNATELY the seller used the worst packing method I’ve ever seen: ripping up a phone book and tucking the dragons between chunks of pages, in one box, with no crumpling to the paper! Amazingly the dragons are all actually in okay shape, although the mama bore most of the damage since she was on the bottom. 😥
Restoring these shouldn’t be a problem for me, but my issue right now is cleaning them. They have some very weird gunky buildup, it almost looks like dried algae that you find on sticks that get washed up from the river bottom! Maybe these were in an aquarium, I can’t be sure. But whatever it is, it’s on there good. I’m not touching these guys with solvents, but I’m also nervous about plain soap and water since the paint on the mama seems to be cracking in spots.
One idea I had would be to try some of the ‘natural’ cleaners, such as ones that contain orange oil. Has anyone tried using Goo Gone or a natural product like this? I’m not sure if it would have the same effect as a solvent like nail polish.
My only restoration question concerns some very thin hairline cracks around the chips on the neck scales of the mother dragon. Does anyone have a method for filling these in?
Here are some pics! I hope you all enjoy and thanks in advance for any advice!
Forever seeking: Blackwatch the raffle Old Warrior, Jennifer Miller's pieces, and GB Baby unis!
I use a baby tooth brush and warm water. I gently scrub ou the cracks. I use a baby tooth brush becaus the bristles are softer and the brush itself is small. Works great for the little knooks and crannys
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!
Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.comI was gonna say that looked like a lot of dust. Yuck! Remind me to dust my Windstones tomorrow while my son is away at free Saturday child care for spouses of deployed soldiers.
Well dust seems to be preferable to wax, algae, and some of the other things I was hoping it wasn’t! I feel better now, especially because it doesn’t sound like I’ll have to resort to chemicals to get them clean. When I have a good chunk of time this weekend I’ll sit down with some cotton swabs and water, and give it a try. I’m afraid dry brushing might not be of much help, I can barely scrape it off with my nails when I try. We’ll see!
Forever seeking: Blackwatch the raffle Old Warrior, Jennifer Miller's pieces, and GB Baby unis!
Wow, you tried it with your nails? Not knowing what it is? Bold! Good luck getting it off! This sounds like an all-day job.
Jennifer wrote: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.
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?
Best method of upkeep is prevention… put them in a curio, or if you’re too poor for a curio (like me!) just keep them well dusted. I find a quick blast with my Can’O’Air once or twice a month does it for mine! If you have the windows open a lot you may have to do it more frequently.
Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.comI’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. :/
I couldn’t imagine cleaning these guys with a Q-tip…I don’t have the patience for such things.
Kyrin
Kyrin wrote:I couldn’t imagine cleaning these guys with a Q-tip…I don’t have the patience for such things.
Kyrin
Says the person who does meticulous repairs 😀
😆
Hmm . . . those who can perform amazing repairs, do; those who can’t, clean Windstones with Q-tips? 😉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!!
Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.com
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