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Just to update, I started cleaning today with the least gunky young dragon to test out my method, and then moved on to the peacock male. It took almost 2 and half hours to get them both clean, and the male still isn’t completely spotless. I used warm water with a little mild hand soap, a children’s toothbrush, and cotton swabs. Some of the grime required a little time for the water to sit and soak in before the grime softened up. There was quite a bit of dirt and some sort of gum residue on parts, in addition to the dust. The change is amazing though. Once I’m done with the mother, I’ll post more pictures!
To second what others have said before for anyone else who may have cleaning issues: if you have chips or a lack of sealant on your pieces, don’t get water near them! The water will soak right into the gypsum and flake the paint from underneath. You’ll start to see a cracked or bubbled appearance. This has happened to me a couple of times before, and I find the best thing to do is leave the area alone, and press the bubbles back down once dry. The chip has to be fixed, repainted, and sealed, or the cracked paint sealed, before water can get near it without causing further damage.
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Jennifer wrote: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!
Hi Jennifer! Quick question.. now that you say neglected i’m afraid mine will end up like that some day! I mean I dust them off with a feather duster once in awhile but the dust gets down between the scales and won’t come out. Is there some sort of ‘regular maintenance’ that should be done with them? 😆 If so please advise 😀
tatt2dcowgrl wrote:Hi Jennifer! Quick question.. now that you say neglected i’m afraid mine will end up like that some day! I mean I dust them off with a feather duster once in awhile but the dust gets down between the scales and won’t come out. Is there some sort of ‘regular maintenance’ that should be done with them? 😆 If so please advise 😀
I find that a blast of air from a can of air (you can find them in any office supply section, for blowing dust out of computers, keyboard, etc) once or twice a month does wonders and none of the dust gets down between the scales. A quick blast will do and a single can should last several months unless you have a huge collection! 🙂 Feather dusters are nice but they really only remove the top surface dust, not the stuff that settles down in the crevices. The canned air blows it right out!
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