Curing tail rust in My Little Pony

In my previous post, I mentioned that My Little Pony come with a metal tail ring that is tied inside the pony to secure the tail in position.  Over the years, this metal tail ring can rust.  It could be because the pony got wet before and water had seeped into the pony through the tail hole, or just plainly due to age.

Sometimes the rust is minimal and you would not notice anything amiss when looking at the pony on the outside.  In severe cases, the rust stains show up on the hair near the tail hole.  In very extreme cases where the ponies have very light colored bodies, the rust can even been seen when lifting the pony up and looking at the body against the light.  These are cases when the rusty tail ring and the rust stains must be removed from the inside of the pony.  If you leave the rust inside, the condition will worsen and the pony looks very disgusting to handle, furthermore you know that the inside looks even worse.  Therefore you need to ‘open up’ the pony or perform a rust cleansing ’surgery’ on the pony.

Most ponies can be ‘opened up’ by breaking the glue seal around the neck and then twisting the head to open up.  For G1 and G3 ponies, the technique of head removal is the same.  For most G2 ponies, their heads are not sealed to their bodies but the G2 ponies being much smaller in size, it is difficult to remove their heads and re-attach them. 

For some Gen 1 ponies, age would ‘weaken’ the glue around their necks, hence using a firm grip and with a few turns, their glue seals break easily and you can remove or ‘pop out’ their heads.  If the glue seal is too ’stubborn’, you need to use a penknife to carefully break the seal and then twist the head to use some force to weaken the glue.  At the same time, prepare a pair of small tweezers and a toothbrush that is specially dedicated to washing your ponies.

I suggest that before you use a penknife on your pony, go take a good look at a sample of a Gen 1 pony’s detached head to familiarize yourself with the plug-like shape of the neck joint.  This is so that if the pony’s head still would not budge and you need to use your penknife to cut deeper, you can ‘visualize’ the neck joint and not cut right through the neck plug.  If you cut through the neck plug, you may have problems re-attaching the head firmly. 

After removing the head, use the tweezers to grip the rusty tail ring and pull the entire tail out through the neck.  Pull out the rusty tail ring through the whole tail and throw that ring away.  You do not really need it to secure the tail.  Wash the rust-stained tail as thoroughly as you can.  If you prefer to, you can also shampoo and condition the tail.  Wash the interior of the pony’s head and body and scrub as much as you can with the toothbrush.  Preferably scrub both the interiors with soap as well.  After rinsing out the soap etc, leave the pony’s head, body and tail to dry in separate pieces. 

Note: All parts must be completely dry before you assemble the pony again, to prevent mould from possibly developing inside the head and body in future.

When all the parts are completely dry, position the central metal piece of the tail near the outside of the tail hole and then insert the metal piece into the tail hole.  The tail hair is now outside the pony and the central metal piece is inside the pony.  Use your tweezers to position the central metal piece inside the pony’s hindquarters to ensure that the both halves of the tail are of equal length.  Then re-attach the pony’s head and that is the end of the ’surgery’!  The pony’s tail rust ‘cancer’ has been cured and you also feel a lot better now that the pony’s interior has been ‘cleansed’!