Cleaning black dye migration on Trek shirt? & possible variation.

[AcroRay]

A few days ago I became the lucky owner of a great-condition Type-1 Kirk from eBay. Head, rivets and all are like new and the clothes are in excellent shape. Aside from the usual lost silver on the uniform emblem and a broken right thumb, there is what appears to be dye migration from Kirk's pants onto his shirt, and probably from the pants of another figure he might have been stored loose with:



Can I clean this off of the shirt? And if so, how? The wrist cuff ribbon hasn't delaminated and is as shiny as can be, and the black felt around his collar is dark and clean like new. Oddly, the yellow of his shirt is much more pale than other Kirks I've seen, and the color is consistent across all the fabric surface inside and out, and in seams. The photo above is pretty color accurate. So it isn't likely to be UV fade, and it hasn't been washed judging by the condition of the gold trim and the collar. The pants are rich dark and clean,too.

As a note, this is my first actual delibrate aquisition of a 'variant' to a figure I've already got in my collection. I've got a Type 2 Kirk. I guess this just shows how much I've got the 8" bug now. Thanks, gang....

[Trappy Trek Freak]

Hey Ray I can give you a good shirt and a T-2 body for him if you need it, I have a couple of them extra I think LOL

[AcroRay]

I sent Flynne a PM about it, but haven't heard back from him.

Trappy - I sent you a PM.

[GUYx1]

Good luck with that.

The TYPE 1 trek actually have shirts and pants made of a thinner material if memory serves correct.
Please take a step back and think about what you are trying to accomplish.
While you can leech the black dye out of VINYL heads, getting it out of fabric is an entirely different story.
Modern Fabrics are hard to dye. You get a lot of ugliness and disappointment. Doc Mego used to say the companies SCOTCH GUARD everything.
Dyeing 70's fabric is usually a piece of cake by comparison.
Vintage clothes tend take on dye colors very easily.
You can do whole spectrums of colors.
While you can use color removers on the 70's clothes, or mix a bleaching agent with a catalyst (this gets all hot and bubbly and is actually quite neat until it stings you eyes) You would still need to dye the clothing to the desired color.
Getting the proper professional colors takes a bit of web research and you may have to buy the dye colors BY THE POUND for some rare shades. It still does NOT appear to be genuine.
The Big hidden danger with using bleaches is that the clothing may look perfectly fine, but 6 months later, the THREAD may disintegrate. (I know from a Tomland YETI I bleached back in 1992)
Moderation is the key. Best option is to always look on ebay for a beat figure with a good outfit. If you have any worries, use a repro black belt.
Trust me, there is a reason my Vintage Mugato belt migrated over to my Zorro.

[AcroRay]

So if I understand correctly:

* This is probably indeed dye migration.
* Anything that would remove the black would remove the yellow as well.

Correct?

Honestly, the figure's shirt isn't that important to me to engage in complex dye removal and re-dying. I'd like to keep him original and presentable, but if there's no real difference in the matter, I'll just get him a better looking vintage shirt.

[Nostalgiabuff]

this is the advice flynn gave me to try and get marker out of a shirt
"going to your local fabric store (JoAnns, or whatever you have) or WalMart (they have it sometimes) to look for something called the Carbobna Cleaning System. They make specific cleaners for things like blood, rust, margic marker, etc. You'll need a bottle of the cleaner, some gentle fabric cleaner like Woolite, and a couple of white hand towels (WalMart has cheap $1.50 hand towels that work great). You'll need to follow the instructions on the Carbona cleaner (get the one for permanent markers) and dab the stain with the cleaner, let it sit for a minute, then dab dry with the white towel over and under the fabric. It may take several passes with the cleaner, but it usually works to remove 90% of the stain. Once you are happy with the stain removal, clean the whole thing once with Woolite, and let dry."

for a trek shirt, which is very common and easily had for little money, i would not bother

[johnmiic]

The yellow/gold color of that Trek tunic seems to have faded pretty badly anyway. You're probably better off getting a replacement one from Doc Mego.