The Doll Forum

While I was fanning the tip of the iron, I ended up pushing deep enough to hit the skeleton. I'm going to force myself to not worry that much about it. I'll wait 24 hours for the TPE to cool and cure, and trust in science to do it's thing. Fingers are crossed big time.

OKAY, I might have a breakthrough . After my last post, I was ready to throw in the towel. I had done some soldering work on her armpit today, and I wasn't thrilled with how things turned out. I closed her armpit as much as I could to relieve the tension, then I pushed the iron in her armpit and st...

Well, I'm going to give up on my current course here. The soldering iron has been largely ineffective at doing this kind of repair. The original repairs shown in the previous posts weren't good enough, and I've made a big mess of her armpit. I used the TPE test piece from my vendor to try to fill he...

Wow, this is an impressive job you done. I had to deal with an armpit tear before and all I used was SilPoxy but what you had to do is cosmetic surgeon level; you can barely tell from the last image! Can't wait to see once the job is complete. Either way, I am sure others will find this useful, to ...

Well, I've waited a week for the TPE to cure, and it seems a bit more resilient than after the first couple of days. I also got in touch with my vendor, and they have a test piece of TPE on the way, so I still have to wait some time to finish things up.

After a few hours, I tested the elasticity of the patchwork. Doesn't seem to be all that solid... As I suspected, there are entirely too many air pockets to have everything together solidly, but I believe that can be fixed. I may need to go in there again, but I really don't want to take any more TP...

So here is a walkthrough of the first 40 minutes of my progress: 1. I had to open the arm a bit more in order to begin filling deep into the tear. With the blade tip of my iron, I made sure I melted the pieces I took from the neck, as well as gently skimming the inside of the tear so the pieces fro...

Okay, guys... My workstation is ready. I have her resting on a table lined with a blanket. I also put a pillow underneath her upper torso to support her chest. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48040022288_7143c8da96_c.jpg I made sure that she is laying in such a way that I won't have to move the...

That all looks good so far, remember what Mishka said about going slow and doing it over a few days. The first time I tried it I was tempted to keep going as I could see it was working but it's better to do a bit then leave it for a while, this seems to be the way to go. I've given a lot of thought...

The challenge now will be getting her into a good position to start working the pieces of TPE, since I don't have any good, flat elevated surface for my doll to lay on. Maybe I can throw something together...

Okay, I figured I might as well just go for it. Here is where I sourced the TPE (neck): https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48039930552_7ff4504d6a_c.jpg https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48039864153_9585b4faa9_c.jpg I wish I could give you all a better idea of exactly how much I took, but here's ...

Alright, I decided to just source some TPE from the neck. Pictures incoming.

Here are a few more angles of the damage https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48039794002_c579aa7093_c.jpg https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48039794182_3cc4bc7dc5_c.jpg https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48039794312_20d5b9a459_c.jpg https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48039794487_a9dba056f8_c.jpg

Here is my practice work on the TPE test piece for my Tan WM. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48039715292_07c5c9a5e9_c.jpg I know that it'll be easy to smooth this out with my heat gun, but since you all said the heat gun would be a bad idea, smoothing it out will be a much bigger task. Doesn't...

Yes, the soldering station is a good solution. The heat gun will open her more/worse depending on factors, but I would start with cutting small chunks of TPE and gradually fill it in with larger pieces with the soldering method. Yours is repairable, but will take a large chunk of spare TPE, which I...