Being an engineer we know that heat expands things and cold makes them shrink. The problem is getting the right amount of cold in the right position. That's where those cans of computer air duster comes in. There's actually Freon inside them and when turned upside down you get really really cold liquid out of them. Shrinking the connector has worked for many people.
It's really a bummer when it happens to you because you don't have good access to get a tools down there. And if you try too hard to unscrew it you will break the skull.
That happened to one user and he decided to sell his head because the area around the nut had cracked.
I bought it knowing that I could fix it. I use that technique to get the threaded part out of the nut, got a long M16 threaded rod, a piece of 3" od PVC pipe and an end cap. I mixed up some marine grade epoxy and put a liberal amount into the damaged area. Then carefully aligned the broken fiberglass/nut.
I had pre-drilled the end cap so the threaded Rod poked out. Using a washer and then a nut I carefully tightened the area up. Then clamped the pipe assembly so the head was right side up and let the epoxy cure. I had put crap ton of Vaseline on the threaded rod so that the epoxy would not stick to it in case it got in that area. Which it didn't. But one wants to make sure. 24 hours later that was in fine restored condition.
When I bought the head the seller had put a note in the box asking me to "please take good care of her". To me it was just a spare head, but obviously he had an attachment to the Aesthetics of it. I sent him a PM telling him if he refunded my money and paid for return shipping, he could have his repaired head back. And he was delighted!
There seem to be a lot of us that 'tinker' and repair theses doll's. There's so much knowledge on tdf and it's a shame that the search function doesn't work a little better.
In any event I'm glad I could help.
MinniMagg
Socratus wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 11:56 am Some of you might remember the problem I've been having with getting a screw out of my doll's head so I could try a different pull-on-pull-off screw. Could I get the standard screw out? Nope after many tries as noted in this thread:
viewtopic.php?t=168352
So the last guy, MinniMagg, in the thread suggested the cold from a can of air and vice grips, which I've been trying. Still didn't work.
However, over the month or so, I kept coming back to the head screw and using his principle- and today it suddenly unscrewed.There appears nothing wrong with it, it wasn't glued in, it was just very, very tight. Probably my weak-ass arms didn't help either..
So many thanks to MinniMagg, but also others for their suggestions too.
