MinniMagg wrote: ↑Tue Nov 14, 2023 1:51 am
WOW! That took my breath away! You have a lot of work to do, and sadly you started with the wrong process.
<snip>
Ahh, You must have read my mind. Thank you very much.
Truly this was the direction I was going to suggest, including the specific tool.
1) The leather or shoe tool is the absolute best for this kind of thing.
A wide and flat surface that will heat to a good melt/bond temperature and with rounded edges to reduce digging into the repair area.
2) GOOD TPE is key. Doll stuff usually has the right blend for a repair like this. Some folks opt for a harder blend on the feet, but it looks like you want them a bit softer for foot play.
So the process is cut out the new or bad stuff to get down to actual TPE on the bottom of the feet. The top should be heat flowable with the tool shown above.
You want to heat flow the TPE, and not pour more molten stuff on it is you can.
TPE has some interesting thermal characteristics, one of them is conductivity. Thus it takes a good bit for the heat to spread in a bulk, but thin poured stuff cools quickly.
It seems ass backward, but that is what I have seen with melting, molding, casting and repairs.
So if you pour a small mold, you might get premature cooling and not a complete fill.
(cure = preheat mold or slde pour to fill indents from the edge and eliminate divots)
Likewise a thin/medium pour over existing TPE can fail when the pour does not retain enough heat to fuse with the base TPE
(cure = preheat base TPE to flow or near flow point then pour, do not pour onto colder TPE and expect a good bond)
In this case it depends on how "perfect" you want the feet and how much time you want to put in.
Easy to mid easy would be to cut off the bad TPE, then smooth down to original TPE using the leather/shoe tool. Using the edge you can GENTLY carve back some of the bottom foot details. With come care and work you should be able to get them back into fine shape.
A more involved method is to make a cast box for the feet that fit the existing area. You have to make sure it fits the area, preheat the base TPE, melt, cast, trim and a bit more. What you a actually doing is making a miniature version of the mold like that used to cast the doll. Involved and probably way beyond what you want to do to get back to foot fun.
Whatever you do, get back to the base TPE, clean that well with alcohol and get all the gunk gone. Oil is needed to keep your tool gliding, but watch too much. You will be heating and melting the TPE to smooth it and excess oil can lead to problems. In some situation the liberal amount of oil will get into the hot TPE and the result will be softer than planned, since oil mixed in with TPE is a softening agent.
Have a mask or safety gear available but if you are doing it right you may not need it.
TPE only smokes when burned, so if it is sending off clouds that is a sign you are way too hot and cooking the TPE.
Some oil will vaporize during smoothing, but a bit of flow ventilation should deal with that.
As with TPE, the mineral oil will smoke if you are way too hot.
Really if your repair area is smoking a lot, that is the TPE screaming
"Ouch!! Stop that!"
Practice a bit and you will get the hang of it. Since most practice areas are the feet, your practice might end up being the repair.
So, get down to the original TPE, use the tool shown above and then slowly and carefully heat smooth the area.
That alone should fix the problem. Best to avoid chemicals for now.
Good luck!
... W ...
