The Doll Forum

You would need to cut up a fleshlight or similar toy. There are a few other sources of pre mixed TPE oil gel such as clear ballistics gel (http://clearballistics.com), but TPE which is formulated for toy use will have the appropriate softness and durability.

Plaster is temperamental and the results can be uneven, I used to use it alot until I starting working with hydro-cal. This a gypsum plaster that gets really hard, cures fast and is very consistent, it is twice as much as plaster but you use 1/2 the amount than plaster and you get a very nice mold.with a longer library life. . Check it out you'll really like.it.

AHH YES hydracal and for ultimate permanence ultra-cal! Worth every penny!

xama4 wrote:You would need to cut up a fleshlight or similar toy. There are a few other sources of pre mixed TPE oil gel such as clear ballistics gel (http://clearballistics.com), but TPE which is formulated for toy use will have the appropriate softness and durability.

Have you done this yourself? Cut up an already molded TPE toy and remelted it down? What temp does it melt at?

I have melted down many kinds of already molded TPE, and the temps can vary quite a bit. I can't try right now, but I'll try melting down part of a fleshlight next week to find the target temp for that material.

I have melted down quite a bit of TPE from sex toys. Best to cut the TPE up into small pieces or better yet run them through a meat grinder lubed up with a bit of drug store mineral oil before melting.

It usually melts around 350 F. Anything above 375 F for too long degrades the quality and makes it weaker.

If it starts to smoke you have gone too hot. Don't breath in any of the smoke, work in a ventilated area.

What type of equipment is used to melt? Are we talking just pot and stove or are there some more specific ways the heat and melt?

I use the equipment I showed in my posts, which allows me to melt the material gently, and avoid degrading it. There are other lower cost options which should work though. For example, the clear ballistics people recommend a temp controlled slow cooker: http://clearballistics.com/instructions/

You would just need one which does not have wild swings in temperature, and you would need to lightly stir the material to evenly melt it.

I had bad luck with the pot and stove method. The stove is not a consistent or really controllable heat source, and it's not possible to stir fast enough to keep heating even. The gel on the bottom winds up burning, the whole thing starts fuming, and yellowing, and it's just no good.

If you don't want to buy anything new, you could probably use a normal oven, but that would probably be harder to control than a slow cooker, and would probably get the material fuming. The fumes aren't really all that bad for you, they just smell BAD. Once the material has started fuming though, it will tend to keep that smell even when cooled, and it won't have the same properties as it did before. Additionally, if you get lots of fumes it can coat the inside of whatever you use to heat the gel with re-condensed mineral oil components which would probably ruin your oven.

If you're concerned about the fumes/byproducts of burning, remember that these same materials are used in gel candles which are meant to be burned. Leaning over and breathing candle exhaust directly is not generally recommended, but the exhaust is not ruinous to everyone's health. The mixture used in gel candles uses less polymer and more mineral oil to reduce smoke production, so it's not exactly the same, but it's a good indication that just because you breathe in a bit of the fumes you're not going to die.

Some time ago, member, sextoyscientist, posted his website. On his website, he stated many of the same things as you have. He used marine epoxy for his DIY fleshlight mold. His stated source of polymer died years ago. I'm glad you have found a supplier. His website expired several months ago.

He stated melting temperatures of about 290°F to about 330°F. However, he used Celsius units.

The melt temperature is determined by several factors, and one of the more influential ones is the aromatic content of the mineral oil used. By increasing the aromatic oil content, the gel dissolution temperature lowers rapidly. Because we don't know what oils the manufacturers use we can't know the appropriate temperature without a bit of trial and error. If the manufacturers are especially evil, or their requirements very exacting, they could choose a low enough aromatic content to keep the min dissolution temp very high, and a base oil with a low enough flash point that there is a very very narrow range of safe processing temperatures.

They would have special equipment for attaining that exact temperature extremely quickly to minimize degradation, but it would make the material extremely hard to reprocess without damage.

Is there anyway to increase aromatic content?

I may as well ask this question since it will get asked. Are there methods of repairing rips on TPE material?

Obin wrote:Is there anyway to increase aromatic content?

No, not without first melting, and not without altering the properties of the gel. Increasing the oil content would just dilute the polymer more, so without knowing where to get more polymer, and what specific polymer blend they used, it would be nearly impossible to cancel out the negative effects.

Obin wrote: Are there methods of repairing rips on TPE material?

I have not tried doing this. A heat gun should be able to repair minor surface tears and abrasions, but it will also smooth the surface and remove any textures applied by the manufacturer which may be undesirable. For larger cuts, I would probably try pouring some lower melting point TPE into the wound, wipe away any excess, and bind it closed with plastic wrap or some such while cooling. Getting that right would probably be very tricky.

That's just a guess though... I will have to cut something and try repairing it at some point.

You have my attention on all accounts.

Sextoyscientist does have a YouTube video remaining. I don't know whether this is helpful. It appears marine epoxy works, though. Check here for his comments, but most info was on his website. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJXhTic ... ata_player

Edit: I'm unsure whether this is a good idea. I figured that if or when I ever had a chance to try this type of project, I would try heating the mold in order to remove the cooled piece. I wonder whether such a method might work with the material you've already used.

That marine epoxy looks great, I'll have to try it and hydro-cal. Both seem like they will work way better than normal plaster.

I wish there was some information on how he made that mold... I've tried to get info from his website, but only one or two pages were ever captured in the various web archives.

I'll go into more detail when I'm (hopefully) more successful with my next attempt, but the gen1 ice fleshlight material is slightly tricky to work with.
I was able to melt it without much trouble, but the stable liquid temp range is fairly narrow. It doesn't really start melting adequately until 230-240f, but the mineral oil or the additives they use seem to start degrading around 250f.
In my first attempt, I was too aggressive and overshot the dissolution temp so the material yellowed slightly. With such a tight stable liquid temp range, I'll need to reduce heat loss from the top and sides of the melting container to get an even melt without overheating the bottom.

Seems like they may have chosen the aforementioned 'evil' route to help protect their material...