We can rebuild her. New MF hand plates and wires.

[Panther68]

Hey Jeramos20,

Anastasia is a WM 168E #15 head. She is my first doll that I got back in Sept of 2017. I use Face App to give her a smile. If you happen to get the WM 168E, get the older version, it has more of an hour glass figure. The new version has less hip and skinnier legs.

Here is her thread that has hundreds of photos of her.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=90964

[Broven]

Anna Marie recently went through this surgery, so I thought I would share my experience with it.

REPLACING THE HANDPLATES AND FINGERS:
I brought her to Samara's house to do the actual replacing of the hand plates. We did our cut across the wrist where the hand plate bolt is. Unfortunately, we weren't able to break the spot weld on the bolt using only force. We had to use a dremel to break them loose. We tried using a relatively slow RPM at first, to protect the TPE against possibly heating up too much. But the progress was painfully slow, so we revved it up and from there on it went quickly. (I keep saying "we" but what I really mean is "Samara". I tried to be helpful where I could though. lol) Once the bolt was removed, the rest of the process was pretty straight-forward. I think it would be difficult to screw up at that point.

RESEALING THE CUTS:
I did this myself, back at home. We just didn't have time to do it at Samara's. I should start by saying that I have done some very minor repairs before this. But never anything of this scale. So it was a learning process for me. The final result looks good to me, though not invisible or anywhere near perfection. Doing the cut across the wrist helps to make the scars look more like natural creases in her skin where the hand meets the wrist. But I think someone with more experience would do an even better job of it.

Anyway, here's the issue (which Panther has also mentioned)... the new plates are slightly bigger than the stock plates. So the TPE doesn't just settle back into a neat line. I started on her right wrist, and removed a little TPE from the inside to get the edges to line up as close as possible. I then used Cold-Weld to seal it up. It took several nights to finish that part, as the CW needs to cure, and the cut was too large to try to repair all in one go. The curing time is a little vague (due to variations in the situation, and the TPE blend) so I went with the maximum cure time of 8 hours. I was sealing it up about 1/4 inch at a time, give or take, so it took a while. It worked well enough, and WAY better than TPE solvent. My only concern was that the TPE feels fairly thin there, because of the removed material. It may not be an issue. I'm not sure. We'll see how it holds up over time.

So on the other wrist I tried a different approach. I have a few pieces of spare TPE that match Anna's skintone. So instead of removing material from inside, I added material to close the gap. Again, I used the Cold-Weld, taking several days to complete. This method "feels" better. But the scar is bigger too, so it's a trade-off I guess.

When that was all done, I used rework station to smooth things out even more.

One other issue I should mention. Not a big deal, but because the fingers-parts are thicker than the wire they replaced, they have forced her fingernails up at the base. So they will need to be removed and re-attached in a more natural orientation. I don't expect that to be any trouble though (famous last words, I know...).

As far as the new fingers themselves... Two thumbs up!!! They feel much more robust than the originals. The fingers, imo, look more natural with a sort of suggested knuckles. And posing them seems more natural too, as they only bend where they should bend (though the TPE itself slightly lessens this effect as it doesn't crease the way an actual finger does). All in all, I'm super happy with the upgrade.

Anyway, that was my experience. Hope it's at least a little bit helpful. And happy to answer questions if people have any.

[ILuvFemsNlingerie]

Awww no pics

[Panther68]

Hey Boven,

Thanks for sharing, I have yet to seal her up. Just put gloves over her hands. To relief some of the pressure from the bigger plates, I cut into the side of the internal palm TPE, so no removal. Like yourself, I do have a pro close by, Mishka, but with other dolls that I am photographing now, I just haven't had the urgency to seal her up, yet. Not to mention, MF sent me upgraded thumb wires I have yet to change out. I can deal with scares on her palm for fully functioning fingers. Would love to see some photos, since you cut at the wrists and I cut at the palms.

[MannequinFan]

Hey Broven thanks very much for taking the time for the nice write up!

I've been sort of waiting to see how this part went. The wrist incision was a nice idea - too bad the seal up is such a slow process though. Sounds excruciating.
Would there be a way to use staples or sutures somehow to hold the whole cut together while it cures?

Anyway, no wrist photos, but here's a link to Anna Marie's last photo set showing her hands in action...
viewtopic.php?p=1561613#p1561613

[Broven]

I'll try to get some close ups of her wrists and post them here. I intended to take pics of the whole process and then, for no good reason, never did. I'm a lazy lazy man. Lol

[adelea]

I'll try to get some close ups of her wrists and post them here. I intended to take pics of the whole process and then, for no good reason, never did. I'm a lazy lazy man. Lol

I think it more likely you were concerned for her wellbeing and all other thoughts left your mind!

Some after- pictures would be nice though, for those of us wanting to try this when MF makes things more readily available!

[Dollicious2]

Excellent write up Broven , Thanks
Yes pics would be nice
Can the hands now hold objects or not worth risk I'd understand.
Where can this "cold weld" tpe solution be obtained? Indigo?

[MannequinFan]

Excellent write up Broven , Thanks
Yes pics would be nice
Can the hands now hold objects or not worth risk I'd understand.
Where can this "cold weld" tpe solution be obtained? Indigo?

Hey D, the cold weld is indeed from Indigo...
viewtopic.php?f=227&t=112678&hilit=indigo+cold

Holding objects you ask?

[Dutch_Husband]

Nice write up, Broven. Thanks for sharing.

I did a wrist repair on Evie awhile back. I used a hot knife to reseal the wound. The only problem I have had is, over time, with flexing her wrist, the seal re-opens and I have to reseal it. At first, I suspected the wound was not clean enough, so maybe the tpe did not anneal well. But, I have had to repair it three times, so now I think it is the stress of the tpe being stretched when her wrists are bent backward. So now I don't bend wrists back for any length of time.

I will be doing finger repairs on Gabriella soon. I'll be cutting into the palm, but along the outer edge, not in the center. I'll explain it better in another post. I'm taking photos as I go to help show my thought process.

Thanks again for sharing your experience.

[Broven]

I'll try to get some close ups of her wrists and post them here. I intended to take pics of the whole process and then, for no good reason, never did. I'm a lazy lazy man. Lol

I think it more likely you were concerned for her wellbeing and all other thoughts left your mind!

Thank you for putting a positive spin on it, Adelea!
Truth be told, when Samara was cutting her open and peeling back skin and all that, I was in a bit of a state. It's quite traumatic to watch...

Anyway, here are a couple pics of the repair. Again, I'm a novice at this sort of work, so despite turning out fine (imo), it could certainly be done even better by someone with more experience.


Me: Hun, I need to take pictures of your wrists.
Anna: My... what?

20190714_132757[1].jpg (1.77 MiB) Viewed 1975 times

Me: Just hold out your wrist. Be done in a jiffy...
Anna: Well, that's nothing new. So is this what you boys are into now? Wrists?

20190714_133155[1].jpg (1.59 MiB) Viewed 1975 times

Me: You're killin' me, Sunshine...
Anna: Wrist porn... What WILL they think of next...?
Me: Goin' in for the money shot...

This is the wrist that had material added...

20190714_133228[1].jpg (1.5 MiB) Viewed 1975 times

And here is both. Apologies for the soft focus... You can see the added material a little better in this one.

20190714_133320[1].jpg (1.5 MiB) Viewed 1975 times

[/size]

A COUPLE OTHER THOUGHTS:
As for her being able to hold things, I would guess that she really can't hold more than she did before her original wires broke. But these feel like they are going to hold up to repeated manipulation a lot longer. And, if/when the day comes that they do break, the repair will be MUCH easier now.

I probably didn't tighten the wrist bolt enough. I was afraid to go too tight with it, but I can tell it's loosened up a little bit since installing them. It will only take two very small cuts to get in and retighten them. But maybe using a lock washer or something would be a good idea? I'm no engineer, so not sure if that would help. I definitely wouldn't want to re-weld the nut and bolt though. But the weight limit of what she can hold seems to be limited more by the wrist bending under the weight than the fingers themselves.

MF sent me the improved thumb pieces. They have more of an angle to them where they attach to the palm, as opposed to coming straight out. But I've found the thumb to be the most difficult to pose despite that. I believe the thicker TPE there is trying to force the thumb back into a more neutral position. And it's more successful at that than it is with the fingers. For example, laying the thumb across her palm seems to be impossible. You can bend it there, but it won't stay. Not sure if there's a solution possible for that though.

Anyway, that's all I got. Hope the pics helped.

[adelea]

Looks a nice job Broven! The cuts on the wrist could pass for creases in the skin, I think that could be a good place to go in.

The stretchiness of TPE is amazing, if you can get her fingers out and back in from there though!

[Broven]

Thanks, Adelea Close-ups of her wrists are about as bad as it gets. Once you step back and see her as a whole, I don't really notice the wrists at all.

TPE really is plenty stretchy. Most of her wires were already broken at the plate, and the couple that weren't we cut first. That way we could get the plate out on it's own, and then essentially turn her hand inside out to remove the finger wires. Re-assembly was the opposite of that: put the fingers in, and then attach them to the plate, and then attach the plate to the wrist.

The cut on her wrist was, I'm guessing, somewhere around 1.5 to 2 inches across. That gave plenty of room to work. We may have even been able to get away with a smaller cut, though it would have complicated the work a little. But since sealing the hand was the trickiest part, it might be worth a little extra frustration at the beginning to cut down on how much sealing there is to do. Not sure though.

[MannequinFan]

Hey Broven I think you did an excellent job!
On that second photo I can't even see the scar.

Regarding the thumb, it's definitely the most difficult joint to deal with because of the angle.
With the stranded wire you need to be able to bend it a ways past the point you want it posed at as it will tend to return some. If the TPE prevents that then there won't be much I can do to solve that problem unfortunately.
This is probably as far as you're going to get with the thumb...

IMG_4785.JPG (651.32 KiB) Viewed 1966 times

[djcdoll]

Hey Broven I think you did an excellent job!
On that second photo I can't even see the scar.

Regarding the thumb, it's definitely the most difficult joint to deal with because of the angle.
With the stranded wire you need to be able to bend it a ways past the point you want it posed at as it will tend to return some. If the TPE prevents that then there won't be much I can do to solve that problem unfortunately.
This is probably as far as you're going to get with the thumb...

These hands are looking fantastic MannequinFan.
Hopefully it won't be long before they will be available on that 3D printing site so we can order them. My Tiffany is really hoping I can fix her hands soon.