Arthur's tpe doll repair thread inc. Rachel's resurrection

djcdoll · Post by **djcdoll** » Sat Jul 27, 2019 6:11 pm

This is excellent Arthur1960.

I can't believe how small the palm hole is where you got access to the hand plate, it's tiny.
Should mean that when you finally close up the hole the it will hardly be visible.

Arthur1960 · Post by **Arthur1960** » Sat Jul 27, 2019 6:30 pm

Thanks djcdoll, yeah it only needs to be about an inch wide then you carefully peel back the tpe from the plate, you can see that once I pulled out the old wires I could hold the hand back with an elastic band in order to get at the palm plate. This one was much quicker to do than my first as I knew what to expect. I shall do her other hand next and then maybe do Rachel's hands. I might also try a 'thumbectomy' where I just replace the thumb wire. Monique has both thumb wires detached but the other fingers are ok. In theory I would only need a small hole to do the thumb although it will require me to drill out the hole in the plate, have to say that I'm quite pleased with this newer and simpler version of replacement wires, basically they now feel like they did when the body was new although the grip won't be as strong as having a whole new palm plate replacement as MF has done, still if your looking for a cheap and simple solution this seems quite doable.

Pummelbrook · Post by **Pummelbrook** » Sun Jul 28, 2019 3:19 am

Arthur1960 wrote:Hi there, I know at first when you try pulling on the broken finger wire it feels like it won't come out as the tpe bonds to the string surrounding the wire. There is definitely a knack to this, basically I grip the broken end of the wire with a pair of pliers while holding the finger with my other hand. It will slowly start to come out but has a tendency to turn the finger inside out so you just have to push it back into shape once the wire is out. Tpe is actually quite resilient so can take a bit of stretching, if you apply slow, steady pressure when you are pulling on the wire you will see the tpe peeling off from the string coating. To help the new finger wires slide into place I gave them a very light touch of vaseline, you will really need to get some end tips though otherwise the wire will just push out the side of the finger, I found some on eBay that are perfect for this. Good luck with your restoration.

Thank you for that information.
I think I'm going to give it another try.

Arthur1960 · Post by **Arthur1960** » Sun Jul 28, 2019 4:50 pm

This afternoon I sealed up the incision on Liz's hand, I was going to try the professional method with soldering iron but in the end just used super glue as I'm not that handy with the soldering iron yet and applying tiny amounts of glue with a cocktail stick did the trick. So later in the week I shall do the other hand using the same method...

djcdoll · Post by **djcdoll** » Mon Jul 29, 2019 6:22 am

Arthur1960 wrote:This afternoon I sealed up the incision on Liz's hand, I was going to try the professional method with soldering iron but in the end just used super glue as I'm not that handy with the soldering iron yet and applying tiny amounts of glue with a cocktail stick did the trick. So later in the week I shall do the other hand using the same method...

Excellent job sealing up the hole. You can hardly see where you did all the repairs.

Arthur1960 · Post by **Arthur1960** » Mon Jul 29, 2019 8:02 am

Thanks djcdoll, yeah I'm actually very pleased with this one, I chickened out from doing the more professional method of sealing and instead went the superglue route. The thing is that superglue can be a royal pain if you get any on tpe where you don't want it as it sets to a hard crust that you can't shift but it does bond tpe. I've been using it for sealing tiny pin prick holes using a cocktail stick and it sealed up this incision well enough. I have to say her hand looks and feels loads better so I've just made up the fingers for the other hand. Next time I will try and be even more careful gluing the incision so to leave a shallow line that I can then smooth over with some heat, in theory leaving bearly a mark, we shall see!

The new finger wires are ready for the patient, next to a little diagram to show how they fit. The measurements are specific to a 2016 YL148D as unlike the feet, hands can differ quite a bit in size!

seagull · Post by **seagull** » Thu Aug 01, 2019 10:12 pm

For a Kimber mini doll.
Trying to persuade an acquaintance to laser cut some small pieces of stainless, encasing in a 3d printed finger bone then fastening them together with 2mm capscrews.
At this stage it seems to be pushing the limits of his equipment but several iterations into altering the cut profile is showing promise.
If successful, they can be scaled up for larger dolls, the drawings are as simple as possible but still tedious at this stage

Babel99 · Post by **Babel99** » Thu Aug 01, 2019 10:48 pm

Wow! Nice nice job here Arthur. Jael, my YL148 has all fingers detached as well. I may bug you out for your measurements and material list!

Great job buddy!

Arthur1960 · Post by **Arthur1960** » Fri Aug 02, 2019 4:28 am

Hi seagull, that certainly sounds very interesting, I will be watching out for the end result, good luck!

Hi Babel99, what I've done should work well for Jael as she will have the same size hands as Liz's so the measurements I've given should work. I will be doing her other hand in a few days and thought I might video what I do I stick it up in my Google drive so folk can see exactly where you make the cut and how to get that pesky old epoxy out etc. So stay tuned.

Babel99 · Post by **Babel99** » Fri Aug 02, 2019 5:53 am

Arthur1960 wrote:Hi seagull, that certainly sounds very interesting, I will be watching out for the end result, good luck!

Hi Babel99, what I've done should work well for Jael as she will have the same size hands as Liz's so the measurements I've given should work. I will be doing her other hand in a few days and thought I might video what I do I stick it up in my Google drive so folk can see exactly where you make the cut and how to get that pesky old epoxy out etc. So stay tuned.

That would be awesome! I do realise though that making that delicate procedure while filming could be a pain.

seagull · Post by **seagull** » Sat Aug 03, 2019 6:37 pm

For the Kimber mini Pinkie, it's pushing the limits of my cheapie printer as well

: LinkSmallDistal.jpg (13.85 KiB) Viewed 1121 times

seagull · Post by **seagull** » Sat Aug 03, 2019 6:42 pm

For the Kimber mini Pinkie, it's pushing the limits of my cheapie printer as well

Also helps to Crop the image

: LinkSmallDistal.jpg (1.83 KiB) Viewed 1119 times

seagull · Post by **seagull** » Thu Aug 08, 2019 8:00 pm

Got word back about attempting such a tiny laser profile, it's doable. Hope to see some samples early next week. The 4mmx7mm Pinky tip one will be interesting
3D print design on the other hand got more complicated when taking into account a 2mm offset to keep the metal casings in line

Arthur1960 · Post by **Arthur1960** » Wed Aug 14, 2019 2:03 pm

Thanks for the update seagull, hopefully what you're working on will provide decent articulated finger bones. Ok it was another very wet day today so a perfect time to press on with replacing the finger wires in Elizabeth's left hand. I had previously mentioned that I would try to make a few video's of the work so I've uploaded some from today into my google drive should anyone wish to try this but isn't sure what to do.
Oh, you may need to crank the volume up a bit.
Here's the link:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id= ... Bk3wddF00r

djcdoll · Post by **djcdoll** » Wed Aug 14, 2019 2:37 pm

Excellent set of videos Arthur1960.

Very well done, we can easily see the work you had to do to replace those finger wires.
I'm sure that actually seeing the work done live will put some minds at ease as we contemplate doing the same procedure ourselves.

It will be great to see a short video showing how you manage to put the finger wires back into the "empty" TPE fingers.
Also a video showing you closing up the hole in her hand will be great too.