Can anyone help me save my doll? She's in rough shape after being in storage for years.

[Tyr]

Check this out.
Ami's hand repair, earlier this year.

IMG_20230920_115229.jpg (4.29 MiB) Viewed 329 times

She wears a support bandage with lace gloves now, which we have gotten used to.
Added bonus her new hands are strong and not fragile like TPE ones.
As for your girl, it looks like you'll have to remove most of her arm, but pipe lagging, (the foam type) may be good enough to bulk up the arm and under a sleeve it would be hard to tell.
Cheers,
Tyr.

[goofy_dr_love]

She looks beyond fixing. Just get a new one regardless what you use the doll for or how new/old she is.

[Socratus]

Reminds me of when I was in the tire business. Guy comes in with a flat tire. He had driven on it for several miles and by the time he got to the shop there wasn't much left of it . Told him it was beyond repair and that he needed a new tire. Guy throws a fit, insisting the shredded tire can be fixed. Finally I told him, okay I'll fix it but it's going to be expensive. He agreed and I slapped a new tire on his car, listing the cost as a flat repair on his bill. The customer is always right.

Nice one.
There's a similar story when it comes to doing artwork for customers.

Anyway, that doll looks like it's on the end of the line to me. If she were mine I'd be sorry, but I'd probably pull the plug on the machine- But some of the doll guys here know their stuff, so...

[Zlamvam]

Might as well just get in touch with a repairguy/gal, and let them have a good look at it to see if something can be done. And if not, if you can, keep the Head, replace the entire body.

[nicvncnt]

I've had that happen too! Didn't know it was the copper...

The blue discolouration is characteristic of a copper reaction. Seriously, why do manufacturers use such a reactive metal in the first place?

[Wheezer]

The blue discolouration is characteristic of a copper reaction. Seriously, why do manufacturers use such a reactive metal in the first place?

They appear to have learned and getting better now, but the OP stated that the doll has been in storage for about 5 years.
So the doll is probably 6 or more years old.

6 years in TPE doll time seems to be about 60 years human time due to the rate of improvement.
Almost like dog years, except you can have carnal relations with these. The same antics with dogs is frowned upon.

Cheers!
... W ...

[Zlamvam]

Entirely up to you ofc, but if it were me, I would most likely just buy her a new body.
Or if you in for doing it, get all the required tools and other things you need to be able to repair it, and put in all that money, sweat and hours, and perhaps some tears, it takes to repair all that. For all you know, you may end up in just geting a new body instead, when all costs has been calculated.
If you come to the conclusion of repairs coming to a total $600, and a new body will cost you $800-$1000. Do you bother to repair her??

[JoendTanya]

Ill pray for you! I almost closed the window when I saw the pictures lol
Good Luck!

[Bunnyboybob]

Just to be clear on the copper wire thing causing the rot...
Looking at the photos I can see the fingers are actually made of a stainless steel gooseneck design. Right me if I'm wrong someone. Those are not copper wrapped with cord. I know as many do what they look like. Infact the ends are also rounded well so I'm surprised she got pokes.
What make doll is she Adam 492?
Oh and thanks for the amusing annecdote Mr Franz, I think we all needed cheering up after seeing these sad photos.

[Wheezer]

A while back there was a thread on one user doing a quite nice arm replacement.
The final result was a sleek, futuristic style arm. That eliminated all the efforts needed to recreated flesh and muscle structure.
I'm not sure of the exact thread, but it is here somewhere.
It might be something to consider.

Just a thought.
Cheers!
... W ...

[The Doll Advocate]

I experimented with a doll with melting meat not long ago.viewtopic.php?p=2357021#p2357021
There is no way to reverse the tpe break down.
The affected material will continue to break down taking more meat with it until it is a sticky goopy mess.
If you want to salvage the doll ,the arm must be amputated beyond where the disintegration is occurring.
Exposure to heat will expedite the breakdown.
Freezing will slow it ,but it will never stop .
I hate to give this bad news ,but I'm speaking from experience.
The only possible repair would be to get a complete donor arm from another doll and reattach at the shoulder joint .
But then there will be the task of finding an arm with the same color .
And then the bonding of the skin ,shaping and forming to hide the seam you made .
You will have several hours in this on just the arm
The stains will take even more time and alot of oxy10.

[Arthur1960]

Hi, it may have been my thread Wheezer was thinking of where I had to amputate the fore arms and hands of a doll I had been given a few years back which had been stored very poorly. Initially I had hoped that I might be able to save the hands and actually for a couple of years she did keep them as I had removed the old wires and replaced them etc but, of course, the exposed cooper wires had triggered the breakdown of the tpe in the hands which eventually spread into the arms. I would mostly definitely second the point made by The Doll Advocate, you will need to completely remove any soft, mushy tpe, in fact I would go an inch or so more and make your cut into good tpe then you should be able to stop the rot. I did this with my rescue doll, having previously replaced the hands with a pair of wooden artists hands (from Amazon) I then used pipe lagging on the bare metal of the arm before popping the bod into one of those cosplay suits you can find on eBay. I then used my Bianca head and my cyborg doll lives on! You can find the details towards the bottom of this page:

viewtopic.php?t=106371&start=435

[danebramage]

Reminds me of the scene in terminator 2 where Schwarzenegger de- gloves his left hand. Damage of this scale would likely be expensive and time consuming, and any repairs no matter how good would still be visible.

[Wheezer]

Hi, it may have been my thread Wheezer was thinking of where I had to amputate the fore arms and hands of a doll I had been given a few years back which had been stored very poorly. Initially I had hoped that I might be able to save the hands and actually for a couple of years she did keep them as I had removed the old wires and replaced them etc but, of course, the exposed cooper wires had triggered the breakdown of the tpe in the hands which eventually spread into the arms. I would mostly definitely second the point made by The Doll Advocate, you will need to completely remove any soft, mushy tpe, in fact I would go an inch or so more and make your cut into good tpe then you should be able to stop the rot. I did this with my rescue doll, having previously replaced the hands with a pair of wooden artists hands (from Amazon) I then used pipe lagging on the bare metal of the arm before popping the bod into one of those cosplay suits you can find on eBay. I then used my Bianca head and my cyborg doll lives on! You can find the details towards the bottom of this page:

viewtopic.php?t=106371&start=435

Yup, that is probably the one.
Too much doll stuff rattling around in the brain pan and they sort of get mixed sometimes.

The safest way would be to go way above the rot area, peel back the good TPE and saw through the underlying bone.
Not unlike a human amputation, but with less blood and drama.
Hot iron melting the stump TPE, like cauterizing a flesh stump, would also be wise.

An alternative would be to keep the arm as much as possible and remove the TPE.
Cut above the rot and peel the TPE down and away from the good stuff.
Then remove ANY bad TPE traces from the remaining arm.
The easiest way to do that would probably be to burn it off.

Protect the good portions of the doll with wet towel, welders mat, etc.
Peel off any joint protection wrapping still left on the arm and as much TPE goo chunks as you can.
Get her outside, fire up a propane torch and burn off any bad TPE residue.
Use care and only burn off the bad TPE. When done scrub off with a degreaser or other chemical to get off any residue.

Whatever you finally decide, those wire finger need to be gone, but don't just hack them off.
You may be able to replace those wire ones with MF articulated fingers, depending on the arm base/wrist connection.
So maybe look into those a bit before you final finger area amputation.

Yet another option might be the WANTED section of the board.
Post something seeking a donor arm.
You might find a user with a crapped out doll with a broken spine yet the arm is still good.

Just ideas.
Cheers!
... W ...

[seagull]

Bunnyboybob
The fingers in my doll have the same coiled wire stuff through the hand area to the wrist but the fingers themselves were coated copper
It's flexible enough to bend and hold it's position, until it eventually work hardens and snaps