Kettle fixing TPE with some success

[DiggingHole]

Got to fix some of my broken toy, they’re very cheap but I don’t mind trying out. It can effectively remove random cut on the surface, always try it with cheap one first before moving to expensive one. And why kettle? I think kettle is easily workable, the temperature isn’t very high, and I prefer the flat surface of the metal kettle, make sure to wipe it clean first, you don’t want dirt to stick to the toy, here are some pictures

[seagull]

Ingenuity unlimited on this forum

[DiggingHole]

Ingenuity unlimited on this forum

I want to write some guide, that’s after I had play around enough with them

First of all you will want to only get [/b]electrical kettle

1. This is what you need:
Electric kettle
A clean wipe
Water to fill into kettle ofc
Clean plastic bag

2. Step
-Make sure the kettle is full of water, not overfilled you don’t want water to spill while boiling, boil the water to hot
-The temperature on the flat metal should be fetching 90-100 Celsius, 192-212 F. Depend on the melting point of the toy, mine work great at 90-100, it don’t melt at all after the kettle cool down for a bit, then I will boil the water again to hot.
-The temperature on the kettle didn’t burn the toy and it just melt them, it’s perfectly safe to use it, compare to ironing, you can get very high temperature and even start smoking the toy.
-wrap the toy in plastic bag, and leaving only the part you want to melt expose to the air, check the surface for small cut, and poke the small cut to the direction on the boiling hot flat metal on the kettle, make sure everything is clean, both the toy and metal surface, for a few seconds then lift it up to check, it should fix by a little, you may see some residue sticking on the metal, it’s perfectly normal, to reduce the residue poke them up and down on a straight line, you get more residue moving the toy left and right on the hot flat metal, poke for a few times more until you’re happy with the result, the small cut will slowly disappear after a few poking.
-boil the water again after a few minutes, I would need to boil the water over and over again to make sure it’s hot enough to melt the toy,
-a lot of patience ofc, you would want to leave the toy on that hot kettle for a long time, it will melt too much that the toy turn into a slime mess, just poke them up and down for some reason the gravity will pull the toy back to the shape when it melt and you lift it up, so you won’t see the beautiful sculptures get totally destroyed.
-I don’t think it will work on the textured surface, you may try it to know the result.
-it work best for a surface that’s silky smooth, I can hardly tell any fault
-no burn smell whatsoever, it’s as good as soaking your toy into hot water but rarely damage them.
-no tiny bubble forming despite its porous, I think it help smoothing the porous surface?
-great idea to fix huge doll which usually get a lot of small cut all over the corner, small cut caused by sharp object, you nail it, brunt object, or even cut from the dress put on them, I think it is worth a try?

3. Verdict
It’s not the best fix, but it work for me, some prefer soldering iron which is OP in my opinion.

[seagull]

Having a consistent temperature is the key to tpe repairs.
Should note that some kettles are different

Kettle.JPG (16.47 KiB) Viewed 997 times

[muppetroq]

like a teapot full of boiling water?? You mentioned sticking a bit, what about spaying the pot with spmething like pam cooking spray??

[seagull]

Would not be using any Vegetable based oil, mineral oil is the go to for tpe work

[DiggingHole]

Having a consistent temperature is the key to tpe repairs.
Should note that some kettles are different

Kettle.JPG

Thats a good point to add. That’s fine to try a variety of kettles and you might likely to get a hit or miss result, some pvc kettle may work too I believe, however for this instance, stainless steel kettle work wonder, also the shape of the kettle might have huge impact to the result too, spiky kettle, round kettle, square one, I think it’s even possible to reform the TPE to a completely new toy given you have the right shape and the right temperature.