ANY UPDATED news on the french doll business?

Aerial · Post by **Aerial** » Sun Oct 13, 2019 12:48 am

Did you mean homemade balloons? I have various latex balloons (made by factories) those are decades old and still intact. When stored dry and airtight in PE bags away from light, they unlikely decompose. Only when they got in contact with certain substances (sweat, oils, PVC plasticizer, metals) they start to dissolve. Also wrongly latex mixtures (like the infamous dipped latex garments by Denber) tend to decompose after few years - particularly after it was once stretched/inflated to the limit.

Void Pointer · Post by **Void Pointer** » Thu Nov 14, 2019 12:39 pm

I mean all low-quality balloons, which are probably made this way. Lots of china ones are the same.
But maybe I'll just need to dry them better.

Void Pointer · Post by **Void Pointer** » Fri Jan 31, 2020 5:24 pm

Not only porcelain and wood, but paper also works!
I've covered a little bottle with masking tape, dipped it in coagulant and in latex. Masking tape can hold enough coagulant!
Walls are not smooth like that tiny balloon was, but they allowed me to inflate the balloon rock-hard (so I can say for sure, there are neither bubbles nor weak points).
So the bravest of you can, for example, fill a vinyl doll with concrete, cover her with painter's tape and place into a plastic tank roughly resembling her body (leaving few inches between her and tank walls in order to minimize the amount of latex). You'll need 2..5 minutes to get the proper wall thickness.
I'm curios how Barbie inflated to lifesize proportions will look

Probably very bloated but who knows. Too bad it's nearly impossible to cover those tiny arms without large wrinkles.

Aerial · Post by **Aerial** » Wed Feb 26, 2020 10:35 pm

Void Pointer wrote:I'm curios how Barbie inflated to lifesize proportions will look Probably very bloated but who knows.

This would be impossibly due to geometric instability; arms and legs would stay unstretched or she would burst - at least unless the trunk is stabilized by a rigid outer structure like a balloon net or fabric shell. (Search this forum for "LWEP" to get an idea how "looner doll" type latex fantasies may result. A standard size Barbie as a mould would be still too small.) Already doing 5-finger elastAyama with latex gloves is very difficult, because their fingers can stay only inflated so long the main body is compressed (e.g. by body weight).

I experimented with Chinese 60cm long industrial gloves, those can overinflate to full length (my body size) only when partially stabilized with kitchen cling wrap foil (like in the mythical LWEP experiment) or cloth garments, because else the wedge shaped sleeve will overload. While the fingers can not safely expand (too many weak spots between them), the rest of its body inflates nicely and will resonate like a tympani drum. These huge Chinese gloves cost on eBay under 9€ per pair. They are of chlorinated latex which has no nasty foreign smell (beside coal - normal with black latex) and fairly much hysteresis (i.e. stays bigger after deflation). For inflation I used a piece of solid PU tubing wrapped in a latex strip (from old household glove) secured with a broad cabletie. I recommend to wrap a strip of cotton fabric under the cabletie to prevent it from cutting into the latex when the end expands.

Void Pointer · Post by **Void Pointer** » Thu Feb 27, 2020 4:59 pm

LWEP was a pure inflation fetish, I miss her

But what if doll's body is almost as slim as her arms (and also let's hold her until her arms and legs inflate fully)?
Like a twisting balloon.
Of course, 60cm doll with thick arms and thin body is not Barbie anymore

But it's still a "looner doll".

Also, Revultex latex have 950% elongation @ break. This stuff have 5000%. If you manage to make a simple oval envelope somehow, you'll probably get a very interesting resonator.

Aerial · Post by **Aerial** » Fri Feb 28, 2020 2:38 am

Elastomers with extreme elongation are mostly like bubblegum; they will have high steepness with tremendous hysteresis and IMO are nothing that even deserves the term "rubber" (only "gum"). True natural latex (if properly vulcanized) should turn firm at the end and ideally have very little hysteresis. Although no latex in high operating ranges can survive forever, its the distance between stretchiness and hysteresis what matters, not transforming into jelly-like smeary bubbles at the end. This is mysticism; I am not "looner". What nowadays got known as latex trance, dates back to spiritualists from the age of Graham Bell. To an adept it is all about energy flux and interacting with higher dimensions when constructing a transactor for transcommunication.

Look e.g. what Fredrik Tjærandsen does.

https://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/ar ... martins-ba
https://www.mullenlowenova.com/artist/f ... aerandsen/
https://www.instagram.com/fredriktjaerandsen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWhothdj6Ys

A nice example for well made natural latex is e.g. the remake of Stretch Vac-Man, which is strong with very little hysteresis.

Void Pointer · Post by **Void Pointer** » Fri Feb 28, 2020 6:05 am

Aerial wrote:True natural latex (if properly vulcanized) should turn firm at the end and ideally have very little hysteresis.

They pretend their silicone works this way, too (or I've misread something). That's why I found it interesting.

Aerial wrote:This is mysticism; I am not "looner".

I know. That's why I've suggested this stuff (I don't know how those drums work so it's easier to ask than to guess). If Wubble Bubble resonate the proper way, this stuff will, too. If WB is not suitable for meditation, this stuff is questionable (they pretend it's close to natural latex, so maybe yes, maybe no). I simply don't know the requirements

The mould however will be a problem. Making things like this
https://cdn.makezine.com/uploads/2014/08/img_1254.jpg
is probably more costly than the silicone itself (even if DIY because it'll take too much time and work).
Cheap 3D print may help but I afraid it'll stick to a rough printed mould.

Quater · Post by **Quater** » Fri Feb 28, 2020 3:44 pm

JayJayHache wrote:Hi Solitaryman 1424 -

Can you please tell me where you found the info on the 'Prezes' person in Spain? I'm keen to try and make contact - there are a lot of people lurking on this forum who'd buy a Domax type doll if they could find a way too.

Thanks for your help with this

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=126171

Aerial · Post by **Aerial** » Fri Feb 28, 2020 10:50 pm

"Wubble Bubble Ball" is AFAIK not silicone, but simply TPE (aka PVC jelly), consisting of a small quantity of PVC mixed into a huge amount of plasticizer (which tends to be toxic and leaves oily stains everywhere those damage latex!). This is the same crap like the infamous "fleshlight" sextoys or the water yoyo/pufferball toys. Although I own a few of the latter and plenty of "Imperial Toys" figures of similar material (safely stored in Tupper-like fridge boxes, each toy individually inside a PE bag to prevent them from chemically melting themselves through the box plastic), they are smeary, the odour makes me sick and they are no suitable meditation replacement for latex at all.

2 decades ago I had poisoned myself badly when I tried pranayama (breathe exercises) with a silicone swimcap over the head. (Fingers and tongue remained numb for months.) This metallic smelling stuff is neurotoxic (also websearch the PIP breast implant scandal) and also mechanically no comparison with latex. If crushed, latex turns itself into glue (sealing that spot) while soft silicone rubber transforms into slime, which even makes it difficult to attach an inlet pipe by cabletie.

Natural latex molecules rearrange themselves in special ways, which makes latex conduct consciousness (similar like metal does with electricity) and in some situations even enables it to heal itself. Silicone is the opposite of that (and poisonous when not medical grade). I would only use it for technical components (tubing as air pump hoses or latex compatible cable insulation etc.) but not for meditation resonators.

By the way, the big Vac-Man remake has a design flaw which makes the dump button valve leaky after a while. The inner part of the head is filled with foam rubber and has a vent hole that is plugged by a white (silicone??) rubber cone held by a springloaded lever. Likely the cone hardens and does not seal anymore. Lube it with watertap grease (of 100% non-toxic transparent silicone) to make it seal again. (Never use other fats or oils than silicone; they decompose latex!) It is very easy to inflate Vac-Man, which needs no permanent modification. Simply insert a thin cabletie end (shortened to about 2cm, cut edges round to avoid damage) under the rubber sleeve inside the valve. Pull the hose (has a special nozzle) of its suction pump (may need some wiggeling) and plug it into an airpump or bellow. Never submerge his head into water and never try to mouth-inflate Vac-Man, because trapped moisture can not escape and makes the latex rot. The modern small Vac-Man has an integrated vacuum pump (head is the handle) but is made from TPE instead of latex.

The classic 1990th Vac-Man figure was filled with soft sawdust (corn cob fibers), which was much more ecofriendly than the harmful microplastic beads inside the modern version, but prone to absorb water which may make it rot much easier. Because such toys will always eventually break and spill their content into environment, fillings of plastic pellets deserve to be generally banned by law and replaced with bio-degradeable material. If made with skin of natural latex and a head of solid bioplastic (e.g. wood-based Arboform) such a haptic toy could be manufactured fully bio-degradeable from renewable plant materials.

Void Pointer · Post by **Void Pointer** » Tue Mar 10, 2020 12:27 pm

Spoon moulds work.
I took, literally, a wooden spoon and made a spoon-shaped balloon.
When I pumped it up a bit, it immediately became round and symmetrical as it should.

Spoon mould.flv: (7.12 MiB) Downloaded 3300 times

That means, you can turn some parts of your doll inside out like this:

: Doll3.gif (5.23 KiB) Viewed 4250 times

This will contract the inner volume of the slush mould greatly, saving the amount of latex needed to fill it. You however need to make some sharp edges rounder (3rd image), or you'll get stretch lines there (like the ones on this balloon).

cortenorte · Post by **cortenorte** » Thu May 21, 2020 5:20 pm

It's nice to read in 2020, the wish to bring back the Letha Weapons Doll, Latex Lover Doll or other Dolls of same material it is not dead yet.

seagull · Post by **seagull** » Thu May 21, 2020 10:30 pm

Dang, Aerial, (Fingers and tongue remained numb for months.) if you took a hit like that, what did you do to the rest of your body?

Void Pointer · Post by **Void Pointer** » Thu Mar 18, 2021 8:17 am

I have few DIY updates.
First, I've managed to cover a plastic dip mold with thick latex. The trick was NOT using the coagulant, but dip it 5 to 10 times, pre-drying after each one.
Coagulant makes latex cure immediately, so no more latex can stick to it. Pre-drying for few minutes makes it sticky, but solid, so next layer mixes with previous. That means, 3D printed plastic molds can be used.

Now I'm thinking about a "latex skeleton" (mentioned in LWEP thread) which can prevent the doll from stretching in "wrong" places and allow to balloon your babe up like Jessica in the first part of this video viewtopic.php?p=1894137#p1894137
But making latex walls of widely different thickness will not be easy! I understand it

Aerial · Post by **Aerial** » Sun Jun 06, 2021 3:49 am

The "latex skeleton" for elastAyama is an interesting idea, but I guess there would be still instabilities due to drift (latex looses strength and finally dies of exhaustion where it got stretched into 2nd or 3rd range). Look how the rims of most hot water bottles behave when inflated; they still rarely expand evenly and often make it worse. Also check out this experiment.

Computational Design of Rubber Balloons (Eurographics 2012)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq4g3KpH1cY