Successful Advanced Finger Repair!
Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2017 7:34 pm
I would like to thank both Booty Call Dolls and Sexy Real Sex Dolls for their tremendous support throughout this attempt. This would not have been possible without them. There are a host of superb vendors on TDF, I almost wish I could buy dozens of dolls just to give them all quality business. Have to make a fortune first. But BDC and SRSD had the opportunity to get involved and jumped at it. I am impressed. You guys make this whole doll experience not only possible, but awesome.
I decided that it would be best to post the successful finger repair in a new thread and link to it from the old threads, so that the repair is at the top and not in the "middle" of several pages of ideas that culminated in a good fix.
This is basically a copy/paste of this post in the sub-board, but now with pictures and slight changes in narration. I apologize for some pictures being out of focus and not being able to get every shot I wanted. I was doing this by myself and therefore had one hand for the camera and I'm still learning this nice piece of equipment that L3fty gifted me.
--==<< >>==--
Here is a picture of the hand I repaired yesterday. I did not actually seal the incision yet, there is some epoxy that sort of spread out into the wound. I had to snip that away with little, sharp scissors, careful not to take any of her TPE with it. I have the wound emptied now and am following instructions BCD has for TPE repair. Note there is also a video on SRSD's site about TPE repair that I will be linking to below.
Cinnamon is a WM170 M-cup TPE doll. Like many others, she has a short, hollow palm plate filled with cement. Thumb and pinkie fingers are apparently attached through the side of the plate (more to come as I work on her thumbs) and the three middle fingers are attached through the end of the plate. In Cinnamon's case, the copper wire has parted right at or near the palm plate for both thumbs and all six "middle" fingers. Both pinkies remain attached and functional as of this post.
1) I opened her palm along the line of the palm plate. There was much crystallized cement to clear away. 2) I had been sent a video (not sure how to share, it may be too big to post) from WM through Sexy Real Sex Dolls that showed how they remove finger wires. You basically hold the broken/torn end of the copper wire with pliers and pull as if turning the finger inside out, then forcefully smooth the TPE away from the wire and surrounding thread. At first it doesn't look or feel like it is going to work, but eventually it worked just like in their video. The finger was nearly pulled inside-out but it popped back into place easily with a little encouragement. VERY floppy without its copper wire.
Here is a link to SRSD's website with the video. There are several videos on the page. Note that the one in question is a little past half way down and is called How to Fix Fingers in a TPE Sex Doll
3) Just like in the video I used a drill to dug into the opening into the palm plate, then used needle-nose and regular pliers to pull the crud and stubs of copper wire out of the palm plate. I used pieces of tape to capture the small residue, cleaning the inside of her hand as well as I could. 4) Once the palm plate was emptied of all three stubs and the inside of her hand was as clean as I could reasonably get it, I inserted cut-to-size lengths of 12-gauge, insulated, stranded copper electrical cable into her fingers. It went in very smoothly, no Vaseline required. I chose 12-gauge based on tests at Lowes (I could not find the rubber twist ties, so I could not test their resistance and feel). The 12 gauge seemed best for the kind of resistance and pose-ability I was looking for. I almost went with 10, but it was harder to find. 14 was a little too soft. I chose insulated because first of all that's all there was, but second I like the insulation as an additional strengthening agent for the copper within, and I figured it would protect the TPE in case the stranded wires ... parted. (see how I avoid the break/snap/tear argument? But then I just brought it up. Sheesh. Stupid) I chose stranded over solid because I felt the copper would last longer, and the possibility is that even if one of the strands parts, its fellows will remain intact and continue to lend strength and duration before I have to do this all over again. 5) I sized all three fingers by putting the "stems" into the palm plate and making sure they would go in far enough. I had to do some trimming because the fingers looked too long, and I am still concerned the wires may be too long and may have finger pokes, but at this point I'm becoming more confident with repairs and pokes will be easy after this. Hopefully they won't happen anyway.
6) I am sure most epoxies would be up to this job, but someone specifically mentioned a brand called Araldite and as I was about to go to L3fty's meet-up and was feeling Amazon-lazy, I simply ordered some online. I mixed and applied using the provided paddle. I'd actually removed the middle finger stem to make it easier to get enough epoxy into the palm plate, and once it was full, re-inserted the middle stem. The instructions mentioned holding everything for 5-10 minutes so I got everyone as comfortable as they could be, positioned as naturally as I could, and held all together with my right hand. Browsed Pinterest with my left hand, on my phone. Killing time. Cool castles, a few Millenium Falcon pics, a dark elf or two, and an avocado recipe later, 10 minutes had evaporated. All seemed to be holding well, in fact the epoxy appears to have sealed the palm incision too, though it is not "soft" so I may have to trim it away and re-seal the wound. We'll see. 7) An overnight cure is desired (the long cure was something like 10 hours so that is going to be overnight). I have not sealed either incision yet, as mentioned I'm doing the "three days oil, fourth day glue" method I just read from BCD. However, the epoxy really seems to be holding everything in place and the wound almost looks closed most of the time.
The first hand I did has performed admirably. The fingers are easy to pose, look much more natural, do not flop (except the thumbs which I haven't done yet) and I'm very pleased. I admit I'm pretty careful with posing and hands so I don't know how much stress they've been put under yet, but I will certainly keep this thread updated.
Upon reflection I would say this is a moderate to advanced fix. It involved incisions, cleaning, removing skeleton parts, drilling out old cement and clearing stubs, inserting new skeleton parts, trimming, epoxy, and eventually TPE glue to seal everything up. It took me about 90 minutes all told, not including the overnight cure.
I decided that it would be best to post the successful finger repair in a new thread and link to it from the old threads, so that the repair is at the top and not in the "middle" of several pages of ideas that culminated in a good fix.
This is basically a copy/paste of this post in the sub-board, but now with pictures and slight changes in narration. I apologize for some pictures being out of focus and not being able to get every shot I wanted. I was doing this by myself and therefore had one hand for the camera and I'm still learning this nice piece of equipment that L3fty gifted me.
--==<< >>==--
Here is a picture of the hand I repaired yesterday. I did not actually seal the incision yet, there is some epoxy that sort of spread out into the wound. I had to snip that away with little, sharp scissors, careful not to take any of her TPE with it. I have the wound emptied now and am following instructions BCD has for TPE repair. Note there is also a video on SRSD's site about TPE repair that I will be linking to below.
Cinnamon is a WM170 M-cup TPE doll. Like many others, she has a short, hollow palm plate filled with cement. Thumb and pinkie fingers are apparently attached through the side of the plate (more to come as I work on her thumbs) and the three middle fingers are attached through the end of the plate. In Cinnamon's case, the copper wire has parted right at or near the palm plate for both thumbs and all six "middle" fingers. Both pinkies remain attached and functional as of this post.
1) I opened her palm along the line of the palm plate. There was much crystallized cement to clear away. 2) I had been sent a video (not sure how to share, it may be too big to post) from WM through Sexy Real Sex Dolls that showed how they remove finger wires. You basically hold the broken/torn end of the copper wire with pliers and pull as if turning the finger inside out, then forcefully smooth the TPE away from the wire and surrounding thread. At first it doesn't look or feel like it is going to work, but eventually it worked just like in their video. The finger was nearly pulled inside-out but it popped back into place easily with a little encouragement. VERY floppy without its copper wire.
Here is a link to SRSD's website with the video. There are several videos on the page. Note that the one in question is a little past half way down and is called How to Fix Fingers in a TPE Sex Doll
3) Just like in the video I used a drill to dug into the opening into the palm plate, then used needle-nose and regular pliers to pull the crud and stubs of copper wire out of the palm plate. I used pieces of tape to capture the small residue, cleaning the inside of her hand as well as I could. 4) Once the palm plate was emptied of all three stubs and the inside of her hand was as clean as I could reasonably get it, I inserted cut-to-size lengths of 12-gauge, insulated, stranded copper electrical cable into her fingers. It went in very smoothly, no Vaseline required. I chose 12-gauge based on tests at Lowes (I could not find the rubber twist ties, so I could not test their resistance and feel). The 12 gauge seemed best for the kind of resistance and pose-ability I was looking for. I almost went with 10, but it was harder to find. 14 was a little too soft. I chose insulated because first of all that's all there was, but second I like the insulation as an additional strengthening agent for the copper within, and I figured it would protect the TPE in case the stranded wires ... parted. (see how I avoid the break/snap/tear argument? But then I just brought it up. Sheesh. Stupid) I chose stranded over solid because I felt the copper would last longer, and the possibility is that even if one of the strands parts, its fellows will remain intact and continue to lend strength and duration before I have to do this all over again. 5) I sized all three fingers by putting the "stems" into the palm plate and making sure they would go in far enough. I had to do some trimming because the fingers looked too long, and I am still concerned the wires may be too long and may have finger pokes, but at this point I'm becoming more confident with repairs and pokes will be easy after this. Hopefully they won't happen anyway.
6) I am sure most epoxies would be up to this job, but someone specifically mentioned a brand called Araldite and as I was about to go to L3fty's meet-up and was feeling Amazon-lazy, I simply ordered some online. I mixed and applied using the provided paddle. I'd actually removed the middle finger stem to make it easier to get enough epoxy into the palm plate, and once it was full, re-inserted the middle stem. The instructions mentioned holding everything for 5-10 minutes so I got everyone as comfortable as they could be, positioned as naturally as I could, and held all together with my right hand. Browsed Pinterest with my left hand, on my phone. Killing time. Cool castles, a few Millenium Falcon pics, a dark elf or two, and an avocado recipe later, 10 minutes had evaporated. All seemed to be holding well, in fact the epoxy appears to have sealed the palm incision too, though it is not "soft" so I may have to trim it away and re-seal the wound. We'll see. 7) An overnight cure is desired (the long cure was something like 10 hours so that is going to be overnight). I have not sealed either incision yet, as mentioned I'm doing the "three days oil, fourth day glue" method I just read from BCD. However, the epoxy really seems to be holding everything in place and the wound almost looks closed most of the time.
The first hand I did has performed admirably. The fingers are easy to pose, look much more natural, do not flop (except the thumbs which I haven't done yet) and I'm very pleased. I admit I'm pretty careful with posing and hands so I don't know how much stress they've been put under yet, but I will certainly keep this thread updated.
Upon reflection I would say this is a moderate to advanced fix. It involved incisions, cleaning, removing skeleton parts, drilling out old cement and clearing stubs, inserting new skeleton parts, trimming, epoxy, and eventually TPE glue to seal everything up. It took me about 90 minutes all told, not including the overnight cure.