The Doll Forum

Okay, so I finally got around to doing this. A close relative that is extremely dear to me got very sick recently and is on life support, so this was obviously not on my priority list, but I had some time to do it today. I'm working on very little sleep and my chronic conditions are flaring up from all the stress, so it's not my most confident work ever, but here you go. We'll post before & after pics when we unwrap her in a few days.

**TIP; make sure you have really good lighting when doing these repairs... and if you're using a flashlight, HAVE EXTRA BATTERIES READY. Yeah, don't make my mistake. I didn't expect the battery pack to die and had to send the hubby running to the basement for an extra.**

Anyway, my husband and I took some reference pictures. I only did this an hour or so ago, so we'll give it a few days and see how it turns out. I only did one cut on one side because my husband really really wanted to avoid making more cuts if possible. Before I started, I took a long metal skewer and bent the end to the shape of the thigh so that I could use it to get around the curves and help spread the glue. I did accidentally poke a 1.5/2mm hole in the top of the thigh because of this, but it was otherwise very helpful (again, I'm normally pretty steady handed but it's been an extremely long week). Well, I fixed it so that you can't tell that the hole was ever there to begin with now, so all's well.

Again, use GOOD lighting and try to avoid doing these repairs when you're not at the top of your game. I probably won't be for a while, so putting this off any longer wasn't going to do any good... but darn that was a sloppy cut T.T

Anyway, thank you samara78 for the advice and TheIQF++ for your thread as it helped prep for this! (sorry I don't know how to tag)

Including the steps I took below if it helps anyone (pending results, of course!)

>cut 2" hole on outer thigh seam
>used flat head to pry up silicone from foam to reach delaminated areas
>used my finger to glide around and make sure all 3 delaminated areas were easily accessible (EXTREMELY sterile hands, and I have very small hands with short nails. This might not be a good idea for most people)
>gently glided the bent skewer around to make sure there were no spots that could block the glue flow
>filled the flavor injector with 1 and a half tubes of the permatex glue
>inserted as deep as it could go, slowly injected glue
>put my hand where the end was and massaged it to the deepest parts. **TIP: turn up the heat in the room to make the silicone softer and easier to feel the glue through so you can squish it around more evenly. It definitely helped**
>after it started leaking out I wiped up the excess and inserted the skewer to glide it around again, but this time to help spread the glue that was injected (that's when I poked the tiny hole... oops).
>I repeated the inject/massage/spread with skewer steps 3 times
>massaged all around the thigh area very thoroughly for several minutes
>cleaned all extra glue up
>taped up the cut
>seran wrapped it up
>massaged around again and compared it to the undamaged thigh to make sure there were no comparably bulged areas. Seems good.

We'll give it a few days and I'll seal up the cut when I unwrap it.

Great job. We will be waiting with baited breath.

God bless you and your family.

Just to be clear, this is Not a delamination issue. It is a separation of skin from a foam core which is not uncommon. Delamination occurs when the different silicone pour layers start to separate from each other.

Silicone doesn't want to stick to anything so different manufacturers have different ways to try and get it to stay tight around the dolls cores and skeleton. Different poses and placing the doll in some positions can cause to much stress in areas and the skin will break loose.

It looks as if you handled this in a professional manner although I would have used Silpoxy myself for the repair. I hope it holds for you.

siliconelover wrote:Just to be clear, this is Not a delamination issue. It is a separation of skin from a foam core which is not uncommon. Delamination occurs when the different silicone pour layers start to separate from each other.

Silicone doesn't want to stick to anything and different manufacturers have different ways to try and stop this from happening. Different poses and placing the doll in some positions can cause to much stress and the skin will break loose.

It looks as if you handled this in a professional matter although I would have used Silpoxy myself for the repair. I hope it holds for you.

Thank you. I was just repeating what I was told. Hoping the fix sticks the first time

Hi, you've done an amazing job under the stressful circumstances.
I'm very sorry you are going through this. Really.

I can see better here that your doll had much more of a void than mine did. So it is good that you used so much more glue to begin with.

Good thing you have such small hands! You are doing a good job taking care of this doll. I wish you good luck with your family and with the repairs.

First time's the charm?

Looks like it worked. No bubbling up, and when I prod around, it's the same on the fixed hip as the good hip. The cut mostly sealed itself, which was flawless on half of it (the half that I went off seam, so that's great), but the other half wasn't that great so I redid that part and it should be good to go by tomorrow.

Beautiful work on her. Congrats!

Two Thumbs Up!

Great work!!
Her legs look great. Like a new doll even.

Checking in here with an update. My relative that I mentioned earlier passed away and it was devastating to say the least, so I haven't been visiting the forum lately. Anyway, she has a new bubble under her right knee. The other one that I fixed on her left leg still looks good, so I'll just fix this new bubble the same way. I'll be an expert in no time if these bubbles keep popping up....