4 years, 5 months ago- Posts
I decided to see what was what with Julia’s ankle situation even though it would mean doing some pretty harsh things to her. I never finished repairing the tears in the soles of her feet so with the hole in her heel as a starting point I slowly and carefully peeled the TPE material away from the actual foot, or potato as we like to call it, until I could slip it over the potato and start to work it down her ankle. What I found was a short piece of flex tube embedded into the potato and glued into the end of the shinbone. The reason her ankle started to roll over to the side was due to this flex tube weakening. My quick and easy solution was to attach two small screw type clamps, like radiator hose clamps but smaller, to the length of flex tube in such a way that one forced the other to hold the flex tube straight and in the position it was originally with enough tension to keep it from rolling to the side. So far so good, it seems to be doing what I want without totally immobilizing the ankle. Here are a few photos of what I was working with. The round plastic piece with a hole in it you see on the bottom of the “heel” is a threaded insert for a furniture foot as per the standing foot mod post also listed in this forum. This is just for informational purposes and may not work or be recommended for your own particular situation.
"A woman is the most fiendish instrument of torture ever devised to bedevil the days of man" Ulysses Everett McGill
That is why I have Dolls
"Making DollsBook Great"Cool Potato huh? @DKeydick 🙂
I was thinking maybe you could add zip ties all along the flex to give it more of a slim fit? I believe there is just wire inside the flex, then they form the “potato” or foot bone with epoxy/fiberglass around the wire.
If you are going to use solder iron/heat gun to seal back up the foot. be extra aware of tension on Julia’s foot. If you remember what I did to Lu’s foot. For those new here I’ll re-post my experience with standing a non-standing doll.
Standing a non standing doll will damage bottoms of feet. They not designed to hold the weight.
Cut it open to see how it was made. 🙂
Did not do a standing mod, did not feel the flex would hold up too strong.
The tension mounts. It may have seemed like the seam of cut was closing good. Not so. Even a light bit of tension on this material can cause it to melt unpredictably. Lifting up the leg skin to relieve the tension on the whole area solved the problem and was able to seal her foot up nicely once we realized there was tension on it. The goo out her heel is from another TPE toy melted in there as filler 🙂 Also note: with the tension on material adding heat, the cut was moving down toward ankle 🙂 The job was a bit of a bitch, but persistence pays off.
No glue was used at all in this repair. It was all done with solder iron (30 watt) and hot air station set at 120+ and various sculpting blades and tools.
Good luck on finishing your repair @DKeydick
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