Doll Surgery: Wrist Joint Repair
If your doll's joints become loose, or you want to switch from more loose to more tight joints, some Doll Surgery is required. This are instructions for a Wrist Joint Repair on a DS168 with tight joints.
Gladly, Doll Sweet dolls are made of silicone, so healing is possible. For doll surgery, you will need a couple of accessories:
- a scalpel for cutting,
- a silicone glue like Sil-Poxy and
- something with a small tip like toothpicks.
Also, you should have an adhesive and cotton swabs at hand.
The surgery is fairly easy. Locate the joint by palpating the wrist; Doll Sweet's 2015 silicone blend is soft enough to feel the metal structures below the silicone skin. Make a cut along the seam line where the joint is; the cut needs to be about 1.5 cm:
On this DS168, the loose nut was on the side of the hand where the thumb is located.
If you have cut the silicone, this is the part to adjust:
Tighten the nut as required. In my case, I could remove the nut just with the fingers, so it had become very loose in a very short period of time. For tightening, you can use anything suitable, even a multitool like a "Leatherman" or small pliers suffices. Don't tighten the joints too much, otherwise the joint will start to creak.
That's what you need to seal the cut. LTR: Cotton swabs to clean the edges of the cut and to remove excess glue; a silicone glue like Smooth-on's Sil Poxy; silicone pigments like Smooth-on's Silc Pig if you want to give the sealant a skin tone; and toothpicks or another tool with a small tip to spread the glue on the edges of the cut.
Also you need a solvent like this:
I'm preferring isopropyl alcohol, Doll Sweet uses ethanol (= ethyl alcohol or rubbing alcohol), others use propanone (= acetone). I'm not a big friend of acetone as it's rather aggressive and easily corrodes certain soft silicone blends, including Smooth-on's Dragon Skin and Ecoflex. However, the use of acetone seems to be safe on harder silicones like Doll Sweet previously used, so the choice is yours.
Silicone glue usually is translucent. Add silicone pigments if you want to match the color of your doll's skin:
Allow the wrist to rest on a towel. Glue the cut from both sides and carefully remove excess with the cotton swabs and some alcohol. The press both edges tighly together, take care not to leave a seam line. Fixate the wound tightly with adhesive tape and cling film. Allow the silicone glue to cure and do not touch for 24 hrs. Seriously!
Good luck!