Repositioning fingers by heating and bending

I asked a question about repositioning fingers earlier today, hobbywhelmed sent me here, and then my post was removed...so here I am .....I tried some of the methods offered here..

I tried the hot water method and found it didn't heat up the resin well enough without cracking...as the inside of the fingers need to be heated as well as the outside.

I tried my Convection oven and that worked very well but takes almost 20 min on 400 degrees as it works with hot air.

The best way I found I was able to reposition my hounds fingers was the steam method....I used my tea kettle and let the steam do the work, not only does it heat the fingers all the way through so that they bend with out cracking, but its fast!

here is a pic of my hounds fingers, gripping a guitar pic and his guitar...I am so pleased!!!



and a close up of his hands

 

Glad it worked! That is so cool. I love the blushing on his hands, too. Was that there before the steaming? He's coated?

Question - how did you steam him? Hold the hand(s) over the steam vent on the kettle, or what?

 

yes he is blushed and is sealed, the steam didn't harm him at all! I just put rubber bands on the handle to hold open the vent and held his hand over it where I wanted it to soften...I moved his thumb down too, so I could fit the guitar neck in his hand, and bent his middle and ring finger so it appear he is playing.

thanks for the link!!!

 

it doesn't like... give off fumes or anything, does it ? ^^;

 

nope no fumes...it was easy, but I didn't remove his hands I just held his hand over the end of the tea kettle, and I held on to his arm...so I didn't burn myself.

 

i guess you can always use the exhauste hood on high, but that still won guarantee you don't inhale the fumes if there are any...?

 

Catdancer, that is SO cool! It looks so natural... just perfect!

 

I don't think there would be any fumes unless you actually burned the resin. Especially if the coating wasn't disturbed over the resin. Of course, I do draw the line at steaming doll hands and attempting a sinus-decongesting session at the same time....

I remember from my polymer clay days that they never found fumes but only worried about plasticizers (chemicals keeping the clay soft before it was cooked) leaching out as the clay cooked, which is why they said to use a dedicated toaster oven. And again, burning was the fume producer. (As a side-note - Teflon/silverstone coating on pots is the same way. Stable at high temps with cooking water or oil, but if you let it burn something dry, it releases fumes that will kill pet birds in the room, or, according to the local bird society, in an adjacent room.)

I really have to try this soon. There's a couple of fingers I don't like at all -

 

I used my convection oven for polymer clay too, and it worked very well, the only time I had a problem was when I forgot to put it on convection and it toasted a poor little dragon i was working on..and the fumes OMG...choking fumes...we had to open the windows in the dead of winter and run fans to get it out of the house...
so I am very careful to make sure its not set to microwave....and when I did some test hands, they warmed up nicely with no fumes but it took almost 20 min on 400 degrees...kind of a long wait and they cooled very quickly.
Where when I used the steam there was no fumes..and it was quick...maybe 30-40 seconds..not even a minute to get them to soften.

 

Wow, I definately want to try this!! The extra hands that DoTs come with are basically useless (pinkie promise hand???? when would I use that?!!) so i can't wait to try out new hands.

And you guys are so creative!!! Ha ha those pics are amazing!!!

 

Holy shiznat! It actually worked! xD At first I was like "Nah, too good to be true.." Then I was like "Well, I guess I'll try it.. o.o" I had a few extra hand parts anyway. So, I stuck one hand on a cookie sheet (which, mind you, looked very odd to a non-BJDer xD), and within five minutes I took it out, and it didn't look very pliable so I was like "Pssh, it didn't work." Then I took it off the sheet (and it really wasn't too hot to handle, for me at least, I'd still be cautious xD) and it really WAS pliable. xD So it took two tries, but from this:



I was able to make this (sorry for the crappy pictures x.x):





Thanks so much for this cool trick! xD​

 

0.o I can't wait to try it on my boys hands! BEWARE: resin does produce poisons gasses when heated! USE CATION!!

 

i'd be wayy to scared to melt the hand down to ever try putting it into a oven lol anyway my doll is pretty tiny.

 

:0 This is amazing! *goes off to find extra hands that I never opened*

 

I just tried this with a Kid Delf hand (the hot water method) and though it worked my fingers huuuurt. Those hands have very thick fingers, probably as thick as if not a smidge thicker than Delf hands and much shorter. Even after a few heatings the thumb never really would move, and of course the fingers kept moving back into place between each reheating. Still, my little boy can now make bunny ears on other dolls in photos so I am happy. ^_^

 

I used the steam method and the pinky cracked a little (it looks like Psyence's hand), but it was an extra hand so no big deal. I held the hand over a tea kettle for probably almost a minute at first. The resin got a little gummy and pliable. There was no yellowing that I can see.
It might be a good idea to enlist some help from someone. The fingers don't like to stay where you put them until they are completely cooled down.

 

I had no idea, what an amazing tip ^^
You can get some really cool positions with the fingers this way xD

 

That was HILARIOUS! hahaha

Okay, I'm going to try this...I'm SO SCARED!

 

Oh, I knew you could do this-I just don't like putting anything in ovens (even food and shrinky dinks!), because people do this when making re-born babies and customizing those plastic horses.

 

What a wonderful idea^^ I must try it when my doll comes home!

 

I used the boiling water method to reshape a few pairs of hands.

It's fairly simple and the boiling water does not discolor the resin!

I just dip the hand in boiling water (a 2-3 minutes at a time- reshape, put back in hot water, reshape ect). It came out well! I went on a binge and reshaped my extra Lie hands to make a 'birdie' finger, as well as fixing my roomies minifee el "grope" hand and reshaping my Limhwa half-elf's hands so the fingers weren't so splayed out. The pointer finger specifically was very extended and caught on clothes easily. To prevent breakage, I reshaped it.

Once shaped properly, i placed the hand in a cup of cold water so the resin would cool in the proper shape. Be gentle, as you could risk breakin fingers if you force it.

 

Oh, thanks all you people willing to risk bodily harm (of both varieties!) to find this out... must buy extra hands...

 

Okay, I've used this method for a few different pairs of hands on different resins. Souldoll, CP, and Bambicrony. All came out perfect with no discoloration and more interesting poses. x3

I find that once I've taken the hand out of the oven, reshaped it with a clean white sock on my hand to guard from the heat, that cooling it down goes faster if, while holding it in position, I go to the freezer and hold the hand in the back. It cools very fast so that you don't have to worry about it falling out of place.

With that out of the way, here's Denzel's curled/kitty hands holding onto Mittwoch's reshaped and a little bit sanded El spaz hand.

 

hmm i wonder about putting it in the freezer right away though. 8M like i dunno. If glass is put at extremely hot temperatures and then is frozen, doesn't it shatter? or at least crack? I wonder if it's the same with resin 8O!

 

I wouldn't put it in the freezer right away that might make it break? O_o I'm getting extra hands for my CP Shiwoo, and I'm going to do this! I want him to give a peace sign or something cute...I might dare to make him flip people off XD I'm not sure yet!

YES! Dr. Evil finger!

 

Wow... I guess I'm not brave enough to do such a thing with my Limhwa half elf... but... would you mind posting pictures of the modded hand?? I would like too much to see the results, so I could give it a try

 

Well, my freezer isn't the coldest thing ever, and remember that you're still holding them and cannot shut the door - so it's not too terribly much stress to put them under. As well, there's a little timeframe gap between the oven and the freezer for actually repositioning the hands and finding a comfortable way to hold them as they cool. :3

 

I actually got some heads and tried this on them! No pictures right now, but I have some notes/tips:

First I tried the steam method (on an SD-sized/AR Allern head), but as I wanted to change the mouth shape and that area has the thickest resin it didn't seem to work.

Using periods of 30 seconds (I have NO idea what my microwave is set at but it's just its default) and testing each time, it didn't heat up the mouth area enough (though the thin area at the top of the head got so soft I worried I would misshape it!) but there were no adverse effects.

HOWEVER, I tried heating the head again today and instead used longer periods without proper pauses. After the third one-minute microwave the head was making worrying popping noises . Around the thin area of the head, tiny cracks (I think where there may have been a tiny air bubble that heated up) formed. Also, although the face is its original colour, the forehead has yellowed.



I also got an MSD Nasia head to experiment on, and this went much better. I did several 30 second heats (It must have been 4-5) and then one for one minute. After this, even the resin in the mouth/chin area was soft enough to change slightly (I used a cocktail stick, but rather than trying to drag the mouth up into a smile (as the mouth is already smiling and fairly "shallow"), I just made tiny presses into the resin at the corners of the mouth). Upon heating, this did not return to normal. The MSD head is a slightly different colour to the headcap, but I am not sure if this is yellowing or if the head is just slightly grubby. (As it came with a faceup on it.) Also, I do not know how old either head is.

Despite having some negative results, I will eventually purchase the doll I want to do this on. (although maybe with an extra head!) Depending on the inside of the head, I may remove some of the resin from the chin area to make excessive heating less necessary.

 

O_O MICROWAVE! XD Now, that's odd, I've read through the whole post and you're the first to say microwave. That sounds utterly dangerous that way with fumes and ruining the microwave, but anyways. I'm glad it worked out all right.

Personally, I have a pinky of annoyance to work with. I'm going to steam bath it since it's been annoying my arm holes. As soon as I get home I'll try it. XD The last thing i need is to tell my parents that I ruined his hand because the pinky broke off. I don't even think my company sells spare hands.

 

This sound like an interesting idea to try with making tabi feet! Taking the foot, seperating the first toe from the others and then warming it up enough to make it soft and then gently begining the process of pushing the larger toe slightly away from the other toes.

 

Dude! That would be awesome! >>;; Where's a good cheap head to try it on...

 

*shrugs* I thought a microwave was exactly the same thing as a microwave oven. Anyway, it had haddock fumes in it from several days before, resin fumes can't be any worse for it.

 

Amazing, awsome dare I gotta say.

But if you can do this with the hands... Wouldn't it be possible with other parts? like the head?

 

No, but they're far worse for you, resin is toxic.

I would be very carefull about putting anything like that near a microwave tbh anyway... Microwaves work by heating water molecules, meaning any water or liquid that's getting heated inside the resin is going to convert to steam and I doubt it's going to have anywhere to escape too (which would explain the popping noises, that'll be the pockets of steam and hot air escaping), since as far as I know (could be wrong) resin isn't exactly porous? At best your possibly gonna expose yourself to very nasty fumes and at worse the head could potentially explode.

 

I don't know if it would be worth trying, but in the past I saw an optician plunge eyeglass ears into what appeared to be a container of very hot sand to soften them for bending. That might be pretty thorough since the sand would surround what you are trying to heat.

Carolyn

 

Be careful when heating the sand, you must control the temperature... because if it's too high it will melt and become glass XD so if you put anything inside you'll have a trouble with, like, "glassed" resin? XD
And even... the high temperature of the sand will surely make the resin melt too.... '-'~ well... I don't know too much about that... but I feel safer with the boiling water method XD

 

Sand has to get over 1000 F to fuse into glass. I think the resin would burn first.

 

What I meant was if you heat sand to the temperature of steam from boiling water, (212F? A bit higher?) it might do a good job of applying that temperature evenly around the fingers.

Carolyn

 

wow I don't know too much about that ^^ thanks for the information, Fitz!

 

I do a lot of enameling, fused glass on metal. I just love it. I think Carolyn is right, if you used sand in the 200 range it certainly warm plastic through quickly and evenly. And you dont need to worry about the sand changing to glass. But I dont know what temp the sand would affect the texture of the plastic, you know start pressing in to the plastic. I guess I would get some sand that was really clean and bake it in the oven at around 200, and try on some spare parts. Then you could increase the temp gradually if it didnt warm the resin enough. I dont know what the lowest my oven goes. Maybe I would start at that temp.
For me the bigger issue is holding the fingers so you get the bend you want. I really want the fingers to look like they bend at the joints and not have a noodly bend along the whole finger. Im thinking maybe make a form for the finger to hold it in posiion as it cools.

 

Hey, that form idea is really good--if you do it, please tell us how it goes! I want to try this, too, since while the Lishe!hands the CP girl body comes with are cute, they're... not very useful. (A fist? Three fingers? Doubleyoo-tee-eff?) But I'm also worried about it not looking like there are JOINTS there...

 

Ya, otherwise the Sahara would be a giant puddle of glass...

Has anyone tried repostioning the Dollfie Dream hands? They have very elegant fingers, but the most boring hand position of any dolls :p

 

I tried the technique and it worked perfectly! I did burn my finger a little but this hand is just to cute (it was a regular volks boy hand)

 

A-m-a-z-i-n-g!

You guys are so daring.. I don't think I'll ever have the guts to try this. XD

 

LORKA: omfg do want ;-; did the fingers come separated, before the heating/reshaping? i want to try this with my narin but i'm afraid his fingers are either too tiny or not separated enough.

 

The metal hand is so much ultimate win. I need to do this :0

 

These are tiny glass beads - very smooth.

I would think clean sand would probably work, but I would be afraid of scratching the resin, which is soft.

I have no clue where you can get the tiny glass beads ... but .. thinking.

Hmmmmm

 

On the volks msd hand those two middle finger are together, so it was quite easy to bend them both at the same time, as one, I was quite afraid too, but if you go slowly you should do no damage to the fingers, good luck!

 

I used to do this with Barbie arms and hands...you can bend her arms and hands into particular poses and such, and I used a heat gun which is like a hair dryer that gets really hot and would bend the hand or arm the way I wanted, then spray it with room temperature water to speed up the cool-down. That's plastic, but I assume this resin would work the same way if you want a way to speed up the process of cooling. Just run it under the faucet or something.

 

lorka thats such a cute doll..where did you buy them?

 

You can get tiny glass beads at craft stores. I got some from either Jo-Annes or Michael's recently.... It might cost a bundle to get enough to dip a hand into, though....

 

I have a sneaking suspicion that a heat gun might yellow resin. At least the type I use in ceramics...

has anyone tried it out? I'm curious to see how that would work. certainly quicker than using a hairdryer!

 

WOW! you guys are so daring! Actually I'm really wanting to do this.
I want to turn my girl's hand to a rock style position and I think that would be so cool!!!! XDD

...well I think I should think about this over very carefully first. I shouldn't be too aggressive since its my first and last doll in the line here.

Anyhow, my doll isn't here yet so I have pleanty of time to think about this over. Lol! But I'm really excited to try it over hot water! I just hope everything will turn out fine.

Thanks for posting this even though its been 2 years since this was first revived! LOL! XDD

 

WHOA.

does this work on feet?

::revives the thread:: xD;

because if it DOES, that'd be awesome because i prefer high-heeled footsies

 

Wow, this definitely makes it worthwhile to order extra hands. That way, you could test and not get too scared (LOL!) while still being able to experiment! This is such a neat idea! Thank you for sharing ^_^.

 

i just did the boiling water method on one of my extra bambicrony hands and made it into a hand that is the ASL sign for "i love you" ... it's super cute! but i was completely terrified!

edit:
on the right - before ... on the left - after

... i also made a peace-sign / bunny-ears type hand. it's pretty cute, too. i wonder what other hands i could make with all these spares.

 

I am definately gunna do this with my SP Cookies Lati hands I really don't like them as is.

 

has anyone ever tried this with tanned dolls or darker? do you think the heat will negatively affect their resin color?

 

Somebody tried it with LSG frnch resin hands, and I don't think anything major happned.

 

mordain....I enjoy the random lego man in your photo. XD

Luts needs to hurry up and make Senior Delf hands separately as option parts so I can try this. >__<

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