Repositioning fingers by heating and bending

I ultimately answered my own question above... this is the result of attacking a Sprite ear with a Darice Heat Tool:

Ear Mod by vicemage, on Flickr

(This was my third attempt; the first one wasn't bent far enough and the second the ear was too far back against the head as a result of pressing it against the table. The third time I put a couple of socks over my hand and pinched it into place; it does get very rubbery and pliable rather quickly with the heat tool and takes a bit of time to cool enough to release whatever pressure you're holding against it.)

 

wow did you get any stress fractures with the ear

 

Nope, it looks like that's how he was cast now, no stress fractures at all. And it bent pretty far too, I was worried about that, but it's perfectly fine. ^_^

 

wow--never knew!
and he looks really cute with droopy ears

 

COOL!

Puppydog ears!

Ryuichi

 

Oh dear.. I tried this with my Alice's hands... I left it in for about a minute and the hand turned yellow, began to bubble a little bit and then all her fingers but the thumb broke off. I don't think it was up too high either.
I'm not sure what I did wrong! I'm a little heartbroken.. to say the least.
Not meaning to put people off on this! I should have left them in for only a tiny amount of time because of the slenderness of her fingers...?

 

Oh no! That sucks! I was too nervous to go beyond steam and boiled water when I re-positioned my boy's fingers...He still got a small crack between two of them, on the back of his hand, but it's no big deal since it'll match the scars he'll eventually have. And I hope to replace the hands with ones I like better eventually, too. But still...I don't know what I'd do if my try had gone THAT bad...People should definitely be cautious doing this, and keep a CLOSE eye on whatever part they're heating!

 

It kind of goes without saying when you do anything involving modding of any sort, you take it very slow & easy, & you're prepared for the worst case scenario. I know that's not helpful now, tho. Can you get Alice new hands?

I just repositioned the entire hand/finger positions of a Unidoll big guy. I tied the wrist hook to a string, then dunked it in for about 15 seconds, pulled it out, & very quickly wrapped it in paper towels (it was hot!) & applied gentle pressure with my entire hand, since what I was wanting to do was compress the spread of all the fingers. I didn't like how it worked & got nervous, though, so ended up getting out my rubber gloves, using a bigger pot, & squeezing & repositioning the hands while they were in the hot water, then holding them in place in my hand out of the water until they had cooled - about a minute. It seemed to work better, working them under water while still in it. I had it at a bare simmer, reduced from a rolling boil.

One good thing, tho, Mousema: at least you can use the damaged hand to experiment further. It may just be the particular resin or urethane of your doll. My Limhwa, Supia, SoulDoll, & Unidoll haven't had any problems with it - so far, that is, knock on wood. Or you can just glue the thumb back on with a good craft or epoxy glue if it's in one piece.

 

Thanks Aya, Nancy. I'm going to make this a positive! I'll try and make her a metal hand (ala Lirael from the Garth Nix Abhorsen series.. Wormtail form Harry Potter, etc..) I think my brother in law might be able to help me. Making knives and making doll hands are close enough, right? Alice scissor hands!
I won't be able to repair the hand, so maybe I should sacrifice it to research on how resin reacts to certain things.
I feel much better now. Thanks guys!!

 

Is there any reason anyone's come across that I shouldn't try the steaming/heating technique to open my dreaming head's eyes a little bit? I'd rather not cut the lids and lose the sculpting on them, so I wanted to try prying them open just the tiniest bit.

 

i used the steam method to reshape one of my mnf hands... totally cliche but it has photostory purposes lol it took me a bit to get used to it, so i ended up with a crack on the inside middle finger joint (because i kept having to reheat it and move it again), but it's nothing that's not fixable with sculpey or something.



i just put the hand on the end of a pencil and held it in the steam, pulling it out to poke it and move it once it was pliable.

here is the crack i wound up with (but i reheated/moved it a ton before my brain kicked in and i figured out the best way to shape them how i wanted).



i really didn't have to do a lot, which is good because it was hard enough trying to get the fingers in the right position since they would reset themselves when i would try to heat them up again. (for reference, it is this hand)

 

It might work but I wouldn't count on it... when I did Gabriel's ear, it didn't turn soft like putty or clay where you could compress it, more like soft like rubber where you could move it.

 

Yeah, I was aiming to push the lids up and have them fold back (Basically have them do what real eye lids do), and it did work. Sadly I didn't have the proper tools to maintain it and ended up tearing an eyelid

 

Great post.

 

Hey! Just wanted to add my two cents about this;

I didn't want my hands to yellow, so I did the boiling water trick. It worked!!

 

Here's my first experiment in reshaping! My little man is Vulcan, so naturally he needed this....



Boiling water method - SUPER easy. No stress cracks, no trouble. I didn't even cover my hands, it was easier to operate without any gloves. I got an extremely mild burn on my hand, not even anything worth mentioning because 15 minutes later, it already doesn't hurt. I just boiled water, poured it over the hands, let it sit for about 2-3 minutes, then reshaped half the hand. Then I refreshed the water and held just the half of the hand that still needed to be shaped in for about a minute and shaped it, then held it in place and ran cool water over it.

 

Three burnt left fingers (I'm right handed and type full time) and I've got two reshaped mnf magnetic hands. Pictures coming as soon as they dry.


I filled one cup with cold water. Then I boiled water and poured the water into another cup. I hung each hand on the rim of the cup and let each one sit in the hot water for about a minute before pulling it out to reshape. After the initial heating hands only stayed in for a few seconds before being pulled back out. In this few seconds the fingers WOULD move back into original position if not pushed against the side of the cup in a way that would keep them in place. (EDIT: Though from what I read, it's best to let them heat longer in water. Shoulda read that one earlier, ooops!)

Minor burns to three fingers, but nothing major, especially considering the water was originally boiling.

No cracks occurred at all :3

I did at times angle the hands to get only on or two fingers in the water to try and get other fingers not to bend back into place. I only accidentally dipped my fingers in the water once while doing this

 

BIGGEST issue was that I couldn't fully bend them in one go after taking them out of the boiling water. And when I put them back in... they bent right back into shape XD

The right hand was made into a flip off hand. The left was shaped to reflect the shape of the unoa left hands. So the pointer finger was moved in closer to the other fingers and curled more, and the pinky was curled more.

With flash:

Without flash:​

Close up right:

Close up left:​

Original right hand:
http://doll.fairyland.co.kr/doll_image/minifee/parts/minifee_magon_hand6.jpg
Original left hand:
http://doll.fairyland.co.kr/doll_image/minifee/parts/minifee_magon_hand3.jpg

 

If you're going to stick your own hands in the hot water you really need to get a pair of those heat-resistant heavy duty rubber gloves for dishwashing so you DON'T burn your own fingers. You, after all, are not vinyl, but tissue & it's a lot more fragile & painful for you than the doll. Trust me on this. I did make it clear I was wearing such gloves when I stuck my hands in the simmering water to shape them in situ & hold them in place until they cooled once out of the water, right?

I'll have to take closeups, but two of my Limhwa's toes broke off, so I replaced the originals (which disappeared where odd socks go; I never did find them) with apoxy sculpts into which I'd kneaded acrylic paint in the closest color I could find. They work great & are almost undetectable.

As for eyes, Bella started life as a Limwha Dreaming Half Elf. I used an exacto knife & the dremel sander when I realized I couldn't stand not seeing the color of her eyes:

Bella as she arrived straight out of the box & original faceup (by myself):


Bella as she is after plastic (or vinyl, as the case may be) surgery:



Dremels are your best friend.

 

The pictures aren't showing up for me, but the concept is amazing. That's Awesome!

 

this is genius! i was trying to find MSD high heeled feet but i didnt find them anywhere! I'm now planning on buying some feet and trying to bend them into high heeled feet!

Does anyone have pictures of bent feet or advice on how to bend them so they have a correct position?

 

Very cool, but I wouldnt do this. (too chicken) I think I'll stick with the expensive jointed hands.
(less likely to burn myself, or destroy a perfectly good hand)

 

I went to work and modded Prophet's hands a while ago. I'd been dying for the 'bird' finger 'cause it'd match his character so perfectly. xD

I boiled water and stuck the hand right in it, making sure it didn't touch the bottom of the pan. I only left it in for a little while, pulled it out, and pushed one finger down. The resin cools very quickly though so when I stuck the hand back in to start the next finger, the first went right back to it's original position! I somehow had to bend all of his fingers down, and extend the middle digit at the same time.

Of course that was more of a chore than it should have been, so he got a tiny crack in the front of one of his fingers after all of the attempts. It's not too big of a deal since nobody really looks at the palm of his hand anyway when he's making this gesture. xD

 

I just had a thought: has anyone ever tried/thought of doing this to resin tail/ear/horn parts, like from Pipos and Leekeworld? It would depend on how thick the resin is - the big horns probably won't be affected, but maybe some of the thinner horns and the tips of the ears and such could be shaped?

Someone please try this?

(Sheesh, I've been running around posting crazy ideas for the Pipos parts all day now, haven't I? )

 

Because I keep my dolls strung sort of tight, the ball joints in the wrists of one of my MSD boys began to pinch together, and I reformed it by dipping it in boiling water and stretching it a little at a time until it was back to it's original shape.

 

Has anyone tried this on teeny tiny hands? My lati yellow got extra pointy hands now and I want to change them to pinching hands, but I'd like to see if someones moved fingers on anything tiny before ^^;;

 

I have the same problem as ChocoCooki

 

I used this hot water method for zaoll luv hands - I changed slightly position of my boy´s fingers after I separated them. Easy job .

Thank you everyone for sharing experiences with us, it helped me a lot.

left hand


right hand

 

I love this idea! *wonders if Fairyland sells just feet*

Anyway, a suggestion for you. Put your own feet into a high-heeled pair of shoes and then examine the shape they take. This will help you see where the foot bends for reshaping doll feet.

 

I used the boiling technique. Here's my girls hands now! She used to have the boring blah position resinsoul puts the hands in.



I'm so happy this info is available!

 

I hope I am not repeating a question...it's kind of hard searching through 210 pages on this thread...anyway,
does anyone know if either of these methods could possibly fix a broken finger ?
Thanks in advance !

 

Broken fingers are best fixed by glueing them back on. There is a second method whereby you also drill a tiny hole in both parts and use a wire to give added strength. Do a search for "broken" or "glueing" or "replacing fingers", as there are a couple of threads that deal with that. This thread is about shifting the position of fingers that are still attached.

 

that's pretty cool. i'll have to try it with an extra hand 'cause I'd be afraid to ruin my doll xD I'm one of those people who has to do things a million times before I get right LOL

 

I might have missed it going through, but after you bend the fingers, has anyone tried holding the hand in cold water to speed up the setting process? I know when I heat-fix a wig, I stick it in the fridge to make the curls set that much stronger...

 

I think the "hot/cold" change could harm the resin /: .. i would be afraid that it just crack D:

 

LOL! I will have to try this. XD

 

Some people do do a cold dip after the heat and bend, yes. Just like people do a cold dip (I've read of some doing this with ICE water) after the boiling of parts for dying, too.

 

I looked through the thread didn't see an answer I was looking for... What about with tan parts where the tan is mostly just a surface color? Would the color warp from bending it this way?

 

Thought I had posted here but looks like I haven't.
I used a heat gun to reposition my AoD Gu's hands( and pointy finger of doom)...
To stop yellowing I covered them with a sheet of tissue first. I also did it carefully to stop the fingers splitting:
He can also hold his marotte now:

Hands before:

 

This is a innovative and economical way to have "new" hands, but I'd be careful about doing it too often since heat would speed up yellowing yeah?

 

Woah... Seriously? I've been wanting to do some shoots that would involve some different hand poses, but I wanted to keep my girl's current ones as well. Looks like I can do it without buying another pair of hands! Yay!

 

Do it too often and they will break though :/

 

Sorry for the "thread-o-mancy", but ...

How far can fingers bend? I noticed today that with every available option hand parts for my Iplehouse girl the thumbs get in the way if you try and have her hold a glass or cup. So now I'm tempted to spend another $28 for a new set of hands, and try to bend the thumbs out of the way so she can put her hands around a cup ... so here's my question to anyone who has done this before: do you think it's possible to bend the fingers (especially the thumb) back far enough on these hands?

 

Question:
How long should I let a forearm set after boiling it? I had to fix a dent on one of my dolls wrists, but I want to make sure I let it re-set long enough before restringing her. Her wrist got a bit more squishy than I intended.. and now I am almost afraid to re-string her.
I would think 24 hours should be good... but I am still leery about putting force back on it too soon.

 

I didn't read the whole thread so excuse me if someone posted this before, but you can also dip the fingers into hot water/boiled water
I believe AsenvaBJD on youtube has a video where she dipped SD sized hands into hot water and was able to carefully bend them into a more natural position

 

That's so handy! Thank you

 

Does using a hair dryer on high heat work for this, or is boiling really the best bet? I thought I recalled someone doing it with a dryer once, but I didn't see it in this combined thread. I really want to make my SD10 patty-cake/slappy hands do something more natural.

 

A hair dryer would take too much time and not make it as soft/easy to manipulate imo - especially with the modern hair dryers not even remotely as hot as before.

If you do not want to wet the piece - place it in a sandwich baggie, seal it, place in the boiled water. Tie something heavy to anchor it down.

 

It's not so much about the water, I was just wondering how hot is hot enough. If boiling is what it takes I can try it. I just thought I had remember someone writing about doing it that way, but maybe it was a heat gun and I just remembered it differently. I may try this tomorrow if I don't get too busy with my other stuff. Whenever I do, I'll bring up my results.

 

Soo...has anyone tried to reposition RIT-dyed resin yet? Would there be any damage in stretched areas or something like this?

A doll of mine needs his ears repositioned and dyed, repositioning the ears first will most likely not work since the heat used while dyeing may ruin the new position.

 

I've heard of people doing this and I have watched a video of AsenvaBJD doing it, but it kinda scares me because I feel like I would do something wrong and ruin it.

 

I've seen the video tutorial too and i'm gonna give it a try to making heeled feet, anyway here is the link to AsenvaBJD tutorial guess it helps:
http://youtu.be/Ytm0i999RZo

 

Careful... someone here tried to make heeled feet and ended up snapping off toes

 

Thanks so much for the tip, i will be careful and if i can i will post here the final results, i need heeled feet for mirodoll girl body which aren't offered from company i would love to buy a special resin color so i cannot find easily heeled feet for her..

 

sounds cool ! :3

 

Thanks for this thread, very informative!

I am wondering though- is there a reason that everyone seems to stay away from those jointed hands? Just if there's a whole thread to discussing how to bend fingers on static hands I figure the jointed ones must have some serious disadvantages for people to not consider them. (I'm a little new to all this, so forgive me if there's some "common knowledge" I'm missing! )

 

No, just that some of us don't like the look of jointed hands. The finger joints look skeletal to me, and I can't get over that. (Even tho other joints don't bother me!)

I'm assuming that some jointed hands can't hold things well - I've heard some can, but others have to be fine-wired.

 

Aaah ok, I find a certain charm to them but I have yet to have a doll with them (yet to have a doll, haha), and of course they wouldn't appeal to everyone's tastes

 

I wonder if your doll hands are blushed, will the blushing come off with the boiling?

 

So the previous owner of my chocolate Lillycat Constantine had her fingers modded. I really didn’t like the look of the fingers on one hand.they looked very strange to me.

Soooo I sat and put the hand directly under a hair dryer for 30 seconds and then very slowly moved them where I wanted the to go. I had to move the fingers a little then re-heat then move and reheat. The whole process took me maybe half an hour but hey!! It CAN be done. I didn't need any heat guards for my hands and the really cool thing is that I could see the fingers start to move where they used to be. I worked the one finger straight again. I used the prongs of a fork to aid me. I did it very slowly though to avoid cracks