hot water instead of hair dryer?

Has anyone else besides me ever used hot water to soften their DD's vinyl parts for disassembly?

 

I have short hair, so I don't remember the last time I used a hair dryer, or if I even still have one! So the first time I wanted to warm up my DD's hands to make it easy to remove them, I boiled water in the kettle and poured it into a wide shallow microwavable plastic container. I put a plastic bag over the DD's hand and dunked it into the hot water. After a very short time, the vinyl was warm and soft -- and dry! I pulled the hands right off. The parts can be handled right away, they don't get too hot at all. Just warm!

 

Last weekend I wanted to tighten up a DDII's shoulders, they were floppy. I knew I had to get to the screws inside. So I pulled out her arms, put one arm in a zip top bag, and submerged her whole arm in the hot water. I covered the container to hold in the steam and left it in for a short while (probably less than 30 seconds). I pulled out the bag, dried it on a dish towel, and took out the arm. Perfectly dry and warm!! I took out and disassembled her internal shoulder joint and tightened the screw. Then I put her back together, after warming her arm pieces again to make it easy to pop the shoulder back on.

 

I also found out that those flat rubber grippy pads that are used for opening a tough jar lid are GREAT for gripping and removing the tight ring that holds together the internal shoulder joint covering the screw.

 

Be SURE to pour the boiling water into another heat proof container before putting your DD's parts in it! If you use a saucepan to boil the water and then put your DD parts in it, I am sure it would melt on the bottom of the pan!!

 

Linda S.

galatia9

Thank you for sharing this tip, I wouldn't have thought of using hot water! Well, I've read that hot water is used to fix leaning on PVC figures, but I somehow tend to think of dolls and figures separately in my head so it didn't cross my mind to try and apply this to dolls, haha. xD The plastic bag/container trick to keep the parts dry is pretty clever!

 

I would assume that submerging the parts in hot water is a lot faster than using a hairdryer, too. At least when I switched my DD's hands for the first time, I felt like I spent forever trying to warm up the vinyl. @.@;; And I started to feel the heat in my fingers, even though I had gloves on... since the air stream would've blown the hand away, I couldn't come up with a better solution than to hold the hand myself.

 

I'm definitely trying this out the next time I need to soften some parts. ^^

I did something similar... 'cept in my case it was simply holding the DD's hands over the steam coming from my tea...

 

Same heat, same effect!

mizya, I've never used a hairdryer on the DDs, but I always wondered if my fingers would get too hot!! The parts get warm very quickly in the water! Conductivity seems to be very good through the water. I've softened figures' hands in hot water to change the positions, too.

 

Chise, I bet the steam worked well to remove a hand! I do like that the plastic bag keeps the parts dry during immersion, and the hot water surrounds the parts with almost direct contact. I squeeze as much air out of the bag as possible.

 

Linda S.

galatia9

Volks suggested this to me for swapping out my MDD hands. I was trying to see if I could buy more wrist parts, I guess that was their polite way of saying no!

Volks recommended hot water? Usually they recommend a hair dryer!

 

Linda S.

galatia9

I'm not huge on getting a large container and playing with water, when using a hairdryer is much easier -for the most part. But I wonder if this would help me to remove the thigh mechanism from inside the vinyl? I was unable to heat it enough with a hairdryer, or then I just failed. But I guess it might make the whole area on the vinyl softer faster and allow me to pull the mechanism out?

 

I have a broken thigh that I swapped out already, but I'd still like to use the vinyl shell again if my girl happens to get stained or something else happens to the new one. The busted mechanism is useless, though and I broke it some more trying to get it out. And if I were to only swap the vinyl part, I'd need to be able to get the working mechanism out of her current thigh intact so that I can still use it. :'D

I use this for softening the vinyl parts because I don't have a hair dryer. I don't know how the heat would get into the hip area, or if it would make the hip joint more removable.

 

Linda S.

galatia9

Volks recommended hot water? Usually they recommend a hair dryer!

 

Linda S.

galatia9

 

I told them I had tried the hair drier method, and they came back with hot water.

That's good to know!! Thanks.

 

Linda S.

galatia9