Smart Doll spine repair

I felt like adding something to this area of the forums, so... here's something new.

First, a little back story. I had a Smart Doll body wear a certain outfit and that resulted in massive vinyl staining. Before treating the parts with Dream Rescue, I started to remove the vinyl from the frame. When I tried to remove the thigh vinyl parts, I was a complete idiot. I didn't heat the thighs enough, I tugged on the thighs way too hard, and then the spine snapped where I marked in red.

When this happened, it was more than a year after I made my purchase. I was out of warranty and even if I could buy replacement parts, I would have needed to buy the entire thigh + lower torso parts. This would have been about 13000 JPY based on how much the USB torsos were being sold for at the time. That, and shipping. That, and I would have needed to wait a week for EMS.

I decided to perform a repair instead. Please take a look at my I spent less than a minute drawing this piece of 💩 art below.

Since the spine is permanently attached to the torso, I performed some "surgery" without removing it from the vinyl. In order to drill a hole into the spine, I moved the "crotch" part of the vinyl to the side so I can drill straight into the spine. Once I felt the hole I drilled into the spine was deep enough, I drilled another hole in the pelvis. Once I drilled a hole of a certain depth into the pelvis, I measured the depth of the holes I drilled into the pelvis and the spine. The measurement was approximate; I couldn't get the exact depths.

I took a solid brass rod with a diameter of about the same size as the drill bit. I used a hacksaw to cut it to the length of [spine hole depth + pelvis hole depth]. The piece I cut was slightly shorter than the combined depth but I made up for that with a combination of epoxy putty and epoxy glue. Once I set the putty and glue, I left the pieces I put together alone for 48 hours. The glue and putty I used solidify in a few hours but I let them cure for 2 days.

The combination of solid brass rod + epoxy putty + epoxy glue was robust. There's definite strength behind the repair.

I didn't think to take photos of the repair job I did but it would have been difficult to take good pictures anyway. As already mentioned, the spine is permanently attached to the torso. That fact alone makes taking photos extremely difficult.

Hopefully, no one else experienced the same thing I did with a broken Smart Doll spine. However, if you did experience the same problem, you hopefully now have a useful guide for how to perform a repair.

Just want to add a big thank you as I have had this exact same break with my Infinity's spine. She's also outside of warrantee, she was bought on her original release day back in April 2018.

I'd noticed she'd been a bit floppy after changing her last and thought I'd take her apart to see what had happened. The snap is under the ball-socket armature, just below the port for the telescopic stand. I'd been wondering the best way to fuse it back together securely so going to give this a try. A big thank you for posting this!

Just going to add, getting the vinyl thigh parts off is a giant pain! I'm surprised I didn't break her further trying to remove them 

Very cool way to repair that spine breakage!  I always wondered how using a metal rod would help or not help in a repair like this.

 

On another note, I had my original Mirai's spine break right where the top half goes into the bottom half.  The small joint in the center of the photo below:

 

2020-05-26_06-41-27 by Billy  Bennett, on Flickr

 

I had tried several different plastic weld and epoxy formulas but none of them seemed to hold as well as they have on the DD spines that have broken on me before.  So in doing some thinking and figuring what the heck, I decided to try out some controlled heat on the area to see if I could melt the plastic back together into one piece.  So I grabbed a soldering gun and went to town.

 

2020-05-26_06-39-29 by Billy  Bennett, on Flickr

 

I basically just held the tip between the top and bottom halves until they began to melt.  I pushed them together and then used the tip to drag more plastic from above and below over the area to fill in the gaps and strengthen the whole spot as seen below.

 

2020-05-26_06-39-55 by Billy  Bennett, on Flickr

 

2020-05-26_06-40-51 by Billy  Bennett, on Flickr

 

While this fix makes the top and bottom frame parts impossible to move anymore, I don't think it really makes much difference in the movement of the doll.  I tried to pull it apart the next day and then twist it and nothing happened.  It seems to be as strong as ever but definitely ugly as heck.  XD  But since you'll never see it under the vinyl, who cares?  😉 

 

This is just one way to repair a broken spine tho.  The original posters way of doing it seems to give you the same mobility as the original setup which is probably the best way to go.  I'm just lazy and like burning things.  LOL

 

 

Billy 

16 minutes ago, baldylox said:

I decided to try out some controlled heat on the area to see if I could melt the plastic back together into one piece.  So I grabbed a soldering gun and went to town.

That's the first idea that popped in my head when I read the title. I scarcely remember my parents putting a doll's headband on the stove to meld it back together. Or the pan. Either way it was a riot.

Hmm, that seems to be a common breaking point, then. Did any of you guys get a sense of what caused it to break there? Was it a stress break like the early DDIII bodies?

17 hours ago, Jezrah said:

Hmm, that seems to be a common breaking point, then. Did any of you guys get a sense of what caused it to break there? Was it a stress break like the early DDIII bodies?

Mine was caused by Mirai falling off a shelf that was about 4 feet high.  I didn't notice the break in the spine when I picked her up because she was still in the basic pose I had her in on the shelf.  I found out when changing her clothing later on that week.  Since she was the Beta version and well out of any warranty period, I tried to repair it with Permatex Plastic Weld several times to no effect.  So I wound up getting a full skeleton from the Mirai Store in order to repair her.  I tossed the old skeleton in a drawer until recently when I got the idea of heating the parts and melting them together.  So now I have a full Mirai skeleton to display along with my repaired original girl! 

 

2020-05-26_06-41-59 by Billy  Bennett, on Flickr

 

 

Billy

Interesting, thank you @baldylox. I'll have to keep this apparent weak spot in mind when handling my Smart Dolls.

 

On 5/27/2020 at 4:02 PM, Jezrah said:

Hmm, that seems to be a common breaking point, then. Did any of you guys get a sense of what caused it to break there? Was it a stress break like the early DDIII 

For me, I was just changing my Infinity one day & don't think I even used that much pressure, I've put my DDs & Obitsu hybrids through worse without issue. I felt something snap inside & then noticed my girl was a bit floppy & just remember thinking "that's not good!".

Looks like this is definitely a structural weak point as this is the exact same break point in all 3 cases by the looks of it 

Edited June 3, 2020 by katzilla
grammar & spelling

As I haven't had a chance to do my repairs yet, thought I'd post a couple of detail pics to show the type of break this is for future reference in case anyone else stumbles across this same issue in the future.

On 6/3/2020 at 3:37 AM, katzilla said:

 

With a break like this, I would personally sand it and put epoxy glue. The stuff is very sturdy. And if you want extra support, maybe drill a bit and put a wire. Since luckily the part that broke isn’t involved with moment (at least I don’t believe so) 

you’ve most likely already repaired it, but just a suggestion if someone comes upon the thread!