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Post by allurose on Nov 9, 2014 13:44:23 GMT -8
Ihachwen, thank you! I hope I can start work on her again soon. Right now I am waiting for new dremel bits and her springs to arrive.
Fawkes, I read that for porcelain you should use silicon carbide or diamond drill bits. I have a few silicone carbide ones. They worked pretty well. I also had one of the softer sandpaper type ones (sorry I don't know what it's made of, it's a brick red color). That actually worked too, although I wore through it pretty fast. The silicone carbide ones lasted better. But I had none with narrow tips for widening the slots for the hooks, so I have ordered more silicone carbide ones. The next time I do work I will take pictures of all the bits I used to show you what I mean.
I think they key to dremeling without shatters is to go very slow and don't use any pressure. I was just resting the dremel on the porcelain. I would be interested to know what kinds of things you were attempting and with what bits so I can avoid shatters myself!
1lost0dessey, thank you! FH isn't actually my favorite brand either, but I was drawn to this girl. I wanted to practice fixing a doll up, and she looked so sweet.
Wow, the thickness of a dime??? That sounds so thin to me! And if that is the liquid stage, it would be even thinner upon firing! I'm sure there is nowhere on my Paperwhite Dolls that is that thin, except perhaps the very edges of joints or fingers. This is true for other porcelain dolls I have seen too, like Enchanted Dolls, Vivid Dolls, and Angelika Balan's dolls. The Paperwhite porcelain is more like 1/4 inch thick, especially in the limbs and torso. What artists are you referring to?
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Sutton
Senior Member
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Post by Sutton on Nov 9, 2014 17:36:24 GMT -8
Allurose, before you start Dremeling, you must use a fine diamond burr at high speed. Please do a test run on a part you can repair if you get chipping, or worse. I am used to it but if it's your first time Dremeling you may need to be extra delicate and attentive. Besides a diamond burr you can also use a stone burr which is okay for sanding away unwanted porcelain. If you want to redo her face makeup without saving the original, you can sand all of it off with very to very very fine sandpaper. It is also a delicate job and a lot of work but you can get all of the original face paint off and body blush this way.
Good luck! and remember to do a test run with the Dremel please.
PS> Oh, just read that you did a test run already. Well, carry on, girl!
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Post by allurose on Nov 9, 2014 18:25:04 GMT -8
Haha, yes, I was very careful never fear! And yes, I think silicone carbide is perhaps another word for the stone dremels? It is what I saw recommended for cutting and etching porcelain and glass.
Sanding off the face paint sounds awesome! What grit would you recommend exactly? I have it all...
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Post by caracal on Nov 9, 2014 22:22:32 GMT -8
But did I read somewhere, that FH dolls are painted with acrylics -or something similar? In that case You can take the painting of with nailpolish remover. I might remember wrong though... Edit; i just checked their website, and there it says they use china paints -so my memory tricked me! So, forget about what I said....
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Post by 1ost0dyssey on Nov 10, 2014 10:30:10 GMT -8
Well it's not really artists but tutorials that teaches you to do slip casting of miniature dolls. If you look in YouTube that's what the tutorials would tell you to do. But of course bigger the item the thicker it would have to be in order to hold itself up.
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Post by allurose on Nov 10, 2014 14:51:22 GMT -8
Well it's not really artists but tutorials that teaches you to do slip casting of miniature dolls. If you look in YouTube that's what the tutorials would tell you to do. But of course bigger the item the thicker it would have to be in order to hold itself up. Oh that makes so much more sense now! I'm sure that thickness is adequate for a 6" figurine, especially if it's not jointed. I wonder if there is a drawback to thicker porcelain for larger dolls. It seems to me like the thicker the better.
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Hasel
Senior Member
Posts: 220
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Post by Hasel on Nov 11, 2014 3:05:49 GMT -8
They get really heavy XD My first 2 finished dolls were bricks ^.^'' I now am better at pouring thinly I think before firing it is about 3 - 5 mm thick. I also had the idea, but I'm not sure of it, that you get more pressure cracks when you fire and your porcelin is really thick. I haven't done any tests with it yet so it's only a hunch
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Post by allurose on Nov 11, 2014 8:22:04 GMT -8
Oh that is good information! I didn't think about what if the doll was quite large like your beautiful boy, Hasel! I can imagine that if he was cast as thickly as my Paperwhites he would be very heavy indeed!
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Post by allurose on Nov 11, 2014 14:31:05 GMT -8
Here are the photos for the dremel work I have done so far! I will be doing more once my dremel bits arrive. I'll take pictures of my dremel bits then too. Dremeling Joints for Better Posing:The dremeling took a long time. It is much slower than dremeling resin, probably because the bits I had are not hard enough. But I actually preferred the slow pace since it made it harder to mess up! With light pressure, even my softer dremel bits sanded down the porcelain little by little. On the thinnest parts of porcelain, such as the arm sockets, it was possible to create a small chip (<1mm) in the blushing if the dremel was held at the wrong angle, so I tried to be very careful. But still, I would say that this is not really any harder than dremeling to improve posing on a resin doll. You have to be able to visualize the problem in the joint and remove material in the right spot. As long as you don't remove too much and use light pressure so as not to place stress on the porcelain, it is hard to mess up. I apologize, it's hard to see the changes in many of the photos I took. Clicking on the photos will take you to flickr, where you can view bigger sizes. The parts are very small, and the difference between before and after was often 1mm or less. But it does make a difference to the feel of how she moves! Working on this girl makes me even more impressed with all the dolls that have those beautiful, polished and smooth joints. It must take a lot of care, patience, and attention to detail. I can see why the best doll artists are fierce perfectionists! This joint shows the difference between before and after the best. As you can see, her knee did not fit well before I worked on it. Now it fits snugly. I might have to take off more to accommodate the leather, though. I also dremeled the inside of the lower leg socket, but I couldn't get good photos of that. I smoothed out the curve on the upper right knee socket. This was mostly for aesthetics, the bumpy socket was not impeding movement. Sorry I didn't take an "after" picture with the knee in place, but it looks much more neat now. The neck ball did not fit snugly inside the head socket. Instead the head rested awkwardly on top of the neck and easily became disjointed. I widened the head hole and made the neck ball slightly narrower so it fits better. However, the joint is still not completely smooth, so I may work on it some more. This was the first thing I did. I widened the hole for the head slightly to test out the feel of the dremel and to give my fingers more space for when I install her eyes. It all went smoothly, so I felt brave enough to try fixing her joints. I didn't take much off this part, because it didn't really need it, it was just for my test. I know it's very hard to see the difference in some of these photos... Here I expanded the back of the elbow joint to give the hook more room to move without scraping. I will probably take off a little more once my new dremel bits arrive. I also dremeled some of the other joints that were impeding smooth movement, but the changes were too small to photograph. In addition to the ones in the photos, I also tweaked: -left and right lower elbow -upper chest joint -both ankle joints. Oh and I ordered my springs! I got them from www.grainger.com and Teri of Paperwhite Dolls gave me a few tips. I ordered some springs that are similar to what my Paperwhite Dolls have since the size is similar. We shall see if they work! I still have to get fishing swivels...
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Post by caracal on Nov 11, 2014 23:42:36 GMT -8
Thank You so much again! So informative! (And now I have to make changes on my own doll parts...I have made the joints too fitting -like they are with resin dolls. And such a pain that I can use the kiln of the school only once a week, and I rarely have connecting parts at sanding process at the same time -which means, I can not really check if the pieces fit nicely together after last firing. Oh well, my test dolls are gonna look weird and parts are not fitting together. Luckily I do have dremel too ;D )
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Post by allurose on Nov 11, 2014 23:50:29 GMT -8
Thank You so much again! So informative! (And now I have to make changes on my own doll parts...I have made the joints too fitting -like they are with resin dolls. And such a pain that I can use the kiln of the school only once a week, and I rarely have connecting parts at sanding process at the same time -which means, I can not really check if the pieces fit nicely together after last firing. Oh well, my test dolls are gonna look weird and parts are not fitting together. Luckily I do have dremel too ;D ) You are welcome caracal! You sound very determined. I can't believe how much work must go into creating joints that both look and move smoothly. And I think the leather thickness really does need to be taken into account, even if the leather is very thin. The leather on my Alisha's wrist was very thin, but once it was gone her wrist was floppy and loose. I was so impressed with the precision of the joints, that even that 0.5mm or less for the leather had been taken into account. These dolls really are miracles of engineering. You are lucky that you can access a kiln at all I think! They are so expensive to buy. I wish you the best of luck!
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Post by bibarina on Nov 12, 2014 11:19:54 GMT -8
I take my hat off to you allurose- I think you are very brave to try all this I can't wait until you put her back together to see how she looks!
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Post by fitz on Nov 12, 2014 12:19:00 GMT -8
Whenever I think about doll making- I always think it is so weird that though the parts shrink as they are fired, they start off fitting together and then shrink and still fit together. It just seem like it wouldn't work. That some parts would shrink more and others less. I just dont see how it ever works out.
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Post by allurose on Nov 17, 2014 20:00:08 GMT -8
Thank you bibarina! Fitz, I wonder about that too! From what Teri said and from what I know from ceramics, I think sometimes it doesn't work out and pieces have to be discarded. But as to how it ever works...I have no idea!
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Post by fhdolls on Feb 3, 2015 10:10:28 GMT -8
Dear Allurose
I have not read the whole thread but just in case you do not succeed at restoring her I like to offer you a plan B
I will be more than happy to send you one of our 13" double jointed nude dolls so you can have fun with it and create your very own outfits and wigs.
This doll was one of my very very early dolls. Perhaps my 5th... I can't remember clearly but I will be more than happy to send you another free of cost.
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