Heating ... differently

As heating your vinyl parts for assembly or disassembly is very common and occasionally required I thought I'd make a comment about the method I use to do so as I have not found it mentioned anywhere and am not a fan of the usual hair dryer method.

Note that if you have others living with you it might be a good idea to have them agree before using this method as I am using the oven more likely involved in baking, making Lasagna or your festival turkey.

I put a support at roughly middle height, lay a towel on it and switch it to some entry level( low) temperature, say 50°C( 122F for the non-metric folks) and then put the part(s) onto the towel; you can always use a little more temperature if you feel like it, but I suggest you start low.

In the attached photo an Obitsu shin skin was heated for a few minutes before I took it out wearing a cloth glove and assembled it with the unheated foot/ankle joint combo.

While heating in the oven may look a bit as overkill, it does have a few advantages - imho - namely: low temperature, very even heating, low chance to burn your fingers.

I hope this will help some, though those skillful with the hairdryer or other methods are likely to remain using them.

Plastic outgases when heated and it's generally considered unsafe to heat plastic (and other non-food items) in an oven that's regularly used for baking ^^;; It's recommended to not even use them to bake polymer clays (like Sculpey, Fimo, etc) so I'd be wary of baking DD parts, and even more wary of suggesting it to others.

Edited August 13, 2019 by Elagabalus

5 hours ago, Elagabalus said:

Plastic outgases when heated and it's generally considered unsafe to heat plastic (and other non-food items) in an oven that's regularly used for baking ^^;; It's recommended to not even use them to bake polymer clays (like Sculpey, Fimo, etc) so I'd be wary of baking DD parts, and even more wary of suggesting it to others.

I'm new here, but I thought I'd give a recommendation. To solve this problem maybe just buy a cheap toaster oven? It's what I did for faceups. So I can seal in any weather. I stick the head into the oven after sealing. $15 to use for similar purposes~ 

To cure acrylic paint on resin figures you can use a meat dehydrator.