I did promise i would try to report about every step of the way with Sparky so here is the run down of last nights adventure.
I talked to both IMR and Crewella and we decided that the best approach to take for removing her skin would be to start by opening the neck seam and then pealing the skin back from there.
I started by using a scalpel to open her skin at the neck seam. I attempted to use the pull and scrape with your fingernail method first but the glue they have used on the pleo rb's is very tough to budge and that method just wasn't working for me. Getting started was very tricky and very slow. I did break in though and then used a scalpel to very carefully and slowly slice the two layers of skin apart. The edges i have ended up with are not the neatest to look at but should still be fine for gluing back together when all the hard work is done.
After separating the neck skin from the body I was able to peal the skin back over the head to look at the neck and asses the situation. You can see here that the side cable is frayed and broken and the top and bottom cables are also both snapped. I pulled them loose from the body so they are sticking out.
This pic shows the broken top cable and also the other side cable which is jammed in the body and will not pull through.
This one is on the same side as the leg that has issues.
Next I turned her onto her back in my lap and removed the foot plate screws - following the directions in Crewella's skin removal post.
I ran my fingernail around the edge of the foot plate to break the glue seal away and free the skin from each foot. These were also glued on rather well and so this was slow going again. Interesting to note that under each of her foot plates is a different colored circuit board. Also her right feet are dark brown plastic and her left feet are light brown under her skin.
I left the foot with the clock battery for last. This one was a little different to the rest as I couldn't completely take off the foot plate as it is attached by wires to the circuit board. Something to be aware of and very careful with if anyone else trys this.
Next step was stripping off her body skin so I will be able to easily get to all the screws and parts I need to reach for fixing the neck cables. It also gave me a chance to take a good look at all of her.
So front legs first which I pulled the skin down over her legs and so her legs ended up sticking out through the neck hole.
Next step was to open the seam at the very tip of the tail and pull the skin back away from the end to unglue it from the little end piece - leaving the tail tip skin still attached. I thne pulled the skin down over one back leg so that the leg ended up sticking out through the neck hole too. Then I pulled her skin back over her back end and off the tail - pulling the tail forward through the skin a bit like taking off a sock. As I did this I found that the skin pealed back over the last leg at the same time. and then she was free.
Her skin is still attached around the battery compartment in her belly and also on her head but I didn't want to undo any glued areas I didn't need too so I am going to leave it like this while I work on her unless it gets in my way too much.
Lastly I then screwed her foot plates back on so as not to loose any parts and to keep the circuit boards covered up out of harms way.
I was hoping to video her operation but my camera is having issues with doing video at the moment so I may have to stick to still pics and then I'll post them together into a film when I'm done.
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Topic: Sparky the pleo rb repair (Read 34391 times)