Hi folks,
it has been a while, hope everyone is well.
Earlier this week I ran into an offer on eBay Kleinanzeigen: A Pleo who had quite some cracks in his skin on neck and tail (and some other places as well. Since my senior Littlefoot has a crack under his chin I wanted to deal with and of curse out of pity I bought the little fellow. When he arrived on Friday I learned the one of the vertebra has cracked in the joint which made the neck pretty floppy and on another a piece had completely broken of.
A 3D printed replacement sprang to my mind but that would have meant to disassemble the neck which would have been more of a challenge than I need right now so I was thinking of another solution in which human treatment came to my mind. O.K., I also had a close look on the mechanics berfore deciding to try it out.
I had some left over rubber from working on a motorcicle late last year. It is not pretty in color (gleaming pitch black) but thin enough and flexible so I decided to use this as basis. I cut a piece out long enough to have appr. five millimeters overlap when laid around the neck and wide enough to cover everything from head to the last vertebra. I could imagine that a good bycicle tube could be used as well but it would have to be a good fit in diameter on the neck and this would mean you would have to strech it pretty much to get it pulled over the head which is not easy when working alone.
I had peeled off the skin joint on shoulder an breast to get access and rolled the skin forward over the neck and head - thank God this still was possible. Then I formed a ring glueing the overlap together and after making sure that everything fitted as needed I rolled the skin back. Being sure that everything was in place I started glueing the skin to the rubber patch - and immediatly started swearing because I forgot to use gloves.
After patching the biggest tail crack in the same way I left Cuddles sitting on the sofa with his gang overnight and gave the result a try in the morning. Cuddles was proud to present the Ta Da trick and it does not seem the bandage and patches hinder him to move so I have re-attached the skin parts and took the chance to patch some smaller cracks in the tail as well.
I guess the glue will be dry late this afternoon and then we will see if my expectations are too high. From the short test in the morning I would say that the bandage on the neck both servers as support for the brocken vertebra and the skin quite well.
The glue is Patex Extreme Repair which is at least 5 years old by now and I know the this production batch is compatible with Pleo skin, I used it years ago when fixing Skinny's broken cables. The stuff holds tight enough to withstand the strech when Pleo is moving but soft enough to peel off the skin when need. A big plus is also that the glue stays flexible so the skin stays soft and movable. The rubber I got from an acquaintance who is in the rubber business so I can not tell you what exactly it is. Since this is not yet long term tested it is not very important I think.
Cross fingers that everything will work out as expected.
Cheers
Dwalin
