Head shrinkin question

[megoscott]

In the tutorial it mentions that a vinyl head shrunk in acetone will not be useable. Can someone elaborate? Is it more than just needing a new paintjob?

[TrueDave]

It's not usable as is. I believe they mean you have to make a mold of your shrunken head and cast it in resin.

Then you throw your 9" head away. Pretty useless.

I have a Frank Gorshin I'm shrinking with Hydrospan as soon as it arrives. Who are you shrinking?

[megowgsh]

I do not know why it would be "unuseable"

I shrunk a Mego Mxyzptlk down to Little Rascals scale. It is quite hard but easily painted and will be on an Alfalfa body soon.

[megoscott]

Ok. There's a few of the overlarge ctvt heads I want to shrink down a tad. Not interested in casting them.

[megoscott]

Any advice on how long to nudge one down to proper size?

[megowgsh]

Not very long at all. Maybe 2 hours and see how that works. You're going to need to experiment with this one.

[megoscott]

Thanks, boss!

[Captain_Mego]

I used to do this years ago....First off get or make something like a jewelry cleaner...Ever seen your wifes jewelry cleaner in a red can..it has a parts washer in it...a Carousel screen you sit the parts on so you can submerge the parts,,then lift them without touching them on the screen....its critical you DO NOT TOUCH OR HANDEL THE PIECE TILL DRY,,It will be like jelly once removed from solution...It will be 3 times the size...then while drying it will shrink down smaller than it was over a few hours. ...get you a small parts washer to use. hope this makes sense.

[ironman1188]

Would that mean that while 3 times the size you could actually make bigger heads from it?

[johnmiic]

Would that mean that while 3 times the size you could actually make bigger heads from it?

That's a good question. It depends if those heads maintain their larger size long enough. Thing is Hydrospan also has an enlarging formula they sell and I think you have to special order it. That would probably work better.

[mikeoz]

I soaked a CTVT Space 1999 Sandra head for about 2 hours in acetone and then let it dry out for a couple of days. It ended up shrinking about 20% and still maintained a good amount of flexibility. In fact, it's almost exactly like an orginal mego head. One thing to remember is that the paint on the head lifts off immediately. This in itself is not a problem except that the dissolved paint inbedded itself into other areas of the head while it was being soaked. Now that the head has dried, I'm not able to remove the paint stains. When I try the process again, I'm going to remove as much of the paint as possible before soaking the head.

[megoscott]

That's exactly the head I want to shrink, Mike. Thanks for the paint tip.

Ok, so how about a Peg Bundy head? I want to remove the hair first and later replace it with sculpted hair. Will the holes simply collapse the entire head or hey'll just get a bit mucked up?

[TrueDave]

I do not know why it would be "unuseable"

I shrunk a Mego Mxyzptlk down to Little Rascals scale. It is quite hard but easily painted and will be on an Alfalfa body soon.

I admit I have not done it. I only read the tutorial and that was teh impression I got. Usable for me is suitable for playing with. I got the idea you have to use them for display only.

Hydrospan is a tough little cookie to get the hang of. I STILL have pieces in the dehumidfier drying out from weeks ago and I just started teh enlarging stuff and it looks like barnacles after one day. We'll see after a few weeks.

[jessica]

I think with the hair punched in the vinyl, that acetone will shred that part of the vinyl head where the holes are...or something to that effect. Someone's mentioned it before.

I found the old thread here: Shrinking doll heads - Mego Talk

[hedrap]

Acetone is not really "shrinking" the heads, per say. It's like a chemical peel that's evenly removing layers at its base level. The more plasticizer leeched, the smaller and tougher the head gets.