Broken or damaged wrists; are we responsible?
 

This works very well with short-sleeved clothing. But I've found with long sleeves, the tube gets stuck. With the sleeve squeezing/pressing the tube against her skin; which is grippy regardless of the amount of powder, anyway, making it difficult to slide out. Made worse when the tube is behind the hand, so if you try it, use a tube that's long enough to reach her elbow and cover her hand. But even then, care should be taken: I broke one of my ladies finger wires removing the tube.
I don't use the tube, these days. For short sleeves, I gape the cuff with both hands then carefully move it over her hands. For long sleeves, I use those freezer bags with the zip lock, they're thicker and more suited for this. I put a bag on her hand, zip it, then fold the excess. Sleeves and cuffs slide over very easy. Then it's just a matter of moving the sleeve up her arm a little, ready for making other adjustments elsewhere, before adjusting the sleeve down.
eco

Hi,

those are finger wires. Look a lot like thick strings from a bass guitar. It wasn't as bad a design as many people think and sometimes finger wires straight to the wrist actually last longer than palm plates. You just need to be careful how you move the wrists.

To fix, you open the hand, drill them out completely (a lot more heavy duty than you would imagine. Thought it was going to need a dremel. Ended up using a black and decker hammer drill).

I use Gorilla epoxy resin to put the hands back together. You then leave that open for 24 hours (even though the Epoxy is solid in minutes) and then use heat and or tpe glue to put the TPE back totgether.

Until they are fixed you need to keep them from flopping around or you may damage the TPE. I use six inch rulers, a tube bandage and a couple of normal wrap bandages to hold a hand steady until you are ready to operate.

Couple of hints. Your will probably use quite a bit of baby oil for the area to be heated. once everything is fixed and she's seemingly perfect again don't be fooled. Leave her hands submerged in cornflour to pull out excess oil or you can end up with TPE rot (it can go green and sticky. Had it with a couple of my girls (both fixed) before I sussed what the issue was).

Good luck with the operation. Many of us have done it. First time is always the worst as it feels as if you are hurting them. And don't try starting it until you feel that you have ammassed all of the equipment, consumables that you feel that you will need for the job.

If you have a spare peice of TPE practice on that in a well ventilated area with the heat gun before you work on her actual TPE.

Tommo has some excellent instruction posts on the site that will really help when you come to do the operation.

Good luck,

Shamus.

Also, make sure you're doing it in a sterile environment that isn't too dusty - as soon as you start to work on the TPE every piece of dust in a 3 mile radius is magically drawn towards the TPE and can leave a very dirty mess of a scar (as I discovered).

Thanks Eco,The tube idea was just that, an idea that I hadn't fully worked out the downsides of. Your freezer bag seems like the answer. Regards S.

Thanks Shamus for the sound advice. The springs seem to be held (I use that term very loosely) by about 2-3 mm in the fore-arm end, by what I have no idea as the spring I removed is completely clean.
Regards S.

Thanks John, I was rolling around the floor with laughter! Sterile, dust free. My Edwardian house was, I'm sure built with dust and it relies on it to keep it standing. No matter I will (try to) follow your advice, Maybe erect a tent over the workspace/operating table.

As we have moved off clothing and onto repairs I am continuing this thread on the Maintenance & Repair section as there are some things I need to clarify.

Thanks once again,

Regards S.