#toy modification

The Liv hip connection is not compatible with the Spirit hip connection, so I couldn't do a straight swap. I initially figured I'd cut the Spirit legs off at the thigh, cut the Liv legs apart at the thigh, and use acetone goo to graft them together. Unfortunately, this would maintain the aspect of Liv legs I dislike the most: the fact that they have double hinged knees but no corresponding thigh rotation, making them extremely limited in posing.

A few years ago, though, I'd had the idea that the twisty end of an (empty) lip balm tube could be used to add a rotation joint to projects. I tested the idea with Shep's neck connection, and it worked. However, that was a relatively large area to put the lip balm tube into--would I need to trim the outside to get it to fit into a doll leg?

I figured out where to cut by wrapping a thread around the largest part of one leg, marking that, marking where the thread overlapped, then using that bit of thread to find the area with the same diameter on the other set of legs.

I used a hobby hand saw and a miter box to make the leg cuts--normally I'd hack at everything with a cutting disk on the Dremel, but I wanted to take a little more care with this project.

After cutting the legs (and lightly hand sanding the cuts), I moved to the lip balm tubes. I inserted one at the cap end--incidentally discovering that the tube fit perfectly into the legs--to mark how deep the cavity in the thigh was. I used that mark to cut a strip of paper to guide where to cut below the twisty end, again using the hand saw and miter box.

This is the test fit of the cut lip balm tube into a leg

(If you're wondering about the twine, it's so I could keep the legs on the correct sides and not accidentally swap them XD)

I put small screws into the flat ends of the lip balm tubes, to give the epoxy putty something to grab, because I couldn't wrap the epoxy putty around the sides without interfering with the movement. (Next time I do this, I'll try to remember to rough up the tube surfaces, to provide more places for grip.)

Then I smooshed the tube and putty up into the tops of the legs. I had problems getting the right side in properly, so I re-puttied that one the next day when I did the putty for the left thigh connection. Once that was cured, I attached the lower leg on the right side the same way, wrapping the putty around the sides and onto the cut edges, keeping it away from the axle.

Then I let that cure (having also used a bit of the extra putty to age the torso up a bit.)

(yes I know the plastics are different colors. It's fine.)

And here it is right now

Just imagine if Liv legs could always do that...