Eyes & Glue Troubles...

[staceyrebecca]

Ok I'm a bit stumped. I normally use ping pong balls, doll safety eyes, pom-poms or other plastic-y materials. I've glued some wooden beads on this guy:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/staceyrebecca/1584142344/

You can see the trouble I'm having already with the glue on the puppet's right eye (left of the photo) getting globby. Now the glue has come up completely for half of the eye, leaving the glue on the fabric, but not on the wooden bead at all.
What am I doing wrong? I think I used the wrong glue, but what kind of glue would you recommend for slapping a painted, wooden bead onto fleece?

His left eye is having no problems whatsoever.

Any suggestions, critiques or otherwise are so very welcome.

 

[Nojoy]

It could be that the glue has little to adhere to on the eye, being too smooth... the weight just is overpowering the adhesion. You could try scrapping the underside of the eye with a file... give the glue a place to grip at.
At least that's my first impression...

 

[staceyrebecca]

OHhhhh that's brilliant! I knew it had something to do with the smoothness of the eyeball, but I hadn't thought of roughing it up a bit.


I'll take it to my local thugs to get roughed up. Hopefully I can get that same eye back on in that same position...

 

[JDAmato]

Also, if you are having trouble finding a glue that bonds the fleece you are using and the particular wood you are using, you can try drilling through the fabric/foam and either using screws or wood glue to bind two pieces of wood together as a sandwich around the foam. While in this particular case it might be too heavy (or perhaps the foam wouldnt be strong enough to hold it) this is a good solution for bigger puppets with larger eyes.

If you dont want to go that direction, I would agree with nojoy in saying you should add some texture to the wood...just to give something for the glue to hold on to.

 

[staceyrebecca]

oh wow, that's a great idea!

The beads aren't that heavy, and drilling a small hole with a small screw on the inside would definitely work for this guy. Most of my puppets dont have foam directly under their eyes, but this guy does. Just drill a small hole into the bead, then slap a screw in on the other side. I doubt I would even need to drill through the foam/fabric if I made it small enough & included a plastic washer.

Would that, then also make it child-safe, I wonder...

 

[JDAmato]

absolutely...even bare it would be kid-safe as long as you make the connection tight enough and use a plastic washer. And if you are still worried you can either coat the metal in hot glue or just glue a patch of foam over the metal!

 

[CBPuppets]

I did the same thing and the Eyes on My Puppet had stayed on Eversince.

 

[wes]

Once apon a time, I got to meet Terry Angus and a puppet he made, He use Wooden spheres that had a holes in the bottom and used small screws and washers to sandwich the eyes to the puppet and I use yardsale dots for pupils.

I used it here and it worked out nicely. You can get the wooden spheres from a craft store and yardsale dots from wal-mart or k-mart.

Heres a picture of The puppet I used this on: http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f299/beltar/23463d19.jpg

 

[TheCreatureWork]

To hide the existing mess I would put bags under his eyes (See Example below) , that's just an idea. Good work by the way, I love how open people are at asking for help and giving great advise.

http://www.projectpuppet.com/puppet_gallery/sock_puppet.htm

Oh ya- thanks Pasha for the use of the photo for an example LOL

 

[TheCreatureWork]

I saw your poster for puppet building sessions- I put it on my blog if you don't mind