Burn baby burn, part 2 of CE testing, the flammability tests (EN71-2)

Good morning all you lovely readers,

I hope I find you well on this rather grey day here in Birmingham, UK. I only add that as it is the middle of August and as such supposedly the middle of summer here, the poor school kids haven't had it too good yet.

Anyway, if you missed part one of this series of blog posts: Mechanical and physical properties (EN71-1) you can find it here. 
https://beeskneesartdolls.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/ce-testing-stage-1-what-everybody-who.html


But today is all about the burn and I don't mean a Jane Fonda exercise routine. (Anyone remember? I hated the 'burn'), I'm off on a tangent again. Ok  the burn.

I have found it hard to find a definition for this part on-line but this from https://blog.asiaqualityfocus.com/toys-standards-and-the-en-71-regulation-part-1-2-3/ seems to sum it up pretty well:

Most materials used by manufacturers to produce toys will burn if exposed to an appropriate ignition source. To reduce the risks of burn injuries associated with children being in contact with certain toys, different testing methods have been defined to identify a limited rate of spread of flame or maximum ‘after flame time’ to give time to the child to drop the toy or take distance from it before serious injury occurs.

So today I'm basically showing the tests for how fast the toy burns and if a child is able to get away from the toy in time if it should catch light. This should be a burn rate of 30mm per second or less. Conformance describe this as 'when the spread of the flame reaches the top of the fabric'

The first test I did I didn't video very well at all, and after a few burnings I realised it was best to have a clock with a second hand in view of the video too so I could work out the burn rate better, but because I don't want to keep burning things I have spent time making, you will just have to bear with me.

As I am making rag dolls with removable clothes these all need to be taken into account. The doll as a whole needs testing and then the individual items of clothing need testing, so to keep it a little bit more simple for myself to begin with, I have decided they should just have a dress and a pair of bloomers (well they need knickers, don't they? )

I also spent quite a bit of time burning strips of fabric to see which burn faster, which determined my choice of dress fabric. This fabric was not the best choice, but I didn't know that when I sewed it. Unsurprisingly the dresses burn much faster than the stuffed doll, which on it's own just self extinguished in a very satisfying manner. In this test the dress didn't catch fire and the doll's leg went out.

Please don't watch the video if you don't want to see the demise of this poor little girl (never named cause I thought it would help), but I have to own up I felt terrible after this and it almost put me off trying  to complete this CE malarkey at all.

But she was lit at 00.13
and was not covered in flames until around 00.31.
When you know she was 22cm tall, we can work out that, using 3cm a second, the maximum time for the flames to reach burned at would be 7.3333333 seconds after the start of burning so that is 20.3333333 seconds into filming which is this point:

so although she is no longer with us, she has 'happily' shown that Mini Bees pass the EN71-2 burn test.

But what about their clothes well as there was nothing left of that dress and pair of bloomers, off I went to make a new ones. The dress is slightly over 150mm, but the bloomers aren't, and anything under needs to follow the following guidelines:

..you should test each component separately. The test for individual components is referred to as a "surface flash" test - you simply need to check that when you apply a flame to the components, it extinguishes itself or does not spread rapidly




The material I intend to use for their bloomers is this lovely Liberty print and at a flash test passed ok. This piece is 15cm high and this is 5 seconds into burn which is a pass. Sadly it folded so you can't really see.

And here is the 5.33 second point of the dress burn (a 16cm dress so easily within the burn rate).

And just when you think you're done, as I mentioned last week, I now need to wash doll, and clothes and test again.

All of this seems like a lot of work and a lot of loss of work, but now it is done I can go ahead and make dolls using the same fabric and procedures knowing they are
       1. safe for all children
       2. completely legal
and 3. of a standard I am happy to sell and know wont fall apart when played with, a big thumbs up.

I'd like to point out that I was carrying out these tests in our very useful utility area, over a large Belfast sink, so any burning material fell into water and was extinguished, please if you are doing these tests yourself, don't get caught out and think it wont take, be careful and definitely don't hold the toy when testing.

Next week part 3 of testing, ie EN71-3, and then tiding it all up and the technical files, bet you can't wait.

Hugs and Kisses
Ally

Exciting new delivery today

Good morning you internet lovelies  

So the postman knocked on the door this morning and I crossed my fingers because I have been waiting for this particular parcel for a while now as it was being sent from China, and that can take a bit of time.

legs, legs and more legs

Good morning internet sweethearts,

hope everyone is ok and enjoying spring/summer or autumn/winter, depending on where you are in the world. It's a little rainy here today, but at least that means the garden is being watered and I feel I can stay in and sew and not feel I ought to be outside. (Although sewing outside, is by far the best.)

Breena - The Makers Medley Challenge for May

Morning all you internet lovelies.

Last week was the May reveal for the Makers Medley Challenge (it's on the 16th of each month) and the challenge was Spring/Forests, which is lovely. I really love spring, as the weather warms and the blossoms appear everywhere, I can easily imagine little fairies everywhere too.

Experiment with a doll face

Good morning all you lovely internet bods,

Firstly let me apologise for misleading anyone. When I posted this little snippet on Instagram yesterday, I was just showing that is was an old head and that is why it had a neck hole instead of a mouth, it never occurred to me that people might think I was making a two headed doll. My bad.

Scotland and Mediating Angels

Good morning internet lovelies

Hope you all had a fantastic Easter break, and didn’t eat too much chocolate. I’m more of a Haribo fan myself, yummy.

But on with the blog. As you will know if you read my last blog, myself and the good Dr. J. were off to bonny Scotland for our Easter break, and we had such a wonderful time there. 

 Trying to take a photo of the dog was tricky, she runs ever so fast.

The weather was surprisingly good for us, considering the forecast before we set of was for rain the whole week. We had rain, yes, but we also had sun and warmth. There was only one morning of heavy consistent rain, but as it happened that was the day we had pre-decided we would stay in one place and we used it to recharge our batteries so to speak and stayed in and read and I worked on my newsletter plans. (I’m afraid the only bit of business related organisation I did, so much for big plans to come back organised. haha). The rest of the rain was dramatic and heavy but over in 5 minutes, like somebody was turning on and off a switch.

As for Scotland it was beautiful, dramatic and wonderful. I hope some of these pictures do it justice. We pottered around, Loch Lomond, on to see the Highlands a little, Ben Nevis from a distance, towards the coast at Glenuig, and back via Inverarey. I attempted to keep up to date with my sketch book but to be honest we walked so much there wasn’t time. (The dog loved it.)

I had hoped to find somewhere dramatic to do a photo-shoot with my angel for the Makers Medley April Challenge, but I was spoilt for choice, everywhere was gorgeous and dramatic. 

In the end, I decided on the hills above Glenuig, a woody mysterious area, covered in moss of every description, dripping from trees and covering everything on the floor, to such a depth your hand could almost disappear inside. 

We found some remains of old tumbled down stone cottages up there too, which made a perfect backdrop. The whole place was fairy-like and ethereal, just perfect for a meditating angel.

So, in conclusion, I love Scotland and hope to go back soon and see more.

And if you should get the chance I’d advise the same.

Don’t forget to follow The Makers Medley for more photos and details from the other artists on their angels and all the dolls from the challenges, there’s some serious talent. Next is Spring Time/Forest, exciting…

Until next week.

 

Hugs and Kisses

Ally

The Maker Medley - March Challenge - Strange and Unusual

Good Morning all you internet lovelies,

I do hope you had wonderful weekends.

Today I thought I’d show you the doll I made for The Makers Medley Challenge for March, which was titled ‘Strange and Unusual’.

The Creative Doll Artists Project

Good morning Internet Lovelies

Today I thought I’d introduce you to another awesome group I am part of.  This one is on Facebook and is called the Creative Doll Artists Project, the work of a wonderful doll maker called Lacey Michelle Hayes who creates these gorgeous little critters http://www.Instagram.com/OddlySweetDolls. She is so talented you really need to look her up.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheCreativeDollArtistsProject/

 

Anyway the group has brought together a brilliant bunch of makers of all types and abilities and we all help and support each other, if you make dolls and haven’t joined I highly recommend that you get over there now.

The brilliant thing about Lacey and her group is that all are welcome and no one is made to feel inadequate as happens fairly often in other groups.

A number of the art doll groups on Facebook don’t see cloth dolls as art at all and although perception is slowly changing some don’t even allow cloth dolls in. Personally, I don’t see a sculpted doll that has no moving parts a doll at all but actually a statue, but that is a whole different point and can make a blog post in its self.

Lacey keeps up encouragement and inspiration by arranging monthly activities. In February we had an Instagram post a day challenge #tcdapFeb. I am afraid I didn’t keep up with every day’s post but did quite a few and enjoyed see everyone else’s photos on Instagram. Search for the hashtag on Instagram to see what was going on.

This month, March, is a doll challenge. After holding a vote on the Facebook group, of which Circus won hands down, we are all challenged to make a circus themed doll and post work-in-progress photos on Instagram and the finished dolls’ photos will be made into a slideshow. All very exciting and you can keep up to date with it all by following on Instagram the hasttag #tcdapMarch for everyone or just my bits on www.instagram.com/honey_pot_creations.

Here is the start of my doll. I'm working from bottom up and have tried a new technique of wrapping the cloth foot in paper clay and sculpting directly onto the leg.

Well that's all for now, till next time

Hugs and Kisses

Ally