How often do you restring your dolls?

Hi there I only restring my dolls when they get loose and floppy. TBH I only replace the strings every few years because my dolls mostly stand in a glass case.

 

I don't think there are dolls that "require" more frequent restringing vs. other types of dolls. It depends a lot more on how you play with the doll, and how much "tinkering" you want to do with their engineering.

If a doll is floppy, or doesn't hold a pose well because there's not enough tension in the elastic - that's when I take it apart, tighten the strings by retying the knots, and restring. This can last for years and years. All my dolls came with good elastic, I haven't had to re-tighten or replace them completely yet - and I've had some dolls for over 10 years. But if you find yourself having to retighten elastic often, it might be bad elastic or the wrong size - this is worth replacing.

But I also take a doll completely apart not because the elastic needs changing, but for "tinkering" reasons - usually sueding joints for better posing, or putting kips into the joints. I've recently sueded all my crew, and I don't think I'll need to replace it for at least another 6 - 12 months. (though it depends on how much I pose them for photos. More extensive posing = more wear on the sueding = need to take apart the doll more often to resuede.)

Sometimes you also take a doll apart to blush or paint body parts (aesthetics) - it's best practice to paint and seal dolls parts separately instead of still strung together. Aesthetics will have to be redone eventually because of repeated friction and wear (due to posing and changing clothes) - but for well-sealed aesthetics, usually that won't be for several years.

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Personally, I would recommend any new doll owner to try taking apart your doll and put it back again. It seems intimidating and complicated at first, but all dolls are strung roughly the same way (especially if they're humanlike and don't have overly fancy fantasy parts) -- so getting used to restringing your first doll means that you know how to restring majority of the dolls that you'll ever own. You can start with removing and replacing head, hands, feet... then move onto the whole body. Restringing is not something to be afraid of!

That's just me though - I like taking stuff apart and putting them back together. Doing that with my dolls helped me to get to know them better and get used to their bodies for posing too.

 

As @aihre and @Nefla have said, there isn't a lot of difference between dolls as regards restringing and a lot depends on your personal preference. Although some manufacturers string with lighter string than I prefer (Bobobie and Resinsoul in particular), so I've been known to restring a brand new doll to get it the way that I want. For me, they behave better when strung with as heavy an elastic as they'll take.

It's really not that scary.

 

I keep my dolls sitting and they're in desperate need of new string after some six years. (Though maybe before that, honestly. I hadn't touched them for a while.) Mine are MSDs except for one, and the 66m boy stands just fine on his own right now. (In shoes.) The MSDs, I still can kind of get them to stand, but it's not very stable and they fall over quite easily even just for photos, haha.

 

Another factor is that diffferent brands of elastic may lose their stretch at different times. So, it's one of those how-long-is-a-piece-of-string questions. It depends on too many fasctors for any sort of accurate answer. I have had BJDs for around 18 years and some of them have never neded restringing, some are gettign a bit floppy, and some have been through the floppy/restrung stage already.

Sometimes it's more a case of pulling the loose elastuic up into the head and adding a new knot to tighten it rather than taking it out and replacing it, so it's adjusting the string they already have without restringing them.

Teddy

 

My reaction to aihre's suggestion about taking a new doll apart to learn how it's strung: great in theory, however some dolls are so tightly strung that getting the head off or restringing the doll might overwhelm many new doll owners. I remember being in tears when we were putting a special custom ordered head onto a newly arrived tightly strung body early in my doll days. Over the years I've gotten more comfortable with tinkering with elastic as needed but a new owner might enjoy their doll as is for a bit while the elastic relaxes before taking it all apart. As you say, to each their own. ;}

Elastic definitely goes from relaxed to no elasticity with age. And a doll that was just loose become an uncontrolled bundle of tied together parts unexpectedly but that usually takes a decade or two. I have a tiny porcelain doll with thin elastic string which seems to need redone every 5 yrs but the bjds mostly last way longer. There was a time when Iplehouse & maybe another company (?) got bad elastic from a supplier. I remember seeing a new doll owners first bjd which was just a couple months old & doing the loose bundle of parts thing. They were very confused, as it was their first doll & they didn't know what was or wasn't normal. :/
Some dolls are shipped loosely strung for safety & need the knot in the head pulled up to tighten. And some companies string dolls way too tight for my taste (or for what the resin can handle in some cases!). So it's definitely a subject to study & learn about.
How often do I restring my dolls? Not often enough...say a couple who are floppy. XO But I've practiced enough over the past 14 years to now tackle it without concern. Except now I've got an old Volks sdgr boy body unstrung that's been waiting a couple of months for me to figure out how the heck I get the strings back through his odd to me torso construction. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

 

I used to restring my earlier resins when I redid their body blushing/shading, at around once a year. Then that got moved to whenever I felt like it, and now it's reduced to not once in over a decade.

I definitely need to restring some if not most of them, but I also need to replace the elastic for most of them as well. That part I am not looking forward to, and I keep pushing it back because I hate having to purchase/shop for doll elastic online, from foreign countries and pay four times the cost of the elastic on shipping. I don't purchase BJD related items at all, so I would truly only be paying to have elastic shipped to me. I completed forgot about it, when I got my last BJD, a bit under a year ago -- that is how often I don't buy BJD stuff anymore. DX

*flipplingautocorrectiswear!!!

 

I haven't restrung any of my dolls yet, and I've had most for about 5-7 years. I do have one doll that I got second hand that I need to restring, though, because he is very floppy to the point where he cant hold any poses at all. I've needed to restring him since I got him, but I've just never got around to it 6 years later haha. So my answer would just to be to restring dolls on a case by case basis when they need it, which is usually indicated by the doll getting floppy, loose, and having difficulty holding poses (sometimes they have have difficulty posing if they're strung too tightly, too, though, so this is in conjunction with the other issues).

 

Usually once a year or a bit less often. Also, usually a couple months after the restringing, I need to do a small correction, and then a year after. I actually buy a new-new string every two years. Meanwhile, the corrections only mean that I do another knot close to tge previous one, to make it a little tighter.

Also, I like to play with my dolls and, therefore, they need to pose and stand well

 

I am sure that ALL of mine could use restringing at this point. Except Chara their body is only like a year or two old. But I haven't restrung some of mine in over a decade like @Enzyme ... which I've gotten away with cause I don't really pose them for photos or anything, they just sit there and look pretty. Yeah. Super loose though. I'm lucky they still sit and don't just flop over.

 

When they annoy me into it, mostly. I used to regularly replace the string (and sueding) in all my dolls, but it’s really not necessary. When someone gets floppy I try tightening first, and if that’s not enough it’s restring time. Unfortunately, there are some older dolls that just aren’t great posers so it doesn’t really matter if their stringing is perfect, and in my house that means I get to slack off for even longer about it, haha.

 

My Soony is in desperate need of restringing, but I'm too terrified to try. So, she just kind of sits around right now until I can figure out what my options are.

 

I promise it's way easier than it seems it's basically like putting a handfull of beads on two strings

 

It really depends how much I play with my dolls, but I'm kinda lazy and also have that situation that I have to order new string from outside of country. I usually string a doll when it is very floppy and really can't hold a pose well anymore. That is like once in 3-4 years. Tho, when I restring a doll, I usually also do the basic maintenance like redo bodyblush or just clean the doll if it needs it. There are few dolls that could need restringing atm, but again, I'm just too lazy to order new string (and usually if I buy some string I wan't to buy something else also, because the shipping price would be so high anyway, so money comes with this issue also). I'm pretty confident with stringing nowdays, you can't mess it very easily if you just put the pieces in right places when you take the doll apart. There are few dolls that I don't like to string tho (their string canals are not very big, so it takes a bit more work to get the string thru).

 

I very rarely restring mine, I've only done it a handful of times in the 3 nearly 4 years I've owned doll. Just finished restringing my mermaid doll after I had to clean her from a photoshoot. Huge piece of work trying to restring her so I'm not doing that anytime soon!

 

Almost never.

When I first get a doll, either new or secondhand, that isn't strung correctly (too tight, string too thin, old crappy string, etc) I'll redo it then, but then they're usually set for a long time. My first doll is over 15 years old and I'm pretty sure he still has his original string. String might not normally last that long, but he was strung perfectly with excellent quality string.

So my answer: when they need it. If your doll is posing the way you like and the tension is good, I wouldn't see any reason to change it.

 

I have never restrung a doll yet, but I'm scared to. I feel like either I'll do it too loose and kinda waste time.. or I'll go too tight and risk damage. And I feel like, since I'm inexperienced in it, I won't know exactly when is the perfect tension?

 

That's how I felt too. Luckily I had a friend come over today with some spare doll bodies to teach me how to restring. If you can get a cheap old body to practice on, that's the way to go!

 

The perfect tension is very subjective - it will differ from person to person so it's basically whatever seems good to you.

And you won't get experienced without actually doing it, so I'd suggest biting the bullet, if any of your dolls fell like they've gotten too loose, and giving it a try.

If you don't get it "right" first time, you just do it again (and again, if necessary), and that way you get practice.

Teddy