Restringing Tales

I have one!

I recently got my Sebastian (Loong Soul Loong Soul Lunar Mansions-Leopard Ji Shui Bao), he is strung so tight that no matter how I pushed or pulled I could not make that elastic budge to put his head on.

I like to use these curved jewelry pliers to pull up and twist the S-hook, and they usually work great. But I couldn't even pull up on the elastic! So I bring this to a stronger family member. He struggled to get the elastic to move, and he works out regularly. Then the pliers went flying and hits my helper!

This scared me and hurt him, so I take Sebastian back down stairs. Still with an unattached head. I grab some really wide ribbon and just start pulling at the neck elastic to get a little give. I finally get it to budge, but when I try it with the head in place the head keeps riding up with the elastic.

My mother sees me struggling and asks to help. I tell her to push the head down in place when I pull the elastic up and twist the S-hook into place.

She reaches to do so, but doesn't pull her fingernails in so when I pulled up on the elastic and she pushed down, she gouged the crap out of my thighs where I had the doll held.

I scream out in pain and the head bounces up the elastic... still not in place!

I'm bleeding now, but I am determined to get this head on! I was going to go to to the third family member for aid when my mother insist she will watch her nails better this time.

I tell her just hold it in place, she does and finally I get his head on!!

His hands went on a lot easier.

This is a success story, but it took blood, sweat, and tears to get him together.

 

Ermahgerd. Dolls are pain, man.

 

I have none yet, but I am dreading my very first restringing. My girl got loose and is wobbly as hell and I didn't even take her out of the box that often. I bought the string and the rings and waiting for them but... mommy, help me T_T

 

- the whole story sounds scary, I don't know how you keep up with this behaviour from your dolls. They need discipline, definitely. :/

 

In general, I really love restringing dolls. It's not something I'd do just for fun though; only when it's needed. Restringing tinies is a terrifying thought for me though. I much prefer SD size dolls to handle and restring. In fact, I have to restring my Darkhorn again and I am dreading it. x.x Not only is she small, but she has SO many little parts and the way she needs to be strung is kind of ridiculous. xD But she's a floppy overcooked noodle dragon atm and can't do anything but lounge like a cat in liquid form so I have to suck it up and restring her sooner than later..

As for restringing stories...my favorite will always be when I had let my best friend take my very first girl doll home to hang out and I think she was just playing with her and changing her clothes...but suddenly her s-hook bent to almost straight and it shot her foot across the room. o.o We still don't know how my friend walked away unharmed...and the doll too! I probably have the picture of the s-hook my friend sent me somewhere...but tension so tight it unbent an s-hook for an SD doll?? Spooky.

For something more recent and humorous, I decided to restring my new DF-H 68cm boy body as it felt a bit too tight and wasn't posing as nicely as I thought it could....but when I unstrung him, or tried to....well..I unstrung both legs and both arms but I still could not get his torso to separate or the elastic to come out. It was just all stuck up in knots in his chest somehow and it was kind of like solving a puzzle trying to get him apart. Once I did though, it was easy enough to restring him to the tension I wanted. But I'd never had a doll not want to be unstrung that badly. (aside from the few who were too tight and had to have elastic cut...but that's a separate issue lol)

 

- talk about attitude! "No, mom, I WILL NOT be restrung! I'm okay with my wobbly parts! But mooom, I don't wannaaaaaaa"

 

In addition to hemostats and chopsticks, I swear by satin rattail cord (3mm for the big ones, 2mm for the smaller ones) as a stringing aid. It's smooth, cheap, and non-stretch. The most common stuff is polyester so it can easily be sealed off with heat, and you can pull the end fibers into a point with a pair of pliers. You can also stiffen it with superglue if you need to use it more like a needle to get it into some weirder places.

Restringing tools are great, but I feel like I run out of hands too fast when working with my larger dolls. after I thread everything through and get the cord into position, I tie the ends into a real sturdy knot or three and loop it over a sturdy bit of furniture--most commonly my bed post. That way I can use one hand to tension the elastic by holding and squeezing the doll bits and pulling away from the bed post--with a grippy glove, if needed. My other hand is free to do all the fiddly hook work and it's so much easier and quicker when the elastic has that extra room from being stretched.

I recommend trying this out if your hands get fatigued and imprecise like mine do around the second doll. It's just realllly important to make sure you do not point the doll slingshot at any part of your body when tensioning it.

 

My dolls have made me bleed several times, but my biggest restringing fails are always due to my cats. Learned this the hard way restringing an Angel of Dream 1/3 female body.
Step 1: carefully lay out parts for dry fit before restring:

IMG_20230708_182132008_HDR

Step 2: start restringing -
cats: FREE WILLY

Free Willy!

 

I've long since gotten over my fear of restringing my msd's, and at this point my biggest gripe with it is finding the right tension of elastic cord to use and making sure the loop length is correct. Also, changing hands is a nightmare! My dolls don't have any of those fancy notches in the wrist to keep hooks in place, or magnet hands, so I'm stuck changing it out the old fashioned way. And idk if it's just me and my own (lack of) strength, but it feels like I need an actual third hand to get a hemostat wedged in there so I can, y'know... change out the bloody hand xP Is there a method I'm just missing or am I bad at this? Because I CANNOT use a hemostat when I have to hold onto the forearm in one hand and the doll's hand in the other;; If anyone has a visual guide or a youtube video that could help me understand changing out hands better, that would be much appreciated

 

Today I had to emergency restring my Mina first time ever, less than one year into the hobby.
I followed Whispering Grass's video and she came out great. It wasn't as bad as I thought, but my hands are pretty good and thankfully I had the tools ready just in case since I was planning a restringing before the end of the year for the sake of learning (she posed fine, although I felt she could've posed better if a little tighter). I used bent steel wire to get the string through, dowels to hold strings under tension, hemostats weren't actually that much use for the lock, I just used them as pliers a couple times. I used thicker elastic (4mm) for the legs and she poses so nice now. She can do some nice contrapposto poses with one leg bent and resting on the tip of the foot and doesn't budge even if you poke her. I'm super happy that I did this in the end

 

My Maskcat has that nice system for swapping hands, but her feet have just an s-hook. I have made these things from a piece of white plastic:



I just sanded them into a blunt tip.
I pull the foot with one hand and I hold the leg with my other hand, while also keeping one of these between my fingers, and when the cord is out I stick it in. They are shorter than, say, a pencil so they're easy to handle, but long enough that they won't slip once they're in.

 

I went a similar route, fashioned this out of thermoplastic. The interior channels opens up room to easily swap s-hooks without the s-hook having any tension on the elastic.



Sadly low quality photo of it in use on a foot here.
BJD Stories - Quick Helpful Tools From Thermoplastic

 

@scripple that's brilliant! I might try to carve a little bit of a channel in my own thingies now...

 

Thank you. It has been a very helpful tool over the years.

It occurs to me that I now have a phone with a nice macro zoom lens so I can get much better photos of the tool in use. Unfortunately as technology has marched along DoA is a bit behind and can't display the wepb images I use these days. So I made a post about the tool on my new DollFun site with photos of the tool in use from several angles on a blue doll for nice contrast. @Dreamverie hopefully this will help you out. (Sadly no extra hand to take photos while actually inserting the tool.)

Anyways, here's the updated photos.

DollFun - Thermoplastic Tool For BJD Hand/Foot Stringing

 

@scripple ooo, that's a very cool idea, thank you! And bless ya for the photos. I'll see if I can get my hands on some thermoplastic and try to make my own diy tool^^

 

I was trying on a shirt on one of my big dolls yesterday and his whole arm came undone. Turns out it was never strung with hooks and what they used wasn't up to the strength of the cord. This is the second doll now that I have to string and I'm just not quite up to it because I am in an autoimmune flare. I don't have stringing tools either but I guess I am going to have to get some because at this point 2/3 of my big dolls are in pieces in boxes waiting on a good day for me to do it.

 

Are there any downsides to using thicker elastic, assuming it can pass through the channels? I have used 4mm elastic instead of 3mm and I gotta say it feels a lot better... it feels bouncier and softer but at the same time it seems to have more tension and hold poses better.

 

Not in my experience. I actually prefer to upgrade elastic to as large as will fit - including hard tugging to get it through the channels. I find it greatly improves posing.
HOW-EV-ER - having said that, you need to take into account how the elastic attaches to the endpoints - the hands and feet. For older dolls (Blue Fairy, Domuya), they glued small metal hooks into the resin. Stronger elastic will yank those glued-in hooks right out.

 

@MaleficentMrsofEvil ouch. I think it won't be a problem on mine but I guess it's just a matter of not stringing too tight.

 

Reading these makes restringing sound like a horror show