Maintenance BJD Owner seeking advice on how to wire

just take some 12 gauge wire, cut it the legnth of his legs and arms, and cram it in there. No unstringing necessary.

 

That's fantastic turn of phrase!!! 'cram it in there...'

hehehe

well, at least it's nice and simple!

 

what all is wired, just the arms and legs?

 

So wait, when you wire, you don't have to tie it to the hand or feet hooks or anything? All you need to do is just shove some wire up there and that's it?

Ooh, and how noticable is the wire?

 

http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31456

 

That is JUST what I was looking for !!!!
I need to wire 4 of my dolls and I really WAS at a loss getting info about how to do it and what kind of wire to use.
Thank you VERY MUCH, pals !

 

the wire link isnt working. Anyone have any tutorial pics on wiring. My sueding isnt making my doll any more stable, she actually falls over when sitting now that she is sueded.

 

The wire link is not working as Internette said, and I am totally in her boat, my doll could no longer stand up when I did the sueding thing, it pushed the ball joint out of the socket.

I'd really appreciate a step by step tut on this wiring thing. Unless I read you right in that the wire is simply shoved up through the legs and doesn't require unstringing/taking apart limbs and tying to things. Can this be that easy?!!!!

Thanks!

 

I just wired Riddick, mostly for his arms but I did his legs too just to keep the knee joints in place. All I did was cut a length for each arm to go from mid-forearm to mid-upper arm, pulled apart the elbow joint and shoved it up in the upper arm and then put the lower arm on the wire. I cut a piece for each leg about the length from navel to mid-calf, and stuck it through the knee joint the same way, but making sure it went up through the hip joint into the torso, since he sometimes flops over at the hips. He's rock steady now.

I used 14 gauge white coated wire. My dad went in his shop and rolled off a length of white insulated electrical wire that had three inside it, black, white, and the plain copper ground wire. I separated it and used just the white. If the holes in his parts were even a tiny bit smaller it wouldn't have fit, though. I think my cousin's Bobobie mini will require something much thinner, I barely got the thicker elastic through his joints, so I know this won't fit in there. What I have works fine for my Dollzones, but is probably a bit thicker than strictly necessary.

He can easily touch his face and hold his hand there now!

Edit: I wired my other two single-jointed guys today, I like it!

QUESTION: I didn't do anything to the ends of the wire, other than make sure the actual wire itself wasn't sticking out of the coating. Do most people do anything (hot glue dots?) to cover the end of the wire? I can't imagine it scratching enough to cause any damage, but I figured I'd ask.

 

I happened to have this saved in my MS Word. I don't remember where I got it. It's for legs but I imagine it would be the same for arms:

Quote "Yes, you can wire the legs without restringing them. Basically, cut a piece of wire long enough to go from inside the lower torso to the ankle. I normally bend the lower leg out of the way, and then feed the wire through the thigh from the top to the bottom. Then, when there's only about an inch sticking out the top of the thigh, I pull the leg out and thread that inch into the hip hole. Then I pull the lower leg out and thread it onto the piece of wire sticking out the bottom of the thigh. It sounds complicated but it really isn't.

You can wire the torso but it won't really do much good... or at least it doesn't on mine. I have DODs, which have the standard waist joint, and CP boys with their nifty low-waist joints. With both of them wiring won't help - seuding does a better job, and wiring the hip joints might help stop them flopping backwards"

Hope this helps!

 

You should always put hot glue on the end of the wire to be safe.
CP boys have gashes taken out of their arms from their hand hooks!

 

For those of us who don't have stores that sell coated wire , I've heard you can also use pipe cleaners. Just make sure you pick a color that kinda matches the skin tone. I used pipe cleaners (white) in my Bobobie Ju instead of S-hooks. Worked like a champ.

 

once the wire is in do you have to change it out or is it pretty good from then on?

 

OK

For SDs and up use 12 gauge wire, and double if needed.

For MSDs use 14 gauge wire. For VERY SMALL openings (as in the wrist joints of BBB Luna/Lotus use coated florist wire.

For tinies use from 20 down to 24 gauge wire OR for the tiniest tinies use coated florist wire or pipe cleaners.

Once the wire is in there, you are good, the only time you might need to change it is if through repeated bending of the joint it breaks.

You can find perfect wire in the AUTOMOTIVE section of most Mart of Walls. If you don't like the black/red coating, take surgical (adhesive) tape and wrap it.

 

for those in the UK

For wiring, i went to Homebase and got myself garden wire coated in green, white or yellow. I chose the white version of the wire. It is strong, very flexible and very sturdy.

What i did is:

remove the head and chest, leaving the lower torseo and the legs.
Cut a lenght of wire, double the size of your dolls legs
Bend it in half
Stick it inside the hole on the lower torso, and make it go though the leg holes
Re-string the doll
VOILA!

 

I'm going to wire one of my dolls who's knee's pop out of place.
After I wire him will he still be able to sit?

 

absolutely! wire being flexible will stop him from kicking too ^^

 

One of the reasons I wired my BBB/Luna body was so she COULD sit. Now she can take any pose I want.

 

Oh thank you.. I also have one who is kicky so I will get her wired too.

 

I recently wired my doll and found that the black print on the outside of the coating rubbed off onto my hands and onto the resin. There's still a slight dark smudge on Katya's shoulder joint that I could not get off. I'm not sure how to prevent this, but if you can find it, use coated wire without any print on the outside of the coating.

 

I'd suggest using white coated wire if you can find it, to avoid staining.

 

When you say 12 gauge wire, 14 gauge wire, what does the gauge mean? I went to a Bunnings Warehouse yesterday (a really big hardware store in Australia) and I couldn't find anything labelled with any kind of gauge or even numbers like 12 or 14. Can anyone post a picture end-on of the wire they use?

I grabbed some of the firmest feeling coated electrical wire I could find, but it wasn't strong enough. It didn't really do anything :/

 

An end-on picture of the wire is not going to do you any good, since you will have no reference as to the size.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wire_gauge

The table in that article will give you the diameter of various gauges of wire in both mms and inches, but as you can see "gauge" is actually a the result of a complicated calculation for how much electricity a wire can carry.

If you speak to a salesperson, or an electrician, s/he can direct you to the right wire.

 

Oh my... No wonder Google couldn't help me! Thank you. I'll have to find somewhere that has people who know what they're doing, not Bunnings

 

Question about wiring-
I have a CH bisou ai tiny with no toso joints, just solid torso. I can't figure out how to get the wire to loop over to her other leg. Should I just put in one piece for each leg? Thanks!

 

You can do one piece per leg, sure. That's how I do arms, and legs occasionally.

 

hello. i just got my first bjd, which is strung a little bit too tight. i heard it loosens over time. but im looking for something simple that maybe makes him less kicky. since wiring looks quite easy i wondered if it helps. maybe this is dumb and totally newbish, but for what purposes it wiring used exactly? i know for "posing better". but is it used for too tightly strung dolls, too loose dolls, or something else? sorry for me being clueless >_<

 

Mello, wiring is used mainly for helping dolls hold poses steadily - sitting up, standing (if they're not good at standing), keeping arms and legs in position, especially for single joints. If the doll's strings and pieces aren't sturdy enough to stay in position, the stiffness of the wires will give it enough strength to do so.

I'm not sure if wiring will help with kicky-ness, especially since that's more of a stringing issue than a stability/posing issue. Sueding and/or restringing may be more help for a kicky doll.

 

Hi! Silly question: Does the gauge size matter if you're wiring an MSD doll vs an SD one? I don't own any SD's, nor have I ever played with any, so I have no idea if the hole/space dimensions are bigger and therefore require bigger wire diameters. Thanks!

 

This is awesome! I can't wait to try this out! I have an especially "kicky" Honey Leeke that drives me crazy! Thanks for all the info!

 

This is answered in the first two posts of the thread . . . Dollmore Dean is an SD-sized doll, and 12-gauge wire (American sizing) is recommended for him. I think several people have recommended 14-gauge wire for MSDs, along the way, though I didn't read through every post carefully. Yes, stringing channels are wider in SD doll parts than in MSD doll parts, because the parts themselves are bigger.

 

Ah, thanks! I must have skipped these posts last night! Too tired, but dreaming of anthrodolls all day! Thanks for pointing me that way!

 

So, I have a doll and her head is WAAY too floppy around... And she doesn't stand on her own. Her openings are quite small, but I'd at least like her to sit or hold her head up. Would wiring help?

 

If I were you, I would begin by tightening her elastic, and hot-glue sueding the base of her head and the joints that won't stay where you want them. After that, if you still want firmer posing in the legs and arms, wiring is a good option. Wiring probably won't do anything to hold her head in place, though--sueding will provide the friction that the head needs to stay put.

 

And here I was going to go to Bunnings too

 

I didn't realize wiring would help so much! My minifee that could not stand on is own unless he was leaning can now nearly stand as soon as I put him down. I also wired my floppy resinsoul minis' legs, also much better. I used white 12 gauge rubber-coated electrical wire, which is pretty stiff, but that's what I needed.

As for the ends, I wrapped them a little in electrical tape, just to protect the dolls' insides. Just a note if you do this with 12 gauge wire - Dont tape the wire until after its been threaded through, or it won't fit.

I wish I would have tried this sooner!

 

Question: Do I wrap it around the elastic? Or do I just let it sit inside?

I worry that if I were to just stick a wire in there, I'll continue to hear it clatter around, and that might become a pain.

 

You don't wrap it with the string. You just have it sit there and it doesn't do any clattering or it's very minimal if you have lots of space to play with.

 

I am really worried that I will scratch mine or do damage as the wire can cut when rubbing!
But it sounds good. I would have to see befor I did on one of my very costly BJD's

 

I just did this to my doll and wow, what a difference! Funniest thing was while at the hardware store the guy was asking questions about my doll and thought it was cool. I think at first he thought I was rewiring a room, lol. He started talking about a doll he just got off of TV for his daughter. Gonna have to go back and show him the ABJD I wired, he even gave me the wire for free!

Just watch, I'll convert him!! lol

 

But if I just stick it up in the joints, how do I know it's not going to somehow fall out? I guess the foot is going to block that?

 

would wiring work for Amelia thimble?

 

I know this is an older thread, but I just wanted to share my appreciation for it. I have a much-loved but difficult YoSD who absolutely would NOT hold poses, no matter what kind of sueding I tried. I don't have any wire on hand that's thin enough to do the trick, either, but then I read this thread and realized: pipe cleaners! I have dozens of those! So I cut one up, stuck the cut lengths into his limbs, and now he poses like a champ! I would've taken a long time (if ever) to realize that on my own, so: thanks. This thread has been invaluable.

 

Cleaning and restringing my Kid Delf Hodoo after more than 10 years, I was reminded of how *terrible* 2008 Kid Delf bodies hold a pose on the leg area (aka. kicky-leg syndrome) and why using wires are the most ideal for them. I tried both hot glue and kips but alas, they failed on me. Like what the wonderful dorrie parents shared here, it is a simple as cramming a long wire inside the whole stretch of the leg. In my dorrie's case, it is a long wire that stretches from the ankle to above the hip so that the tight joints are also stable.

I just make sure that the wire used has a thin plastic/latex covering on them and both ends are taped so that they don't scrape the resin from the inside.

Here's a sample of my dorrie (in black) having a friendly spar with his buddy (also wired):