Tutorial Magnetic Tails For Volks Dollie Dreams

Magnetic Tails For Volks Dollie Dreams
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Ayr here welcomes you to a bit too personal (for her and her friend Luna) tutorial on making a better magnetic tail attachment system.

Over a decade ago when I first got some tails for my DDs they were designed to be attached to clothes with a safety pin. That never worked for me so I instead drilled holes in the back of the doll's vinyl and shoved the tail into that whole. This provided an excellent attachment and was great and stable for posing, but had the serious drawback that a lot of clothes wouldn't work without being modified. Sure that might be a realistic issue with having a tail, but I wanted anime magic tails poking through any outfit. So I decided to convert them to a magnetic attachment system.

Ayr here was the first victim a few years ago. I added magnets to her tails themselves and shoved a big cylindrical magnet through the hole in her back. Sadly the magnet in the body was too loose and wouldn't stay, so I wrapped it in duct tape to add girth and shoved it back in. This worked, but not great. The tape would peel off, the magnet would come out, and the tape left sticky residue in its wake.

Luna never underwent the magnetic conversion, so I decided to a better job this time, and then go back and fix up poor Ayr. I also did some patching to her tails as their internal wire broke a while back and the surgery to fix it left base of the tails looking quite ugly and bare.



Here's Luna's torso part with the hole that has held her tail for the past decade. I've removed the tail and the internal skeleton.



The magnet that goes in the body is a 3/8" tall bye 3/8" diameter N52 cylindrical magnet. To stop it from coming out I decided to epoxy a washer to one end of it. I didn't take any photos before I attached the washer but here's the finished assembly. You won't see the epoxy so I didn't worry about getting it looking neat. Make sure you get the magnetic polarity how you want it before you attach the washer! The side without the washer needs to attract the tails you want to attach.



I inserted the magnet from the inside so that the washer will prevent it from coming out of the hole when a tail is pulling on it. As I said you can't see the epoxy.

Luna's tail hole was only 1/4", so getting the 3/8" magnet through it was a struggle. I used some flat jeweler's pliers to stretch the hole wider to allow the magnet to go through. This has the advantage that the vinyl is a very snug fit and prevents the magnet from rotating. That's important to be able to pose the tail at any angle.



Here's a shot showing the magnet assembly from the inside. I decided to provide Luna's body a bit of privacy here.



Here's a shot with the internal skeleton installed. There's room for the magnet, but the skeleton will prevent it from ever falling inside the torso. (It's such a tight fit here it doesn't matter much anyway.)



Here's the magnets I put inside the tails. N52 ring magnets, 3/8" outer diameter with 1/8" hole. I put two into each tail stacked like this to add better holding power. I epoxy the tail's inner wire into the holes in the magnets. Then after that sets I use contact adhesive on the outside of the magnets and close the fur over it. Again be sure you get the polarity right so it will be attracted to the magnet in the body rather than repelled.



Here's a shot of the tail after the magnet has been installed. The red in the center is the tail's wire that allows it to hold a pose. Making it solidly attached to the magnet like this provides the best base for posing. I intentionally left the excess fabric on the end as it makes the tail look better when installed. It's basically a joint cover. Surprisingly it also really helps a lot with keeping the tail from rotating.



Here's a picture with the tail directly attached to the torso. With the extra fur fabric there's no sign of the magnetic attachment system. It seems to just come out of the body. Just how it should be.



Here's a shot with the tail attached on the outside of an outfit. No need to modify the outfit, the tail just comes right "through" like anime magic. Of course it's not really going though, the magnets are holding the tail on the outside of the clothes.

Luna now has a nice and stable magnetic tail attachment system. Her wardrobe choices just massively expanded! Lucky girl.

Moving on to fixing Ayr's twin tails things get a bit more complicated. The hole in the back of her body was larger because it originally had two tails shoved inside it. So the hole is actually bigger than the magnets I have available. Which is why I had to use tape to add girth before. This time I again epoxied a washer to the magnet, but I needed some way to stabilize it from spinning.

 

I ended up making a quick thermoplastic (Instamorph) adapter that will go over the internal skeleton to prevent it from spinning. It's fairly permanently attached to the magnet, but will just rest on the skeleton. It had to be that way so I could get the skeleton in and out after installing the magnet through the hole.

The black stuff on the surface is grip tape. It's a heat activated adhesive backed rough surface that will help prevent the tails from spinning. The twin tails have a lot more weight than a single tail. Also Ayr's tail originally didn't have any excess fabric past the end, which I just learned while doing Luna's tail is amazingly helpful at preventing the tails from spinning.



Here's a photo of the adapter resting on the internal skeleton. It's not glued in place is just straddles the skeleton. So it can slide up and down the skeleton.



Here's a shot with everything installed. The skeleton can still move but the magnet will not rotate as the skeleton fixes its axis.



Here's a shot from the outside. Looks about the same as Luna's version, but you can somewhat make out the bigger hole and of course there's the grip tape. Again you won't see any of this once the tails are attached.



Here's a close up of the attachment point of Ayr's tails. I added new fabric around the base to cover the scraggly area where I had to do the surgery to fix the wires. It's not a perfect fabric match but close enough. Certainly better than it looked without it. I added excess to look better and help with fighting rotation. I attached the new fabric to the magnet and over the previous bare fabric with contact cement.



Here's a shot with the tails attached directly to the body. The new patch looks fine to me.



Here's a little trick I use with layered outfits. I put extra magnets in between the layers. They're again N52 magnets. The one on the left is uncoated, the one on the right has been dipped in Plasti Dip. The Plasti Dip provides a kind of rubbery coating that has excellent grip so it doesn't tend to slide or spin which uncoated magnets love to do. It also provides protection if the magnet snaps against something. Neodymium magnets are very brittle and break easily if you allow them to snap together. I've not had that happen with any I've coated.



Here's simple example in the outfit I had on hand. I probably wouldn't actually layer this one but it will show the point. I put the underwear and shorts on, then place a coated magnet on top of the shorts.



I pull the shirt down over the magnet.



Then I put the tails on top of the shirt. Again anime magic! The tails go right through the clothes. Of course really they don't, the magnets are holding the tails in place. Layers of fabric (distance really) can really cut down on the magnetic holding force so these booster magnets are a great help. I typically leave on attached directly to the magnet at the base of the doll. You don't see it and it always adds a little extra hold. If there are layers I move it to the middle of the stack. For really bulky outfits I'll add more.



And finally here's Ayr all ready to go. The new fabric patch makes her tails look good again from base to tip, and they hold steady even with both pointing out to the side. Surprising how much the extra fabric past the end helps fight rotation.

That's the end. Hopefully this gives some ideas to anyone that would like to add a tail to their Dollfie Dream. Ayr and Luna are DD3 and DDS. Obviously Ayr's adapter would have to change for a different model. Of course since Volks abandoned white skin that seems unlikely to be an issue.

 

Yes there are other ways not involving making holes. Once nice thing about the DDs though is you can buy replacement parts so you only have to get a new lower torso to go back to no hole. Until of course they stop making the model and / or color which has happened in both cases now for poor Ayr.

If you're making the tails from scratch you can just sew the fabrics together where they all converge to enter the magnet. But I guess for long pile fur this cover approach will probably work fine visually for joining an arbitrary number of individual tails visually at the base.