Wigs Method of center part for synthetic weft wig?

I'm also having some trouble with this (esp how to make the front of the wig look neat without involving lace), however, I've figured it that far that the top part has to be two wefts sewn together and then split in the middle to form a clean part, which you can then attach to the wig cap with a method of your choice. I then pull the wefts down so they're smooth and keep them down with an elastic, then pour boiling water over them to keep them like that (do not do this while the wig is on the doll, though! also not all synthetic fibers are ok with heat so check what you have).

I'm sure you've already seen those, but I'm linking the tutorials I reference down here just in case:
this one for how the wefts should be placed (it shows glueing but can be adapted to sewing, too):
this one shows the boiling method to finish it off:

 

My favorite method is to glue the wefts all around as you would normally up to the center part, and then cut a slit (from the front edge to the middle of the head, or however long you want the part). Then glue the weft to the INSIDE of the cap and slide the hair through the slit and press with heat (or hair clip it out of the way). Repeat on the other side (clip this side too and boil wash to set). Once both sides are set, you can glue the cap together from the inside with a bit of the wig cap material or other thin material.

Dinga does this in a lot of her videos - they’re korean only and Youtube only does auto translation on desktop, but you can see what i mean whenever she makes her

edit: you’ll have to actually click this link to go to her video since it doesn’t auto play lol



i grabbed a random one of hers, and it looks like she skipped specifically when she cuts the cap and slides the hair through, but you can see what i mean! she uses a small iron but i usually use a mini flat iron. You can get the same effect by putting more saran or a piece of cloth over it, rubber banding, and pouring hot water on it. I think Lomi might do something similar in that vid too, or another one where she makes a hair part? It might be in her short alpaca wig video actually Lol

double edit: it seems you’re not using a hard cap wig!!! in which case, disregard all i’ve said about snipping and cutting the middle. Definitely either glue or sew two wefts together and part them evenly down the middle, and then clip and boil wash or heat set.

 

I have made wigs with center parts, and off-center parts. Both using handmade sewn wefts, and glued-together wefts. In my experience, they all leave bulk regardless of how much you try to avoid it. The only thing that kind of works in your favor, to minimize the bulk is to not use as much hair around where the part will be, but that's kind of useless if you don't want to have bald spots that show the wig-cap or even resin cap if you're using a thin wig cap. It's probably not going to be as bulky on larger dolls, but on smaller dolls it will be unavoidable to have any amount of bulk around the part. My wigs with parts for my larger (60cm+) dolls are not a huge deal, but anything for tinier sized dolls is an issue. You can make thinner wefts, and that does help, but not a lot when it comes to tinier dolls. Again, probably not a huge deal for larger dolls, if you're making thinner wefts anyway.

The way I go about creating a part if the wefts and wig are both sewn, is I sew two lengths of wefts together at the edge of their seams so that the seams can later be folded and then sew that to where the part is supposed to go, with the wefts' seams folded inward towards the inside of where they'll be sewn. If I am making a hard-cap wig with glued wefts, I do a similar thing by bending the weft where the hair is glued on to or "seam," like the seams for the sewn together wefts but I don't glue those types of wefts together. I just glue them as close to each other as possible. And I fold those glued-seams in and glued them with the seams down to the cap, to make a flat clean-looking part. I'll add a diagram of what I mean, hopefully is not too simple to understand what's going on. (:

Here's my crappy quick diagram; I would also fold the sewn wefts seams in a similar way but sew the two wefts lengths before folding and flat ironing kind of like seams on clothing, to then sew each seam side onto the cap.


These are the only wigs I've made that you can actually see the parts, they are not centered, but the technique is the same I use on center parts. These are off-topic 1:6 heads, so they are tiny and the bulk is probably worse than it would look on larger heads. However, I can't seem to have any that show the part on my larger on-topic dolls, so I'm adding these only as reference to the part-lines on the wig and not anything else. DX

The top wig is sewn with sewn wefts, the bottom one is hard-cap with glued wefts.




I'm an amateur at this, there's' probably a nicer, neater more pro way of going about the part-line, but this is what has "worked" for me so far. Hope it helps! (:

 

Parabox has a tutorial for sewn wigs involving two layers of fabric. I made this pink wig for Xiaomei using this method and if I'd have to do it again I'd use wayyyy more hair for the part. Like "most of the hair on this wig" more.

 

If you are using a hard wig cap I tend to cut a middle line into the wig, thread the weft through, and then secure/glue it within the head camp. This ALWAYS gives me seamless centerpieces with ought the bulk.

 

I've had a few center-parted tried since this thread popped up and thought I'd share some tips I've figured out in case anyone needs them.

I worked with a hard cap (fabric+glue), started sewing wefts on from the back like normal, but made them do this kind of zig-zags in the front part of the cap so the hair is sitting in an useful direction.



Once I made it to the parting, I cut a (previously marked) slit into the cap (from forehead to top of the head, roughly), filled the space on top with wefts going in the... normal? direction (the sewn edge of the weft lines up with the cut and falls in the direction the rest of the hair falls). I then sewed wefts onto the underside of the cap, in reverse direction, and pulled them through the slit, pressed them back onto the upper part of the same side and pinned them down while I worked on the other side. I then sewed the slit shut. Useful hint: make sure that seam is as flat as possible underneath the cap, you *will* have fit problems otherwise.

I then put the wig on a DIY wig stand, pulled down the hair from the parting and used elastic to keep it fixed. I then took an iron set on low heat (for nylon) and pressed down the hair parting the best I could to make it flat + proceeded to give it a boil wash. Unfortunately just hot water wasn't enough to keep it flat enough, you'll need a heat tool there. A hair straightener might work as well.

I still needed to trim the inner seam a little to make it flatter (glued it down so the hair won't unravel) but I think it turned out okay. I'm still figuring out how to not make the cap lose it's good fit on the head after cutting and sewing the slit but a silicone cap helps with keeping it on greatly.

 

I've had similar trouble with soft caps before - sewing the wefts on makes it tighter/smaller and it won't fit the head it was made on any more. I've given up on this and gone for using hard caps only but perhaps making a soft one on top of a silicone cap or bigger head could work for you?

 

I haven't made a stretch cap wig in many years, but what has helped in the past is sewing the wefts, while the wig is either on its intended head for non-resin dolls, or a form that's the same shape and size as the head for resin heads. I make my head forms out of aluminum foil. I use back stitch, to give a little more "give" to the thread, but if you're comfortable sewing a doll wig on a sewing machine, try using the zigzag stitch. Those steps will help to not make the cap a tighter fit. Hope that helps. Good luck! (:

 

How long are your wefts? I cut them to ca 10-15cm segments which seems to ease the tension a bit compared to a whole long thing and probably lets the cap have more give.