Restringing Tales

I have had to restring a doll due to either being to tight, to loose, or in one guys case because he got wet and had to be thoroughly dried out. Mold will grown on resin, or on the string so you have to dry both well. I have a couple of guys with wire hooks that are like fish hooks in that they can puncture a finger. After one incident I have learned to use forceps as well as chopsticks and patience to keep it from happening again.

 

I don't restring unless I absolutely have to, but I do enjoy the challenge it brings. Sometimes I leave the dolls a bit loose and sometimes I string them too tightly, and because I usually restring 65cm to 80cm dolls, the doll's weight and the tension always tire me out by the 3rd+ time.

Any time that I restring a doll, and by the end of the day, my hands end up dry, red -almost raw from pulling the string, and sometimes bruised because the doll's resin pinches my skin skin repeatedly.

The most painful ones have been when the resin knee or feet joints pinch the skin between my thumb and index fingers. OUCH!!!

 

I don't go around saying I put my blood and sweat in my dolls for nothing! I've lost tips of nails and skin during restringing a few times :P I think the worst one, however, did not happen to me but to my best friend. We were on a tag team to restring a troublesome body and I cannot recall which one of our dolls it was at the time... This was around 8 years ago! So we had her using the string puller from Dollmore and I was holding the parts in place to make it easier. But the string was super thick and kept getting stuck on certain areas and we weren't as experienced back then. At some point we could NOT get that damn thing through the upper leg and out of the knee, so instead of rotating it around she got impatient and tried to force it a bit. The puller passed through with the string and pierced her other hand's, which was holding the knee part of the joint, pointing finger right through! It went like halfway in the finger, under the nail area. She didn't feel anything but gasped after realizing what was going on. When I noticed, we both just stared at it for like 20 seconds without saying anything. When she took it out it didn't bleed much and we washed it thoroughly, then disinfected it with alcohol and treated it before wrapping up in band aid.
Thinking back, we probably should've gone to a hospital and her her a tetanus shot, but we couldn't believe that had just happened.

I think another funny thing we used to do and still have to sometimes is use our feet to hold parts or strings between the fingers on larger dolls when stringing alone. It's quite the sight for whoever walks in the room uninformed hahaha!

 

I mostly don't mind it and can usually take a doll apart and put her back together in less than 10 minutes. I don't particularly enjoy it, but I don't mind it either.

But there are always those difficult ones!

I had one doll who was strung somewhat tightly, and I was pulling really hard on the stringing tool and...it snapped in half, the string broke loose and resin went flying everywhere! No damage at all to the doll, but I've never used a stringing tool since--I prefer floral wire, it's stronger, and I've never had one break.

Another bad one was an Iplehouse Barron. His stringing was tight and I was trying to get it loose. The head s-hook slipped into the neck, and I tried to pull it loose. This resulted in it digging into my finger, and with one hand trapped (my finger was stuck between the neck and hook, with the hook digging into my flesh), I couldn't get free! Husband to the rescue, he got me loose and finished stringing for me.

 

I too bled during restringing. It got on the doll and I was perversely proud. I told her "You really are mine."

 

It took me a long time to work up the courage to restring my dolls. My husband laughs at me about it because now I'll take a doll apart without a second thought. I still sometimes have issues with getting the tension right, though.

 

I recently got my first doll and (maybe foolishly) tried to restring her to take off the previous' owner's body blushing. I'd already watched 4 or 5 tutorials on stringing dolls, so I thought maybe it wouldn't be that hard?

Problem is she's a super skinny doll chateau yosd, And the elastic knot wouldn't fit through her neck hole like it'd shown in the videos I'd watched. I freaked out for hours thinking I'd broken her, restrung her incorrectly like 3 times and eventually just gave up for a few hours. After fiddling for a while I managed to figure her out, but jesus was it a bad first restringing experience.

In the future I won't restring dolls unless they desperately need it. ESPECIALLY tinies.

 

I recently acquired a doll that desperately needs restringing, and I really don’t want to... I keep putting it off and off and off. In the meantime, she can barely sit down. My first doll came unassembled, and I remember my fingers hurting something awful (some ten years ago now).

 

I find it easier to do restringing with a partner around. That way if things get persnickety, someone else can try or take over for a few minutes or just offer extra hands.

 

I bought a tiny doll secondhand from the DOA marketplace and she was a nearly ten year old doll and never was restrung before and needed a bath so I look he body apart and gave her a bath. A few hours later she was fully dry and ready to be put back together. I had already bought new elastic and everything for her. It was my very first time restringing a doll. I looked up videos online that really helped me. It got a little frustrating at times but I did it all by myself and I felt proud! After accomplishing the tiny I decided to restring my 1/3 SD girl for the first time. I had to have a friend help me with her. Getting the feet off and on was the hardest part for us. We eventually got her put back together again, but her torso part of her body was a little loose so I tried to tighten the elastic a little bit. I'm still having issues with the torso being a little loose, but I'll figure it out!

 

I overall don't mind doing restrings. I've done a few of them--some were quick, others hours-long tirades. Thankfully most of mine are in the SD size 60+cm range, because I think trying to restring a tiny or YoSD would make scream in panic. Such tiny channels and string to work with!

One thing that seems to be a common, and repeated, mishap done during restringing is reversing the limbs. While I was working on one last night, I had to restring the legs three times or more because I kept putting them on the wrong side, and I kept double-checking to be certain I was stringing them right. I still managed to keep making the same mistake!

As for the hardest...it's getting the little S-hooks for the hands and limbs looped onto the string without lodging the metal tip inside the string. Or just getting them attached in general. I luckily don't get pinched by joints very often. I try to avoid having bare skin anywhere near them while I'm in the process of restringing.

 

I am not going to to restring my doll, I will look for someone to do it for me. just trying to find the right area to go and ask for help.

 

I used to be terrified to the bone of the very idea of restringing a doll. I went for years without doing it, until I finally got an Iplehouse Grace who was so floppy that her only positions were a deep bow when trying to stand, or resting her head on her knees when sitting. Clearly something had to be done, and I did NOT want to be the one to do it. Unfortunately, looking under the beds and behind the rosebushes wouldn't have netted me any BJD-knowledgeable volunteers, so yeah, it was me or no one. I bought a hemostat and a stringing tool, and took her apart with trembling hands. Huh. It had only taken a few minutes, and had actually been quite easy...which meant the hard part I had been dreading was clearly yet to come. So, I bravely rolled up my sleeves, tightened the elastic and put her back together. It took only a few minutes longer than it had to pull her apart.

To make a long story even longer, it was the silliest that I have ever felt before or since as a doll owner when I realized that all of that anxiety, all of the daydreams of finding a customizer to do restringing for me, and all of the nervous shaking when I first pulled her head off...were utter and complete much-ado-about-nothing. Now I do it without any hesitation, and actually find both the experience and the ultimate results to be quite enjoyable and gratifying.

 

I honestly don’t mind restringing. I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it or avoid it. I have so far only had one restringing accident. An s hook sliced open my finger when restringing my dollzone body. Other than that I haven’t had anything weird or painful happen lol.

 

I put it off for as long as I can. Not until they are a floppy mess. I dread the process something bad.

 

I usually enjoy restringing my dolls, but I have been reduced to screaming when putting a Doll Chateau Ant back together. Never ever again shall I do that to myself

 

I also put off restringing because my first few attempts were miserable failures, and I'm easily discouraged (lol). All these tales of people spilling blood over their dolls is not exactly making me want to do it more...

 

I too love restringing! Now that I know how to do it in a way that works for me...I can restring anything and fast.

But I have stories. So many stories.

My second doll had his knot move to his leg. It cracked loudly every time I tried to move him and scared the hell out of me. I had no idea what was happening! I thought he was going to break, and in a panic, cut the string. I had no string to replace it so he had to be in pieces until I got some. I managed to restring him (with some help) and he was literally never the same.

My fifth doll was my first second-hand purchase and my first hybrid, and the first doll that came to me unstrung, and my first Volks as he was on an SD13 body. His previous owner sent great instructions and I followed them and strung him up pretty good. But he would just...lose his head at horribly inappropriate times. I'm not sure when it is appropriate to lose a head, but I swear this doll's head came off all the time. And then somehow I would manage to unstring the whole body. Well, the top half of the body. So I'd try to get the string back up to put him together and IT NEVER WORKED. There would be tears, blood (I bled on him a lot) and if I ever managed to get him right, it would happen all over again. Thus began my pattern of randomly unstringing Volks dolls.
I learned three things from this doll:
1: It's harder to attempt to put a half-unstrung doll back together than it is to just take the whole thing apart and start over
2: the size of the s-hook matters. His hook was too small, both for the head and the body, which is why I had so much trouble with him.
3: String pullers bad, ribbons good

My fourth doll is the one that hurt me the most. He was a B&G Sapphira, and back in the day, B&G strung their dolls with double hooks in the hands and feet. I think this was their way of making life easier. Unfortunately it just caused me to let go of the string while trying to put him back together after tightening him, and get an s-hook imbedded in my thumb. More blood.
I learned to use chopsticks to aid in restringing dolls from this injury.

One of my LE15 boys taught me the hard way not to use metal chopsticks - I had one holding the string in his arm, and it chipped his wrist. Only use wood.
I have had a wooden chopstick break while stringing, but neither me nor the doll were injured during that restringing so I still count it as a win and only use wood.

ONE-PART TORSOS ARE HARD
I'm not kidding. I got my first Volks SD10 body and literally as soon as I pulled it out of the box I somehow unstrung it and it was in pieces. Me and Volks are bad. Also they have too small of s-hooks. It took me forever to put it back together. I was a decently good stringer at this point, and IT TOOK FOREVER. All of my stringing hacks failed in the face of a one-part torso. I still have nightmares.

Pukis. That's it. That's the horror story.
Seriously though, I thought it would be a good idea to string several (four) of them at once in order to make a few hybrids. The only good thing that came out of it is that I learned a needle and thread is a MUST when stringing teeny tinies.

And the worst.
I got a relatively inexpensive Pukifee second-hand that needed some TLC. I took it apart and cleaned it well, and got ready to replace it's gross and old string. Hours later and lots of tears I could not figure out how to put it back together or what I was doing wrong. I was glaring at it in hatred when I realized that one tiny thigh was more hollowed out than the other. After being pissed at FL for shoddy workmanship for a minute I realized that that was where the knot went. In that hollowed out thigh. It was the only place it could go, which is why I was having so much trouble. Who puts a knot in a leg on purpose?! Fairyland. Regardless, it worked and he got put back together.

The funniest
So my favorite doll is a Ringdoll K on a Dollmore Glamor Model body. The Glamor Model body is new, he was on a Model body up until this year. Model bodies have almost no muscle tone at all, and their arms, while not shapeless tubes, are close. They also have this dot system I've never been able to crack even though Dollmore was my first doll and I own a lot of them. I'd never owned a Model body before this one, but it was constructed almost exactly like the Adam body so when I got it, I restrung him with thicker, very tight string and sueded his hips and chest, which is what I did with all my Adams. No big.
But this RDK hybrid needed a bunch of magical symbol tattoos. All over his upper body including both arms. I did a really good job on those arms.
And one day I had his hands off, for some reason I don't remember, and I noticed the dots. Two on one and one on the other. On a very obviously right and left hand. Which didn't match up to the dots on his arms.
Because I had strung them on the wrong sides.
And now he was tattooed. A lot.
I couldn't even cry over this mess but I laughed a lot. Hysterical laughter that is almost screaming. I still laugh about it because how can you not?
And I left him like that, with wrong-side arms for at least close to a year. I kept saying I'd fix it when I got him jointed hands, which I did finally, and then went on and wiped all my work and attempted to redo it so his arms could be on right.

I'm sure there are more than this -- I restring dolls at meets, have had a meet where we did nothing but string dolls where I restrung probably 10 dolls then went home and restrung one of my own, have made s-hooks on the fly, have fixed dolls who seem to be messed up but are just strung wrong, almost always put the wrong foot on first and then have to redo it -- but these are the ones that stand out to me as both the worst, and best because without all these mistakes I wouldn't know how to do things the right way. Or at least my right way, which is the way that works for me.

 

I've tried restringing two dolls, one was a very kicky resin soul mi and the other was a doll chateau MSD and I cannot figure out how you lot do it so easily. It's so difficult and then after I've fought tooth and nail against the elastic the doll is still floppy. Suffice it to say I hate it lol.

 

Okay so I've only ever restrung a doll once and it was because i received him second hand unstrung- and long story short, it was a nightmare that I almost needed to get stitches for.

When I got the doll, I was so ready for the challenge of restringing because A) I loved him so so much and wanted to see him put together so very badly; and B) I had seen some videos that made the process look easy.

Okay. Easier said than done.

At first, I strung him quickly and everything seemed okay- had some complications at first because my restringing tool was too small so I had to switch to a makeshift wire thing + ribbon (which ended up being the best method anyway so hallelujah)- but then when I tried to put the s-hook through the neck, it wouldn't work. Like, at all. And I got so frustrated trying to pull the blasted thing through the head with no avail, scratching the resin almost in actual tears because I didn't know what wasn't working.

At first I thought the S-hook was too large. So I went to the store to look for a slightly smaller one and lo-and-behold, the store had nothing. So I went home, still frustrated and tried again- maybe there was another issue I was overlooking- not the s-hook size. So I tried a bunch of things, cross referencing my other doll chateau dolls (oh did I mention this was a doll chateau doll? Yes, skinny and even more difficult! But love him to death.) and finally realized that the knot was above the neck, so of course it wouldn't fit into the head hole.

So it was at the moment that I realized i would have to restring him again after already stringing him. Well this is where everything went south. Turns out UN-stringing the doll is way worse than restringing.

I was eager to get him strung so in my haphazard impatient frenzy, I grabbed the feet and just tried to hold the s-hook with my bare fingers while pulling off the foot (why... just why) and well what do you know- you should NOT hold the s-hook that connects the elastic to the feet with your bare hands!!! Use a ribbon!!! Because when I let go, the hook lodged into my finger and the tension on the elastic was so strong, it pulled right back into the leg, slicing my pointer finger right down the middle on its way.

I just stared at it and went oh crap oh crap this is gonna hurt so bad really soon. I was just so in shock at what had happened. It was basically the equivalent to if you had a fish hook stuck in your finger, and then pulled it down right through your skin. It hurt like crazy, but it didn't hurt as much as it was just so painful to watch happen. I just literally couldn't believe my eyes or think rationally at all.

I really needed stitches for the wound (the finger was cut seriously almost in half- or it looked like it anyway) but I DREAD going to the hospital so I just wrapped it up tight while screaming and kept it bandaged in a make-shift cast for a couple weeks. The skin reconnected on its own.

But boy did I learn my lesson to use ribbon!! Now, if I ever have to restring a doll again (I will avoid it at all costs though), I have a super safe and easy way using a mixture of ribbon, a wire that I shaped into a hook (wire is great because it's malleable and can can shape to fit through oddly shaped limbs), a wrench, chopsticks, and a whole lot of patience a rational thinking.

 

What are good tips to get the perfect tension? I have a floppy girl, but the last one I did she ended up kicky.

 

I hate to say this, but trial and error. I don't think there is a perfect tension? I have friends who like their dolls floppy, whereas if I pick my dolls up from a sitting position and they don't stay in that position they're too loose for me.
Dolls can be too tight - I saw once a million years ago that if you can't pull a limb out at least a cm (I usually attempt two cm just in case) the doll is too tight, so that's my general rule.

Also keep in mind, poor posing might not even be the result of string tension at all, it could be the size of the string is too small or too large, or the string is so old it no longer has any stretch to it.

 

Assembly required for my DV Bethel...I had to string in the wings. The string was bare enough to stretch so I can string both joints. I live alone so noone around to help. I had to lay the doll down on its side and with my foot, push against his back while I used one hand to pull the string and another to put a broken off paintbrush in between the string to keep it in place. I hooked up the other joint and pulled the paintbrush out and was able to put the wings together. That took...a while and never again!

 

I had a lot of luck recently with a bunch of makeshift tools the first time. I got some hemostats to help and used a pretty stiff cord in a loop to guide the elastic through. I looped the end of it over my bed post so I could just brace against the body part to get the right tension, and that worked out pretty well. I had a close call where I almost launched a thigh into my face, but it worked.

Of course, after I finished, I came to find that the elastic I bought was way too weak so I have to do it again anyway when the new stuff arrives.

 

One time, at a meet a good hour and a half from home, my kid delf cherry just... dropped a foot (into water no less). I tend to carry ribbon in my doll carriers in case I need to remove a head or something. Impromptu leg restringing with ribbon that was only barely able to reach, in the grass, with people watching was uh, interesting XD Thankfully Luts old kid delf bodies have a separate string for each leg so only one leg came apart on me.

I've had dolls draw blood before, I've had limbs go flying... I don't usually mind restringing a doll as long as I have the elastic for it, but sometimes I think the doll minds being restrung And for some reason I can never get the tension on my delfs right

 

Thank you, some very good insight...got to pull up the big girl pants and go for it ....

 

Can anyone tell me what size elastic I need to restring a Fairyland Little Fee. I bought some 3.5mm that is way too large, and don't want to do trial and error any more . Thank you!

 

I finally buckled up and took apart my doll chateau Diana so I can customize her...and it was a very traumatic first "restringing" process. I say in quotes because A) I haven't quite finished customizing yet and B) I'm so so scared to even try to restring her!!

I'm not sure if there's a DC doll out there that has smaller limbs/inner channels than a Diana (given, I've only ever seen my own dolls in person). The elastic that came with her was about as thick as said channels, and somehow they not only managed to double it up but ALSO get knots in the correct places...I was honestly baffled trying to take her apart. And THEN came the lower torso. I made the mistake of trying to go quickly and not using tools, and the elastic broke. No biggie, right? It'll make it easier to pull out! Wrong. So, so wrong. The frayed and broken knot got stuck inside of the extremely narrow channel of one of the thighs. And it was wedged in there GOOD. The only ways in were through one of the thigh channels or through the very long and skinny torso. It took me almost 2 hours of fiddling and tears to get the knot out, at which point I discovered i was WAY bigger than I thought, and frayed to hell and back. A HUGE mess, tbh.

I have some slightly smaller elastic for her though, and I'm hoping stringing her a little less tight than DC does will help in the long run...but I'm also hoping I never ever have to restring her again after this. Probably not the best first doll to try restringing tbh lol

 

I'm waiting on my first BJDs in the mail and honestly...this is the thing I'm scared of the most is the stringing. I'm pretty good at puzzles so I think I should be able to figure out even more complicated dolls *looks at DC Ela and sweats*
But its the idea of the tension failing or worse being too tight and snapping that I have a secret fear its going to do some damage. I know that when they're in my hands I probably will feel less anxious, but I'm glad I have a resource of everybody on DOA to check if something goes wrong

 

Ooo congratulations on your first dolls!! I have owned several dolls for a long time now and just recently restrung one. It was a lot easier than I expected! The hardest part was that its rough on my hands lol. Maybe start with a basic doll and work up to the complex ones I have a girl that came with high heeled legs i want to put on but they're so odd, I'm trying to research it more.

 

Agree with @BebeBjd, restringing isn’t as scary as it seems. Once of the first things I did when I got my first doll was take her apart lol. Best practice is to work on a table or other surface where you can lay out the parts in the order you pull them off and keep the limbs on their proper side. It's very easy to mix up right and left pieces. As far as tension goes, I think it would be very difficult to do it so tight the elastic snaps. There’s a risk of too tight elastic doing damage over long term, but you can redo the string and loosen the tension some of you leave a long enough tail on the ends.

 

I wouldn't say that I dislike restringing as I have restrung friends' dolls without too much issue.
That being said, I have had enough bad experiences restringing my own dolls to the point where I would rather hop the roughly 5hour shinkansen to Tenshi no Sato and have the Dolly Doctor fix the issue than make myself suffer.
The first few times I restrung my FCS girl it went horribly wrong. The first time I accidentally switched her elbow peanuts and thus she had her arms doing all sorts of unnatural poses until I finally realized that it was because they were flipped. Fixing it was annoying but I did manage to get it done without a full restringing so I call it a win.
The second time I had to restring her because of the floating piece inside the Suwarikko torso go loose and she was thus stuck in a perpetual back-bend from the waist up. I tried to restring her twice to fix this problem and both times the piece popped back out again. Thankfully I had a business trip to Kyoto pop up and took the opportunity to get her to to the Dolly Doctor on my one day off while there and all was well and good at the cost of just sore shoulders from lugging her around for 18 hours straight.

Needless to say that the Dolly Doctor is a true angel and I would not hesitate to hand over my girls to him.
He is very kind and polite; any basic maintenance (not Satogaeri, full restringing with new elastic or removing glued in eyes) is free and he even writes up a certificate for the services he performed on that visit with the doll's name for your records!

 

My first restringing was, uh, an adventure I had to do it before I was ready-- as in, I had no tools on hand with which to do it. A weak S-hook unbent and sent the elastic shooting down the poor guy's torso. I sighed in exasperation and ordered some tools.

... and then stubbornly decided no, I can do this now, I have the motivation already so I don't want to wait. So I improvised.

It's worth noting that I also stubbornly decided not to undo the entire doll and make things easier on myself, and instead decided oh I'll just pull the string back up, no big deal.

It was a big deal.

So I grabbed a pair of household pliers to squeeze the S-hook back together and snag the elastic when I managed to pull it back up through the neck hole; a pair of those cruddy headphones they give you on planes with the earbuds snipped off; and a craft beer that I quickly downed for, uh, motivation.

Used the headphones wire to loop through the elastic and pull it back up through the neck. Ended up with two broken nails, headphone wire marks in my fingers, holding the torso by the shoulder with my knee as I yanked. Had a heartbreaking moment where I got the elastic far enough through the neck to pin with the pliers but was half a second too slow in grabbing them and it slipped back down again.

... needless to say, it's nice to have actual tools now For what it's worth though, he's stayed together since then!

Snagged a photo of what the MVP of the event looks like now: the poor headphone wires lol. They worked hard.

 

@Atzend those S hooks breaking/chipping the resin is a fear of mine! Btw I love your pfp lol, that's so cute

 

@BebeBjd I was really quite lucky that the hook didn't chip anything!! I was halfway through pulling it up through the head when the bottom just gave way, any higher and it might've left a chip in the neck hole!
And thanks! Hahaha it's a rattle my son had as an infant that I just started using as my pfp everywhere

 

Thank you so much! This seems like it'd be common sense but you're totally right, it makes a lot of sense to practice with simpler dolls and go from there. Thank you for the advice, I hadn't thought it out that way! One of my new bodies needs some care and her sueding needs to be redone, so that'll be good practice

 

@RmA113 Best of luck!

 

I once punched myself in the face while attempting to put a dolls head back on with a pair of vise grips after restringing it too tightly. I did this in front of a friend even. I'm pretty sure it took everything she had not to bust out laughing.

 

When I got the first version of Seimei, my Dollshe Hound, he came from Tensiya very loosely strung... It was a precaution against breakage, I assume.

Anyway, I knew that he *really* needed to have his strings tightened to have any prayer of holding a pose, so utterly unintimidated by this giant 70cm chunk of Floppy McFlopperson, I grabbed the doll, grabbed my tools, spun him around and started to get to work.

At which point he introduced me to the infamous "Hound Belly-pop".... <_<

Yep. Big Dude flopped over and hit me right in the nose with his big bald head. >_>

It was not an auspicious beginning to our relationship. (And yeah. I sold that version a few years later and bought another Hound on the updated, less belly-popping updated body. Seimei v2 did NOT punch me in the nose straight out of the box, and has been with me ever since. )

When I went to restring my Haute Hound the other day... I remembered the lesson Seimei v1 had taught me. Rafe was NOT given the chance to repeat his cousin's kung fu action.

 

People of this thread, please bless me with your skills! I'm serious, 'cause I've been in this hobby for who knows how many years (on and off), and I still fear restrining. I had two Migidoll bodies in the past that were a bit kicky (one of them more so), and boy oh boy, did I try and try, and it was always either even worse or they got too wobbly to stand. I measured everything correctly, watched what feels like a thousand youtube tutorials on the topic, but still no luck! I think I'm really just hopeless.

 

Oh my gosh! I seriously laughed out loud, that sounds painful but I'm impressed at your determination!

Hmmm...and they're fully sueded? Maybe its less so an issue with the stringing and possibly other factors with the doll. Also, I imagine the string itself would factor into the how well they pose too. If you have a weaker or older elastic, then that wouldn't hold as strongly as fresh, thick stuff. Of course, its just a matter of trouble shooting, but I wish you the best of luck!! Hopefully others on here will have more tips, as I'm just a beginner

 

I'm not a big sueding fan, to be honest, so I've tried it on my dolls. I did however tried wiring some of my dolls in the past, but this did not help either. I've always used brand new elastic, so it couldn't have been that. I suppose why I'm so frustrated is because the bodies I had trouble with were usually described by other as very good posers, sturdy and easy to handle.

 

I am not too keen on restringing dolls. Of course, I do it when needed, but I am not a huge fan of it. Maybe it's the lack of tools or something. I am not accident prone person and I haven't hurt myself badly while doing it but I have gained some smalls scratches on myself while restringing.

 

I have to restring all my second hand dolls, because the string take smells and use to smell parfume. I need to put in new scentfree elastics. I have diagnosis MultipelChemicalSensivity so I getting serious ill from airborne chemicals.
My last doll is an Angel of Dreams Bo 90 cm, he came unstringed because I asked for it. He's a big boy. I have no idea of how to resting him. And not hurt myself..
Some advise?

 

It really helps to have something sturdy to pull against. I've never string a 90cm doll, but for my 70cm, I will usually loop a piece of rat tail cord through the elastic, tie a double knot in it, and then slip the loop over my bed post. That way, all I have to do is grip the doll and push it away from me until I can get my hemostats on the elastic. It;s just important to make sure the doll is never pointed at you, because it will go flying straight for your face if you accidentally let go.

Ribbon would also work fine, but I like the cord because it's smooth easy to untie the knot when I want to.

For a 90 cm doll, I'd get a pair of really sturdy heavy-duty hemostats, and maybe even also use some wooden dowels through the elastics as back up in case they fail. That elastic is no joke, and I could see it easily being strong enough to cause thin objects to dent or scratch the resin.

Good luck!

 

As an alternative to ribbon or cord, you could use metal wire. I take a wire about 10-12 inches long, fold it in half, and then roll the ends so that they're not sharp. The wire is nice and stiff for guiding the elastic through the parts, and it gives me a good grip when I pull on it. A lot of people use hemostats to hold onto the elastic once they get it through the pieces, but I just shove a bamboo skewer in there. It's really all preference, and figuring out what works for you.

To add to the thread topic: I was restringing my DollZone Carter when I first got him, because his chest piece needed a repair. When I went to take his head off, the elastic was so tight that it snapped back into place immediately, and with such violence that the S-hook actually took off the stem on one of his glass eyes. The glass stem then flew up and hit me right next to the eye. It was quite the reminder to be careful in the future. I've since restrung dolls probably a hundred times without issue, but I'm still careful.

 

My Diana came not strung, and I still haven't gotten her put together. I just cannot do it. My son has been trying to put her together for me, and can't do it either.

 

I used to really enjoy it, but since developing nerve damage in my hands due to radiation therapy, I have no feeling in my finger tips. So doing any kind of doll maintenance is a real challenge. The hardest thing is pulling the elastic tight enough. I have no strength in my hands. Its frustrating because many of my dolls are getting older and their strings are losing their stretch, so they are all terribly floppy.

Just adding that my favorite tools for restringing are a pair of forceps and a string puller tool. The string puller is from the fabric store. I ordered forceps from a medical supply store. I actually have 2 pair.

 

What does a string pulling tool look like?

 

So you could buy a restringing tool if you're so inclined (here's one from Dollmore). You could also use a crochet hook with a deep hook.

But honestly, as others have pointed out, I have had the best luck with a folded piece of wire, or a piece of ribbon that I just tied on one end of the elastic (yarn works too). With smaller or curvier limbs, I struggled with straight metal tools.

 

I've used bent wire, crochet hooks and even folded over pipe cleaners for smaller dolls. I have a hardware tool called a wire puller that I use a lot. I use big knitting needles to keep the elastic from snapping back in.

I do a lot of hybridizing and buy second hand a lot, so restringing doesn't bother me. That being said... when my first doll, my BBB Sprite (my avatar) arrived, I took her out of the box and her string immediately broke, scattering her all over the house! So I got a crash course in restringing right out of the gate.

 

Sometimes, you have to use your toes.

 

I have a doll that's strung with blue shock cord because that's the only thing I could find locally without breaking the bank. Doll is pretty pale, too, so jokes about blue blood came to mind . I'll restring her properly as soon as I get my hands on prope leather for sueding (don't like messing around with hot glue).
Aside from that, all my humanoid dolls are 1/4 scale so restringing them isn't hard. I've got a pet doll though, that I haven't painted yet because I'm not confident that I can take him apart and put him together again. It's a Dream Valley Tea. His strings and hooks are so very tiny...

 

I agree with Arekushia about the feet! My big Impldoll boys make me brace their shoulders against my feet and PULL the string up through the neck. It's a lot prettier than when I used to try to go the other way around though! So many bites...

 

I generally enjoy stringing dolls and I can string my SDs with ease because they are all human bodies with rather basic parts.

I do remember the first time I strung a doll, he had no carvings inside the parts and I strung his left and right shin on the wrong sides. I only noticed my mistake after the lower body was put together and when standing up, it looked like he needed to use a restroom really urgently.

One of my first times stringing: I got a brand new doll shipped to me unstrung from the company, with the strings and hooks included in the package. I strung him up, arms first and then legs, put a separate string through each leg. I picked him up by his waist and then... his head S hook just sinks through the neckhole and shoots all the way through his torso. His legs fall off theatrically and collapse on the floor, and the bust part with arms still attached flops down to my lap. I'm left with just the middle torso piece in my hand. I was sitting on a carpet so thankfully nothing broke. The company I guess never checked if the S hooks they sent out with the dolls actually sit on top of the neckhole and don't fall right through when pulled lol. I didn't have any spare hooks so I solved the issue with a metal washer that the doll still has several years later between the hook and his neck.

 

This story sounds like it'd make a hilarious GIF or video!

 

Thankyou! I have use of your advise! am a bit nervous.