Repairing stringed dolls like Masterpiece Dolls

As some of you know, I not only reborn dolls but I also collect dolls.  One of the types of dolls I have a couple of are Masterpiece Dolls.  Recently on one of the doll collecting chat boards that I am a member of we have been discussing how to repair loose joints and such on these dolls.  Some valuable information has been shared and so I thought I would post it here (with permission) as well so that others of you can learn how to fix your own dolls as well.

This is a copy of a tutorial a lady named Dee posted on Dollchatter on how to repair the jointed arms:


The above pic shows different joints, vinyl ball bearing and raveled cord as they fell apart on Hailey.



The pic above shows the holes that go through the arm. At the top, you will see what looks like a keyhole.

When Hailey broke, the large bead and large scooped disc (seen below) stayed inside the top part of Hailey's arm. To get it out, I had to run a hair diffuser on it for a few minutes until the vinyl is easily maneuvered. You may have to warm the vinyl several times to get the pieces out because they are so much bigger than the hole.

I had to use long tweezers from a computer repair kit to get these two pieces out.


Once you have the two pieces out, run the cord through the bead and scoop disc as shown below.





You'll also have to heat the vinyl when ready to put the pieces back into that keyhole with cord running through it as seen in next photo.



Once , you have the bead and scooped disc with the cord running through it in the keyhole, take hanging cord and run through the vinyl ball bearing joint and lower arm.

I had to use the long tweezers plus needle nose pliers to get this done.

The next photo shows simply tying off the cord in the round eyelet on hand but it took two people to pull that cord as tight as we could to get good tight joints. I can't express this enough because if you don't get it good and tight and use as little cord as you can, the joints will get loose again. Tie good knots.



I cut 18 inches of cord which was way more than I needed but it made it easier to pull all the pieces together tight. Yes, I wasted a lot of cord but I'd do it again.

Unless you do this over and over for days and weeks until it is "old hat", I would use plenty of cord.

I'm assuming this is how the shoulder joint is done as well as the scoop discs can be black as well as white. I don't believe the MP dolls are put together with S hooks. If the bead has fallen into the cavity of the doll, you will have to find one or get MP to send you some. I'll do a little research and see if I can find these beads with a hole somewhere on the internet.

I'm remembering the bead to be 5/8 to 3/4 inch in size and the disc a good inch and a half.

I hope this helps those of you with MP dolls and loose joints. This really is not hard. I couldn't believe how easy it was so, those of you who are so inclined, go ahead and swap out the cord and you'll love the tight joints.

HERE IS WHERE I GOT MY CORD BUT IF YOU DO LOTS OF THIS, WE MIGHT WANT TO LOOK FOR BIGGER BALLS OF CORD.

http://www.thedollhospital.com/strin...asticcord.html

I BOUGHT THE BOTTOM ONE WHICH IS FOR PATTI PLAYPAL AND IT WORKED GREAT.

HERE IS WHERE YOU CAN GET THE 5.5 MM CORD IN BULK. JUST USE THE DROP DOWN BOX TO GET TO 5.5 MM.

http://www.allforadoll.com/sunshop/i...t_detail&p=139

__________________________________________________

Tricia of Dolls Bears and Gifts had gotten these photos from Masterpiece on how to assemble doll legs I have uploaded them all to photobucket.   If you go to this link you can view them all and/or copy them for your files.

Click link below to be taken to photos:  http://photobucket.com/MasterpiecedollLegAssembly

__________________________________________________

Here are some more images I acquired on how to tighten a doll's head

Click here to see them:

http://photobucket.com/HowToTightenDollHeads

Happy Doll Repairs Everyone!