At almost exactly 1 month ago, during one of my dollfie shoots, I successful broke my doll’s torso joint. It was irritating, troublesome and made her look like a jellyfish. Ever since that day, I’ve had trouble with getting her to pose properly standing up. I tried many ways and asked many experienced doll owners on their various methods of repair.
Anyway I’m sure for those who shoot dollfies, it’s very frustrating to pose with a DD2 body. The frustration level is on par with trying to balance a non-twintailed nendoroid.
The posts when the joint broke -
Flowerism.
Beatrice and Flowers @
www.kodomut.com/2011/10/07/flowerism/
www.kodomut.com/2011/10/06/broken-bot-beats/
So fast forward to present day, after a certain picture sent by Danny during one of conversations I had with him, I decided to use this to fix the joint. Unfortunately I cannot find the picture of the modded DD frame, but the concept is relatively similar, using a full ball joint to replace those retardedly stiff screw joints.
Got to pluck out one of the leg first.
I bought this miniature gorilla pod from a local camera shop while shopping around for AFA stuffs. I paid 18 bucks for it, but I’m pretty sure you can easily get it much much cheaper elsewhere.
I asked for the smallest sized one and I think the size is just nice, not too small nor too big.
A broken torso joint seems to be relatively common.
I guess mine broke from rough handling and bad Singapore weather. I’ve opened my doll a times. During the very first time dismantling everything, the joints felt like they fused together. I guess you have to attribute it to the humid and heat over here.
I occasionally oil my joints with SINGER OIL. I’ve a fetish for oiling stuff. I love to oil my tripod, my bag zips and anything that has a moving part. I read somewhere that it significantly increases the lifespan of the product. I first found out the effectiveness of oiling when I noticed my Drossel figma had this particularly stiff shoulder joint.
Waist joint fully dismantled.
I had to figure how to attach the tripod’s leg to the waist joint.
After much trial and error, I figured the best way was to screw it into one of the joints. Just drilled a hole through one of the tripod’s leg section.
Filing it so that it fits into the joint.
Screw on and after that attach it with the nut. You’ll see the final pic at the end.
Next I had to figure out how to attach the tripod leg to the chest section.
This one took me quite a while to figure out. I went with a 3 section connection in the end. First I drill a hole into a piece of acrylic rod.
After that, I drill a hole through a section of the tripod leg and then attach them together. The acrylic rod fits snuggly into the metal rod which joints everything together at the end of the day.
Big problem, simple solution. Later on, I realised how convenient this attachment is.
So here’s the modded frame after everything. It really adds a whole lot of flexibly that I’ve always been found wanting on my doll.
There’s 5 leg sections in the picture, but it would cause the chest and the belly section to be a little further apart than usual. It’s perfect if you want to do a arc back or a bend forward though.
Anyway, I’ll let the pictures do the talking:
This is a 4 section connection
Still a 4 section connection. The chest section can do a 360 if you want and if that’s your cuppa tea
Now here comes the fun part. Remember the metal rod and acrylic rod connectors? They can easily be removed, which slices the doll into 2 parts.
Why would I want to do that? So that I can attach a 5th, 6th, 7th or 20th section for more flexibility.
So much fun (:
It’s been a long time since I’ve used my tools and this has been a very very fun project. I wonder if there are people who sell broken DD2 bodies. I wouldn’t mind having more practice modding another body. ^^
I’ve to balance out the other legs. The tripod looks really weird now!
Special thanks to:
Stepswalker, MotokoYamamoto and Danny for their ideas and suggestions on how to fix this problem!
Stepswalker’s solution to the broken torso joint problem here
MotokoYamamoto suggested using Obitsu parts which can be obtained here.
Some trolling pics to end the post, enjoy!!
Holy Mother.
So awesome right? Will let you play with it the next time we meet ^^
of God.
*Sentence completed*
From how you picture it out, it looks complicated to me though. I probably have more problem now, particularly the leg. One of the “stick” is bent. Ugh. Also one of the screw came off from the thigh, I don’t know how it got off either, maybe there’s a crack in there.
The leg screw is quite easily dislodged but also easy to put back, just use a hairdryer and blow the knee, pull the joint out and screw it back
The Thing! @_@
She will come in the middle of the night and lick you
Good to see you were able to fix her, nothing as frustrating and worrying as a broken joint, especially for recent owner when she’s brand new.
I did lol when I read your phrase “I’ve a fetish for oiling stuff.” though guess it wouldn’t hurt for me to oil some of those inner joints next time on my DD.
SO OP LOLOLOLOL.
So awesome, I call that an upgrade XD
Bionic Doll