It was like there were no bone at all between the palm and the arm.
I ended up opening the wrist.
The wrist plate was made of aluminium. It had broken because of repeated bending in photo shoots; quite inevitable. The good news was it would be easy to replace the plate with a hinge type of a joint.
A hinge of suitable thickness would fit into the slot of the bone and so would the screw in the rotating arm bone fit into the hole in the hinge plate. I found almost exactly what I searched for, the plate of the hinge just needed some trimming.
Bigger picture: http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/al ... ist1_4.jpg
Bigger picture: http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/al ... ist5_8.jpg
Now the hinge would turn too easily. A clue from the BJD (Ball-Joint Dolls) people may be of help here: hot melt glue. One can dope a joint with glue and it will stick in the position it is set easily.
The next problem is the rest of the aluminium plate inside the palm. I would not like to open up the hand any more than necessary, because glueing the skin back together will be pain. It seems like I really can't just pull out the remains of the aluminium plate, because the finger wires are connected to it, or so it appears to be. It is also quite difficult to drill holes into the plate without cutting the hand open more.
O.K. The adventure goes on. If someone have had experience with working inside a 4woods doll hand (or similar) with finger wires or not, advice would be appreciated!
Update 2008-06-26
Illustration provided by 4woods (Hiroo Okawa)
Bigger pictures:
http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/al ... CF4729.JPG
http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/al ... CF4732.JPG
(Left: The wrist frame plate: how it is aligned inside the palm. Right: How to to cut the silicone that pass through the holes in the plate inside the palm. )
The repair, part 2:
Bigger picture: http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/al ... st9_12.jpg
Bigger picture: http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/al ... t13_16.jpg
Bigger picture: http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/al ... 117_20.jpg
Conclusion
The new joint works all right and is tight enough to keep its position inside the wrist. Hot melt glue was not stiff enough, but the plate of aluminium rubbing against he hinge provided the friction needed. Three out of five finger wires came out with the palm frame plate. They were restored later. One more incision was needed to get the tightening bolt of the slot (forearrm) into its place. This was because of the turning range of the rotating forearm.
http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/al ... ist_21.jpg
http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/al ... ist_22.jpg
Re-installing the finger wires
It was a lot easier to insert the finger wires back to their place from the finger tips than from the inside of the palm. The ends of wires stay between the wrist frame plate and thick layer of silicone. As a precaution the ends of wires were bundled together. This way they are less likely to pierce their way to the surface.
Bigger picture:
http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/al ... ist_23.jpg
This fix was quite laborious, more complicated than necessary! If the other wrist will do the same then I most likely won't remove the palm frame plate for drilling. It will be easier to cut the incision into the back side of the palm and reinforce the skin later with fabric of polyester, elastane or nylon, for example.
