Poor Dee may need neck surgery

Dees Man · Post by **Dees Man** » Mon Oct 27, 2014 3:06 am

Hi everyone

It appears Dee may need to have neck surgery, but before doing anything, we would like some advice from any 4Woods doctors out there. She is a 4Woods S+ manufactured in Japan April/May 2014. I haven't seen what the neck joint looks like, so my diagnosis is all guess work. Any pictures of the current neck joint would be greatly appreciated.

Dee's symptoms

Basically her head is loose in forward/backward motion. Side to side is very tight. When sitting, her head needs to be straight up or it will fall forwards or back.

When did symptoms first appear?

I recently did a photoshoot that included this pose

Although her head is pulled back a long way, it is only a little further than 4Woods have on their website specifically this one.

: Manami 4.JPG (55.06 KiB) Viewed 5373 times

I didn't notice any looseness for a few days after this shoot, and don't recall making any other unusual movements to the point in time I realized it was loose. I do push her head sideways a bit when we

as it makes kissing her easier.

My Diagnosis

Movement either forwards, backards or sideways is fluid so I don't think anything is actually broken.

Observing the movement of the silicon around the joint, I assume there is a universal joint with sideways pivot below the forward/backwards pivot. As the sideways joint is so tight, I believe that the pressure put on the neck to move it sideways has loosened the joint above it.

The Operation

At this staged I need to say I have no intention of doing this unless it really needs to be done and I have all the information required to undertake it. That said, I have already had to put off a project that we had been planning for a while as it would have required Dee sit leaning forwards slightly with her head back so as to look forwards but her head would just flop forwards.

Having seen other operations performed by other members, I don't see anything too difficult for me to accomplish. The only part I see I might stuff up would be gluing the incision. I think the best way to reveal the joint would be a vertical cut down the back of the neck until the joint is accessible. If my handy work at gluing it is less than perfect, it will be hidden by her wig.

Any advice or help with this is greatly appreciated, either posting in this thread or PM me

Thanks
Dees Man and (unhappy but not in pain) Dee

Everhard · Post by **Everhard** » Mon Oct 27, 2014 2:03 pm

It might be worth first examining the bracket. You should be able to tighten any loose bolts without making an incision, although it is not easy.

See Laura's neck tightening session -- the middle four photos of this page:
http://www.dollcoffeeshop.com/Maintenan ... aint2.html

AnonViking · Post by **AnonViking** » Mon Oct 27, 2014 2:40 pm

Oh no

But you moved the head too far, much too far I think. There's a big different between the photos, the 4woods photo shows a much more straight back and neck.

: 4woods.jpg (83.73 KiB) Viewed 5333 times

Post by **brigittes hubbie** » Mon Oct 27, 2014 4:49 pm

Hi Dees Man,
I hope Sweet Dee will be fine soon,
Chris

Post by **Nescio50** » Mon Oct 27, 2014 5:01 pm

I did neck surgery on Lissa about two months ago. It's quite easy.
First, check if the problem is the upper most joint or the one below. If it's the upper one, you'll be able to tighten it from above without making an incision.
If I recall correctly, the upper most joint is for left/right movement and for forward/backward movement is the one beneath

I made a vertical incision on the back of the neck, tightened the joint and glued the incision using the repair kit that was provided with this doll. The scar is visible but not too bad (I probably can do it better with another treatment with silicone) but normally her wig is in front of it.
If you need more info, just let me know! Good luck!

Dees Man · Post by **Dees Man** » Tue Oct 28, 2014 6:24 am

Hi guys and thanks for your responses,

I had read Everhard's thread on the neck bolt. I read most of the recent threads in this sub-forum wait for Dee to arrive in the way back.

Without her head on, Dee's neck/bolt/bar/pillar doesn't feel loose, it doesn't rattle. Without her head on it is virtually impossible to move it sideways, but can move back and forth with just a thumb and index finger.

I realise her head in the pic is a long way back. A hinge or pivot of any sort can bend to the point where the two parts joined meet or one part meets a third that prevents it moving further like a door frame. The problem with moving a doll joint too far (not forced) is the silicon may not withstand the amount of bend applied, not the actual joint in the skeleton. When posing both of my ladies, I am careful to make sure the joint is able to be moved before proceeding and not to do it abruptly. I have emailed 4Woods and PM them on TDF asking for more info on how the skeleton bends but unfortunately never received an answer.

Since Dee arrived, the sideways movement of her neck has always been a worrying move. Not knowing where the fulcrum of the hinge is means I have to guess where to put my hand on the neck before applying pressure to the side of the head. I believe with my hand most probably in line with the front/back hinge and the extra pressure required for the possibly over tight sideways hinge has resulted in front/back joint spreading slightly.

I have the "tool box" provided with Dee, and I pretty sure there was glue in there. I didn't want to "go in" but after photos today, I think it is inevitable. If I do, I may as well make it a show and tell, so I will do pics and video in between tearing my hair out while doing it. I will post it in this thread.

Fingers crossed
Dees Man and (a more worried now) Dee

james1969 · Post by **james1969** » Tue Oct 28, 2014 6:39 am

Dees Man wrote:Hi guys and thanks for your responses,

I had read Everhard's thread on the neck bolt. I read most of the recent threads in this sub-forum wait for Dee to arrive in the way back.

Without her head on, Dee's neck/bolt/bar/pillar doesn't feel loose, it doesn't rattle. Without her head on it is virtually impossible to move it sideways, but can move back and forth with just a thumb and index finger.

I realise her head in the pic is a long way back. A hinge or pivot of any sort can bend to the point where the two parts joined meet or one part meets a third that prevents it moving further like a door frame. The problem with moving a doll joint too far (not forced) is the silicon may not withstand the amount of bend applied, not the actual joint in the skeleton. When posing both of my ladies, I am careful to make sure the joint is able to be moved before proceeding and not to do it abruptly. I have emailed 4Woods and PM them on TDF asking for more info on how the skeleton bends but unfortunately never received an answer.

Since Dee arrived, the sideways movement of her neck has always been a worrying move. Not knowing where the fulcrum of the hinge is means I have to guess where to put my hand on the neck before applying pressure to the side of the head. I believe with my hand most probably in line with the front/back hinge and the extra pressure required for the possibly over tight sideways hinge has resulted in front/back joint spreading slightly.

I have the "tool box" provided with Dee, and I pretty sure there was glue in there. I didn't want to "go in" but after photos today, I think it is inevitable. If I do, I may as well make it a show and tell, so I will do pics and video in between tearing my hair out while doing it. I will post it in this thread.

Fingers crossed
Dees Man and (a more worried now) Dee

Yeah, good luck man, i sure know how it feels having a damaged doll.

Dees Man · Post by **Dees Man** » Tue Oct 28, 2014 6:56 am

Thanks james1969

OK

As soon as I hit submit on that my post I went and checked the box for the glue. Yes, I have parts A,B and C. The instructions say I need hexane.???........huh.......what?

I have googled "hexane" and read about it in wikipedia, but buying it at my local hardware as the instruction manual says doesn't look like it's going to happen.

Is hexane sold under a different name, or is there a more readily available substitute?

Thanks
Dees Man (Dee's just hugging her teddy now)

siliconefun · Post by **siliconefun** » Tue Oct 28, 2014 7:39 am

Nescio50 wrote:I did neck surgery on Lissa about two months ago. It's quite easy.
First, check if the problem is the upper most joint or the one below. If it's the upper one, you'll be able to tighten it from above without making an incision.
If I recall correctly, the upper most joint is for left/right movement and for forward/backward movement is the one beneath
I made a vertical incision on the back of the neck, tightened the joint and glued the incision using the repair kit that was provided with this doll. The scar is visible but not too bad (I probably can do it better with another treatment with silicone) but normally her wig is in front of it.
If you need more info, just let me know! Good luck!

Hi Nescio50,
I've exactly the same problem on with Mia and I noticed it a few weeks after her arrival.
The upper front/back joint works well and is stiff but the one on the lowest attachment needs retightening, we same way you've done.
I plan a surgery later as this loosen front/back movement isn't very annoying and only on lying pose the head falls backward. The left/right movement is stiffer, like Dees Man prescribed.

Thanks much for this prescription as this helps much

Guy

Thelord001 · Post by **Thelord001** » Tue Oct 28, 2014 7:52 am

My Joanna had the same problem and i had to open her up and tighten the nut. Not a fun thing having to do this but the good news is this procedure is quite easy to do. You need to make a small cut in her neck the reach the nut and when tighten it. I have a picture here on the skeleton showing where the nut is. I hope this will help you. The hardest part is to glue everything together because in this place you cant wrap tape around it like you can on the arm or leg.. So i used loctice super glue that dryes in just a couple of seconds, and pressed everything together and it worked.
When i comes to your question about hexane i think chemical bensin is about the same substance and this is a lot easier to find on the market.

Dees Man · Post by **Dees Man** » Tue Oct 28, 2014 8:36 am

Thelord001 wrote:My Joanna had the same problem and i had to open her up and tighten the nut. Not a fun thing having to do this but the good news is this procedure is quite easy to do. You need to make a small cut in her neck the reach the nut and when tighten it. I have a picture here on the skeleton showing where the nut is. I hope this will help you. The hardest part is to glue everything together because in this place you cant wrap tape around it like you can on the arm or leg.. So i used loctice super glue that dryes in just a couple of seconds, and pressed everything together and it worked.
When i comes to your question about hexane i think chemical bensin is about the same substance and this is a lot easier to find on the market.

Hi Thelord001

And thanks, this is the pic I was hoping for. I saw your girls are neoIm but would think the neck would be the same for all the 4W girls.

What's all that going on below the shoulder bar in the spine? Is that specific to neoIm or would my S+ have a spine like that?

Thanks again for the pic
Dees Man

Post by **Nescio50** » Tue Oct 28, 2014 4:04 pm

Dees Man wrote:, I have parts A,B and C. The instructions say I need hexane.???........huh.......what?

Using the standard repair kit which contains parts A, B and C, you don't need anything else. Except for acetone to clean the cut before glueing.

A few years ago, Doll Story gave me 1 Component RTV silicone glue, and hexane was used to soften the silicone mixture. The standard repair kit is a 2 component silicone glue. The 4Woods manual describes how to use it (if you don't have it, send me a PM).

Thelord001 wrote:The hardest part is to glue everything together because in this place you cant wrap tape around it like you can on the arm or leg.. So i used loctice super glue that dryes in just a couple of seconds, and pressed everything together and it worked.

I used some staples to keep the cut closed during the curing of the silicone. I also used some cling film around the neck.

Good luck!

Post by **Sheeana** » Tue Oct 28, 2014 4:14 pm

oh you poor thing! BurntHostage had to do some neck surgery to fix same floppy neck problem a few months ago.. And although our skeletons are only a little different (going by the pic up above) I'm sure you'll be just fine too!!

xoxoxo,
Sheeana

Dees Man · Post by **Dees Man** » Wed Oct 29, 2014 11:34 am

Hi everyone

First I want to thanks to everybody for their advice and well wishers that posted here. To an outsider this may not seem like a big deal but, I think most of you will agree, when confronted with a problem like this, it is a big deal. It took me quite a while to get started as I was so worried about making things worse.

I went to the hardware store and among other things, picked up these items for today's surgery.

I had read posts by other members using "super glue" (I have for finger nails that fall off) but didn't think it a good idea for something like this. However this is "flexible". The packaging alone had me intriguded even though it was 3 times the price of the regular stuff. I've never had a good blade like this before. Man it's sharp! It cut the silicon with very little pressure. It really was like cutting butter.

Anyhow, I got set up.

Yeah, MaDee didn't want to be left out and she brought Dee's teddy to help support Dee. The studio lights were perfect operating theatre lights. The video camera is in the pic, but I didn't do much video. Still shots were quite hard to do, as I wanted to keep the cut to as little as possible so I needed 2 hands to see what was in there. having Dee in that chair was good. It had her at a workable height and was able to use the back to keep my hands steady.

The top of the neck looks different to what others had showed me of older models.

The silicon is solid all the way to that top nut. I had to cut down to about 2 inches above level with the shoulders to be able to access the loose but not broken (thankfully) 3rd bolt down.

There is a joint to tilt the head front/back at the top of the neck and one at the bottom of the neck. The side to side joint is in between. Although the bolt is pretty obscured in the pic, I was able to get the needle nose pliers and a spanner in there with 2 hands. I hardly moved the nut to get the tension it now has.

I tested the glue on a small part of to be hidden silicon and it immediately stuck. Me, impressed. So, I gave the rest a quick wipe and proceded to seal about an inch at a time, holding it in place till it stuck enough to do the next inch. I didn't glue right to the edge, so I needed to pry the edge apart to get a tiny amout in the gap. I did this beacause I didn't want large amouts of glue oozing out while I was holding it together. Once it had dried, I was able to cut the excess off with the blade.

It doesn't look too good, but it is better than what I thought it might be like. I'm probably better off having to do this the first time in this spot as it is always covered by the wig.

I wouldn't use this glue on say a knee operation. They say "flexible" but it is still a lot harder than the silicon. I wanted to save the supplied glue for something more visible that may arise. For the back of the neck, I am happy with it.

Sweet Dee is happy she can keep her head up now. She's gonna have to take it easy from now on. She's too precious. That's what the new girl(s) are for.

Dees Man