Wire Skeletons Are Easy to Make

[Nonfactor]

The Erie doll gave me an inspiration so I'm trying to make a skeleton out of wire for my doll. I got a ring of 3.8mm garden wire (that green coated stuff they use for mesh fences) for about 8€, there's 55 meters to one ring so that's more than enough. There's thinner wire on sale too, that would be easier to bend but I'm not sure about the stability.

It's really easy to work with, cut a piece, curl the ends into spirals like those found on keychains (leave some space since that wire doesn't bend easily, after you connected the rings use a pincer to push them together) and you have a bone. They can be easily connected. For hands and feet you can form shapes that fit the palm better. That gives you a floppy skeleton, of course you can use bending wire joints for better posing, too but I think you'd have to use thinner wire for the joints then. I've made one arm and the spine and placed them inside to test if the material works, it's stiff enough but the Fanta head is too heavy so the I'll have to look into ways to reinforce the spine enough to hold it. That wouldn't be an issue with the hollow heads inflatables come with since they don't weight nearly as much when stuffed. Sorry, no pictures, the only parts I made are currently inside the doll.

[itsme]

take pve pipe cut- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
then slid it on the pipe with the pipe cut you can still bed the wier but it will give you more strength, for the neck and head put a larger pice.
any where you need a smaller bend add a larger pic. more bend add smaller pices.
This works in my head any way.

[deusbot]

I have a foamie, that I've tried a number of things on. I first used wooden dowles since they were too floppy in the wrong places. (A leg shouldn't bend in the middle like that ) I saw the Erie skeleton and got some thick guage copper. The young man gave it for 1/10 the price because of poor math skills. I used the electrical screw on end caps to terminate the ends, and for the fomies they make a great skeleton.

I like Itsme idea about the PVC, just might add some foam on the ends of the PVC so the wire doesn't rattle around but it solidly in the middle. Also find the idea of making your own 'wire bones' by compressing lots of thinner guage wire.

The only issue is long term resistance to breakage. While for experimenters its not a problem, for a consumer product it might be an issue, mostly for the pokey pointy bits of the break. One idea there would be to tape it. Here again itsme's idea of PVC seems interesting. First the PVC provides bone like stiffiner, and protects against breaks in the middle. You can then wrap tape around the wire at the joints between the PVC sections. The result would be stiff enough and flexible enough to pose, but also protect against the wire breaking. Lots of duct tape at the joints.


Or that's how I kinda imagine it.

[Nonfactor]

Of course a commercial builder would use something better but for someone stuffing an inflatable it's good enough.

I'm thinking about getting a Kami Sakura to get a lightweight head, the doll is cheap enough (40€) to be used that way.