Restringing issues of some smaller composition bodies

Here we have a little antique doll made by the G.Heubach company.

He needs to be restrung.

His body is original to him.
But his body was made cheaply with no allowances for future restringing.
Things were made cheaply and quickly back then too!

There are no stringing hooks.
The body was put together by fastening elastic into the limbs with glued in pegs.

On the outside the ends of the pegs and elastics were painted over.

Someone has tried to tighten up the legs using wire.

The arms have had some repairs and then have been attached to the body with string.











To restring a doll body like this I carefully drill out the old elastic. This leaves a hole through the limbs as the elastic was fastened from the outside by the pegs.

So one option for restringing is this:

This is another doll with the same style body.
The new elastic is threaded through the holes and simply knotted.
If you don't mind the knots this is a decent option that leaves the doll as original as possible.

As the other doll had damage on the arms that I was going to repair, I went in another direction and installed stringing hooks.

The holes where the old elastic was got filled and painted to match the body finish.

So the end result is this.....no knots.