Wobble head

An easy way to create a wobbly head for your careworn style bears - suitable for medium/large bears.

1. You will need two hardboard discs (appropriately sized for your bear), two round headed split pins (cotter pins) and four washers. You will also need a pair of round nose pliers and a pair of long flat nose pliers.

2. Using your flat nosed pliers, ease open the top of your two split pins.

3. Link the two split pins together through the opened tops.

4. Slide a washer onto one of the split pins, then slide on a hardboard disc, followed by another washer.

5. Using your pliers (I use both types for this!) turn a traditional crown joint making sure you don't pull it too tight, so your bear's head will loll appealingly to one side when he is completed.

6. Insert the joint into the bear's head in the usual way, making sure the uncoiled split pin is left pointing out of the head, ready to be inserted into your bear's body.

7. Using strong thread (I prefer to use nylon thread) sew around the base of the head leaving the split pin dangling and pull stitches tightly together before fastening threads to close the head. I prefer to repeat this process twice to ensure the head is firmly closed.



8. When assembling your bear's head to his body in the usual way, simply add a hardboard disc and washer as normal and repeat the crown joint inside the body cavity.

9. Finally, when stuffing your careworn bear consider how floppily you would like him to sit and stuff/joint his limbs and body appropriately to create an impression of a well-loved, teddy bear.

Attaching the head to the body

Before we get started on fixing the head to the body, here's a pic of the tools I'll be using. I like to use two separate pairs of pliers for jointing, a round nose pair and a flat nose pair. The joints for this bear are traditional hardboard discs held in place with split pins and washers in the head and arms. I use nuts and bolts in the legs for extra strength. You can see a stuffing stick in the photograph, which is self explanatory, a tape measure and a thin headed chisel, which I use to make the holes in the hardboard discs slightly larger to accommodate heavy duty split pins and bolts. The phillips screwdriver and ratchet thingy are to tighten to nuts and bolts. I'll explain the wadding when we get to assembling the arms and legs.



Oops, I just realised I forgot to include the awl in the tools photograph above - good job I'm not writing a book here!

This bear will have his head attached using the traditional cotter pin and hardboard joint method.

I use the pointy end of the awl to make a small hole in the centre seam of the bear's chest, about quarter of an inch from where it meets the back. This is where the bear's head will be inserted.

Here I am inserting the split pin at the base of the bear's head into the hole I just made with the awl.

This particular bear needs a 2.5" hardboard disc to give his head the right amount of support. Here I am slotting the disc over the split pin which is now poking through into the bear's body.

I have added a steel washer over the split pin to protect the disc before I use the round nose pliers to begin tightly curling one side of the pin.

I find the flat nosed pliers work best to finish curling the split pin securely.

Once it's curled tightly on one side of the pin. I repeat the process on the other. It's important to get this as tight as possible to hold the head steady for years to come.

And it really is as simple as that! Freddie's head is now securely attached to his body and he's waiting patiently for his arms and legs ...