[PSA] DDP with loose hips may be assembled incorrectly at factory level

Just earlier, I disassembled @ragnamuffin's DDP Mio to tighten her hip and knee joints, because she had really floppy legs.

The knee joints were a routine fix, but the thigh joints felt somehow different from my Iori's and tightening the screw in the joint would only slightly increase joint stiffness. Only after looking at the joints properly, I realized they were incorrectly put together.

 

The fixed (correct) joint assembly is on the left, the incorrect assembly (as we found it) is on the right:

The hip ball joint on the right is not seated properly in its pan, but sits in a false-positive outside of the pan grooves. The misalignment is easily recognizable by a bit of the ball poking out from the outside of the joint. This causes the part with the thigh peg to be misaligned and in turn the thigh sheath to not slide on fully and easily fall off (until now I wasn't even aware they could come off).

 

Here are the assemblies with the thigh sheaths removed. Now the misalignment of the thigh peg is easily visible and, as you can see, the top part of it gets smushed into the ball joint (also visible in the next photo). Thankfully, that bit isn't too important for joint stability, so even if it's a bit squished, after putting the joint together correctly it should still work properly.

 

In the side view, you can also see how the misaligned thigh peg causes this weird gap that just looks wrong. It splays apart the socket, so the screw can't be properly tightened.

 

FIX: Thankfully this is easy to fix. (The hardest part is getting the joints out of the thigh vinyl shells).

1. Just unscrew the screw as far as necessary (don't lose the nut if you unscrew it all the way).
2. Push the ball joint in until it pops into the proper ball pan. Now everything should look more or less aligned.
3. Re-tighten the screw to taste.

 

COMMENTS:

The doll came with very floppy hips and this is the first time she's been disassembled to tighten her joints. The incorrect assembly must've occurred at the factory. It's sad that something like this passes QC check, but at least now we're aware this may be a thing.

If your DDP's hips are very floppy, you may want to check for this. If you know what to look for, you can peek through the opening of the vinyl shell to see if the ball joint is correctly seated, but if you're not sure, best to disassemble the doll to check.

At this point I'm not sure if this incorrect assembly is also possible with other DD frame types or just limited to DDP.

 

Edited Saturday at 08:52 PM by Tierparkzone

Thank you for this. I have gotten into the habit of disassembling my dolls if something doesn't seem right. A lot of times it's just a loose joint or whatnot, but I'll keep an eye out for this now as well. 

My Custom Touhou Reimu Hakurei (DDP Ribbon) was Disappointingly Loose Out of Box.

Indeed i Dismantled and Tightened Everything that i Could All Throughout her Body...

And She Is Pretty Tight Now; Including those Infamously-Loosey Arms...

So long as i Constantly Make Certain that they are Tightly Pressed Home at All of their Connection Points.

All Told; the DDPretty DESPERATELY Needs an f3 2.0 Redesign... Something we'll Likely Never See...

 

Edited Monday at 03:16 PM by Tasuke

If anyone is uncertain on how to dismantle their doll, here is a how to. 

https://dollfie.volks.co.jp/dd/special/imas/en/support_ddf3.html

On 10/4/2026 at 5:49 AM, Tierparkzone said:

At this point I'm not sure if this incorrect assembly is also possible with other DD frame types or just limited to DDP.

Yesterday, I took apart one of my DDdy-f3 to compare. I'd say, the joint design there makes it a bit more difficult to accidentally put the hip joint together in the wrong way. That said, a sufficiently determined/clueless person could still assemble it incorrectly in a similar way. So I guess if your doll has very loose hips, this can be the cause regardless of which type of f3 and onwards DD you're looking at.

 

On 10/5/2026 at 11:00 PM, Tasuke said:

All Told; the DDPretty DESPERATELY Needs an f3 2.0 Redesign...

Except for the neck pegs, the 2.0 redesigns so far have only affected the vinyl shells. They're still based on existing f3 frame parts. 

From my experience, the DDP skeleton itself is a fairly decent construction. The only issue I have with it is the lack of an adjustment screw in the elbow joint. - A trait it shares with MDD. And we haven't seen this addressed with the MDD 2.0 update either.

Edited 17 hours ago by Tierparkzone

6 hours ago, Tierparkzone said:

Yesterday, I took apart one of my DDdy-f3 to compare. I'd say, the joint design there makes it a bit more difficult to accidentally put the hip joint together in the wrong way. That said, a sufficiently determined/clueless person could still assemble it incorrectly in a similar way. So I guess if your doll has very loose hips, this can be the cause regardless of which type of f3 and onwards DD you're looking at.

 

Except for the neck pegs, the 2.0 redesigns so far have only affected the vinyl shells. They're still based on existing f3 frame parts. 

From my experience, the DDP skeleton itself is a fairly decent construction. The only issue I have with it is the lack of an adjustment screw in the elbow joint. - A trait it shares with MDD. And we haven't seen this addressed with the MDD 2.0 update either.

 

DDP Arms, - At Least the Set that my Ribbon up there Came with - have Disappointingly-Sloppy Elbow Joints.

Every Other Dollfie i Currently Have (DDf3 2.0 x2, DDSIII x2) have Elbows as Tight as one could Ask For,

Yet Poor Reimu is Stuck with Weak Elbows that can be Tightened some by Insuring that each Arm's Parts are as Pressed in together as they go,

and are Barely Able to Hold an Item up in their Hands unless it is Light as a Feather. Not the Case with my other Dollfie Girls.

VOLKS Does Need to find Some Way to Redesign/Tighten Down the Tolerances on the DDP/MDD Arms.

Hopefully; the Arms on my Upcoming MDDf3 2.0 Anya Forger won't be TOO Bad...

Edited 11 hours ago by Tasuke

1 hour ago, Tasuke said:

Yet Poor Reimu is Stuck with Weak Elbows that can be Tightened some by Insuring that each Arm's Parts are as Pressed in together as they go,

and are Barely Able to Hold an Item up in their Hands unless it is Light as a Feather.

Joints like this can still be tightened with the "Super Glue Method". - Basically thickening the middle plate of the joint with a very thin layer of super glue, then sanding that down until the desired friction is achieved. I'm pretty sure there used to be detailed instructions for this on the Smart Doll website before they switched to the evolve frame. 

I did that with my Iori's elbows several years ago and it worked pretty well. But you better know what you're doing before you try this.

 

Edit: I managed to find the Smart Doll instructions which in hindsight don't appear as detailed as I remember. Probably because the accompanying pictures have not been archived...
https://web.archive.org/web/20230725140303/https://dannychoo.com/archive/en/posts/smart-doll-hacks

Edited 9 hours ago by Tierparkzone

4 minutes ago, Tierparkzone said:

Joints like this can still be tightened with the "Super Glue Method". - Basically thickening the middle plate of the joint with a very thin layer of super glue, then sanding that down until the desired friction is achieved

It’s called sueding (from when they used actual suede on porcelain dolls) and is a well-known method for increasing joint friction in the resin side of the hobby.

20 minutes ago, ragnamuffin said:

It’s called sueding (from when they used actual suede on porcelain dolls) and is a well-known method for increasing joint friction in the resin side of the hobby.

I wouldn't have expected they were considered to be the same. 

As I understand it, sueding on the resin side aims to increase friction by adding stickier material to the joint (increasing the friction coefficient).

The super glue in the vinyl joints mostly just thickens one part so the other parts can clamp down on it more (increasing the normal force) - just as if you tightened the joint's screw (if it had one).

Edited 9 hours ago by Tierparkzone

2 minutes ago, Tierparkzone said:

increasing the friction coefficient

This is way too technical for me 😂