Teddy Talk: Creating, Collecting, Connecting

He's great Patsy! Looks like a real Harley Biker.
I've been tossing the idea around of making some for a while now....we have the Motorcycle Grand Prix and World Superbikes twice yearly here on Phillip Island...and we get SWAMPED with bikers of every shape and size. Every time one of these events comes along...I wish I had got off my butt and made some..they'd sell like hotcakes! Did you sell yours with the bike? They are made by Boyles yes? How big is your bear? Love the beard! Is it felted in or is it the 3inch long mohair from Edinburgh?

Daphne,
Once you've made a heap of bears to your own designs, getting limb placement isn't a problem, but when you are new at it...it can be a major headache...so that tip was kinda directed more at helping those who are still a little overwhelmed but it. :lol:

I haven't heard of using pliers to tighten locnuts...I use a T shaped handle rachet like Jenny uses....very easy on the hands.

If I turn a locnut back even half a turn after tightening it....and then manouever the arm..it will be looser. Then if I try to tighten it a tad again, and then manouever the arm again...it goes loose again. That's my experienece anyway. But hey, whatever works for you...isn't that the TT motto!

Jenny..I used to use super glue to glue them..but that was before I knew there was gel super glue...and once or twice I made a dreadful mess with the stuff dripping down the thread...not pretty! I must try the gel, I did by some for eyelids.

I'd be really interested to hear how your hubby/dad cut the discs. I have heard a few people from the USA say they do this but I think you must have different tools to what we have here.
We use a holesaw...but unfortunately as we go down in size, we are unable to alter the size of the drill bit and so end up with holes too big in the centre. I have the right attachment to make 40mm discs..but that's all. I would like to be able to make our own as I sell quite a few through my Bear Cupboard website and find it difficult to compete with the 'supply giants' when it comes to discs as they have greater buying power. So far, I've decided that the only way I can make the holes smaller is to have a special jig made so the holesaw can be fitted with a smaller drill bit. I'd appreciate any advice on this.

Jane was it you who mentioned on another thread that you have had a disc/bolt set break off? Maybe you need to use more glue?? I use a ton more and haven't had that problem. From the pics you posted there isn't much glue there. Then again, if you are using superglue...you wouldn't expect to see much.
Shantell This is a good thing.....and you will cope. Wait until you're feeling experimental!

Jane..I have a similar pic to that! This is Holly when she was a puppy, trying to get the last bit of juice from my glass. The other one is her laughing....actually she was eating some bikky.

Jane,
When my hubby and I were pregnant for the first time, we attended anti natal classes at the local community centre.
One night, they showed us a video of an actual birth. I went from being totally fascinated....to totally filled with horror, when I caught a glimpse of the girls face who was giving birth. She was someone I knew quite well....and I didn't want my hubby watching the rest! Ugh! They should use people from other states to make these vidoes!

We call those Spring washers.

Hats off to you Nettie...that's the true bearmakers spirit!
There's a certain air of selfishness about those who won't share anything. I know some have certain bearmaking secrets that they may wish to keep to them selves for a while....but in the long run, sharing is way more fun. When I was a beginner.....I quizzed many, many artists at bear shows...and I only ever found one who wouldn't share a particular technique. Years later, I found out that she actually pinched this idea from another lesser known artist, and claimed it as her own!

I made some great friends from those who said "I'm happy to help in any way I can" back in those early days...especially when they were probably wishing I was a buyer rather than fellow bearmaker. But exhibitors at shows have to accept that a certain proportion of those who attend shows, are there for inspiration and to gain knowledge. And as of next year, I'll be in the position behind the table at the shows...and I fully intend to encourage anyone who asks me.. "How do you.....?"

Many of the girls on this list have tried Shelli's eyelids( including me)...but will they ever be Potbelly bears? I don't think so. :rose:
And how many more fans does Shelli have from sharing as opposed to if she'd said "Hands off...this is my eyelid method and anyone who copies will be pounced on for copyright!"

There was a story circlulating a while back about a fellow who had developed a special method of restoring valuable paintings without damaging the original paint. He was in high demand and his praises were sung far and wide. Then...he died suddenly...and he hadn't told a soul his secret. Now that's sad!

Penny and all you others who use dark evenings as an excuse not to work on your bears. Get yourself an OTT LITE!! They aren't cheap they are worth their weight in gold! I used to avoid working on my bears in the evenings due to lack of good lighting too...but with my OTT LITE....I can see every stitch...even on darker bears.

I would kill for some time alone in the evenings to work on my bears...my biggest enemy is tiredness.

Shelli.
Upon reading your first post...I was jumping up and down...pick me...pick me.....I know that one! For once I can tell Shelli something she didn't know instead of the other way around! :dance:
But alas...then I read that you are unable to add html code to your source. :(
Anyways..I will tell you what I'm on about and if it helps sometime in the future then great! It may even help someone else with a similar problem.

When you want to use a font that is unusual, you can embed the font in your source code. What this means is that it's being permanently attached to that page so that whoever reads it, sees the font as intended, regardless of whether they have it on their computer or not. I have embedded Kristen ITC on my website, so now everyone sees it as Kristen ITC.

I am in the throws of redoing my own website at the moment....comes from learning to use photoshop which has made me entirely dissatified and critical of my site now, and I have great plans. Just hope I can transfer my imagination into something on screen.
We use Dreamweaver. I know Chris (hubby and webmaster) was a little frustrated at times with it....but since we have tamed photoshop, he has commented just how much easier it is. We design what we want in Photoshop...then put it all together in Dreamweaver.
He also said that HTML is not hard to learn..just get a good book from the library on basic HTML and work through it. With your nouse Shelli...you would most likely breeze thru it. Me...I have sat for hours, watching hubby work...and I still don't get it! :doh:
I think it's great that you are thinking of doing websites for others in the future...but remember, they take hours and hours....and that's hours and hours you then don't have for other things. So make sure you do it because you enjoy it...not because you think you should. Okay...stepping out of mummy mode now and the lecture is over.

We all use different techniques to create our bears but the best part about this group is having so many ways to choose from and experiment with. And chances are that by trying them all out, you'll find the method that's just right for you and that makes bearmaking even more fun and rewarding.
Daphne has done a great job of presenting the 'how to's' of using set screws...so I thought I'd start another thread explaining using bolts and locnuts.
I used to use the bolts and locnuts without gluing...and was always frustrated when jointing as it was too much of a wangle with a screwdriver in one hand and a ratchet in the other. It used to take me up to an hour to joint a bear this way. Now I can do it in 10 to 15 mins, and I actually enjoy it.

So now I use the glue method and will stick with it (no pun intended  :wacko:). I have tried the set screws and came back to the glued nuts and bolts. No offence to those of you who sing the praises of set screws...as I said, we all do it differently. For me personally it was just too finicky trying to do up set screws inside the body...I had to have an opening the size of a house to get my hands in there to hold both the allen key and ratchet. And you have to keep putting the whole kaboodle down to check for tightness. Too much bother...but hey, maybe I was doing it wrong. 

I use 5 minute Araldite which is a two part epoxy. You can now get 1 min stuff but thats a bit fast for me. I find with the 5 minute stuff that I can put the joint in the body part within about 10 mins of glueing it, but I wait a couple of hours before doing up the bolts, to wait for ultimate strength.
For those of you who have no idea what gluing joints is all about...

Take your five discs (1 head, two arms, 2 legs) and thru each one, slide a washer and bolt, but don't slide 'em all the way down.

Mix up a decent amount of two part epoxy the fast set stuff.

Holding your bolt and disk so the disc, washer ensemble hangs down,carefully smear glue around the base of the washer and in between the washer and bolt head.(be careful not to get it on the thread of the bolt).

Slide the disc down onto the washer and spin the bolt a little bit just to distribute the glue more. Smear more glue over and around the hardware, making sure to get a decent amount on the disc. Don't be under generous with the glue here...if you don't use enough glue the glue may separate from the hardware as you tighten the disc. This has only ever happened to me once and I discovered afterwards that not only was I miserly with the glue...but I remembered that the glue was getting a bit tacky by the time I did this joint...so I should have used fresher stuff. I have made heaps of bears since this accident and have never had another break.

Place right way up on a cake rack to dry. The glue will go 'off' within a minute or two.

When ready to assemble the bear, place the disc set into the limb with bolt sticking out, stuff the limb and close opening.

When attaching to body, assemble as per usual with another disc, washer and locnut inside body.

Now the easy bit that makes it all worthwhile. Grip the disc that is inside the limb and hold it whilst you use the ratchet to tighten the locnut. I find that if I keep tightening until I feel that first bit of resistance in the locnut, then the disc is about tight enough. I stop and manoever the arm and if necessary, I tighten the screw by half a turn at a time until the limb feels just right.
Something that is important to note is that it is far easier to get all your limbs evenly tightened if the limbs are stuffed before attaching to the bear. Why? Because you have something solid to grip and you get a better sense of what feels right. It's very difficult to judge joint tightness when you are contorting a piece of 'empty' mohair...not to mention the fact that it puts a great deal of stress on your seams to do it this way.
If you make a locnut too tight, you cannot loosen it as it will strip the rubbery thread from the nut...you'll need to grab another and start again. That's why it saves stress if the limbs are stuffed first and you take it half a turn at a time when it's getting firmer.
Another plus for stuffing joints before jointing is that you can have them side by side to keep them looking the same. And when you joint them onto the bear, you can see whether they are too high, too low, unevenly spaced. plus...you don't have the bulk of the other parts getting in the way when trying to close the seam.
All this sounds quite time consuming...but I can do it quicker than the time it took me to type it. The secret is to do enough for a couple of bears at a time...just make sure that as soon as your glue starts going tacky that you mix up a fesh lot. :rose:
If anyone is totally and utterly confused and you need pics...just yell and I'll see what I can do.

I can totally sympathize with the dread you are all feeling of the oncoming winter, having just come out from it. All of a sudden the days are warm and we no longer have to rush up and get the horses rugs on before dark. Now that daylight savings time has arrived, it's getting daylight in the mornings at 5.30am and dark at 8.30pm...in another month it will be 9.30pm.

I love this time of year....it means there is life after work hours and tea can be around 7.30pm instead of 6pm. It's so hard to imagine a cold Christmas...just once, I'd like to experience a white Christmas, instead of one with a hot northerly blowing!
We rarely have a hot Christmas lunch now...just seems silly to heat up the house with the oven and all when it's usually too hot anyway. We opt for a Barbeque and salads and leftovers for tea. Still have hot Chrissie pud though! (although last year we had a frozen icecream Chrissie pud too, which was popular with the kiddies.)

Dilu...I'll try to take some 'warm' pics am post them to cheer you all up! My roses are in full bloom now so I'll snap some pics of them. The smell is divine in the evenings when the air is warm and still. :rose:

And you are so right about being careful how you word things and being mindful of others. This place is such a have for us all and we need to keep it that way. :hug:

Pen Pen...if everyone was able to cope with being pulled up and just 'get on with it ' as well and as humbly as you just did, the world would be a better place. :hug:
I think it's great that you can just be yourself in here...but it's inevitable that some people will be offended by some things that others wouldn't bat an eyelid at.
The fact that you apologised and are ready to get on with 'it' makes you a model Teddy Talker in my eyes and I hope others will take a leaf from your book if ever the need arises.
It's amazing how much can happen around here when one is absent for a few hours!
Love ya! :hug:

Jared,
You need to be congratulated on the bear...he is FANTASTICO!! Really!
The biggest bear I have done was 1 metre tall.....inches??? don't ask me.
You won't be seeing him though...he was made back in my early bearmaking days and he's kinda....odd.  :wacko:
It took me 2 kilos of stuffing and he is only lightly stuffed. He was designed to wear size 4 clothes, so I have him dressed in an outfit I made for my son when he was littler. I used to make all my kids clothes...but now it has to be surf brand stuff.  We live on an island with magnificent surf beaches and it's kinda the in thing here.

I can't believe that your bosses didn't want to snap that bear up for the studio...even at that price (which I may add is more than reasonable for that bear! Some of the enormous cr***y bears in the shops nowadays for astronomical prices aren't a patch on this one.
AND, your little niece is to die for..what an adorable child! I can see 100% mischief in those eyes and grin!

I really enjoy your posts...it's great to have a fella actively posting...maybe it will encourage some of the others to come out and participate. Your bears and hares are sensational! :clap:

Send the lamb to me and I'll divide it equally...you can all have a leg 'o' lambie each!

I emailed her a few weeks ago too, but no reply. Maybe she has had to change computers and email addresses after moving out....but I do hope she hops onto TT before too long. I'm sure she'll come back when she's ready.

Thanks for all this info Shelli..I am having a ball playing with photoshop too...in fact if I'm not careful, I spend more time playing with that than I do working on my bears!
Two books I found extremely helful were "Photoshop 7.0 for Dummies" and Photo colour correction for Photoshop"..that's not the exact name but something similar. Both were available at our local library so there is no need to spend any money. The first one has tutorials on how to use all the basic tools you need and in dummy talk. This one gets my vote.

FABULOUS!!! Hmmm...nup..that word won't do either...

Judi, thanks so much for the before and after pics...wow what a transformation! Do you cover the nose up when you are airbrushing?

I'm with Roxanne..I love the name Kitp and it suits him really well.

And..I vote for the lion and the lambie as a set..it's really striking! :clap:

Judi..there are no words left to say about your extraordinary work...I'm fast coming to the conlusion that you are THE most talented person I know. How you do this full stop is way beyond my understanding...but to wangle it will a two year old in the house as well as two others, AND be an active member on this board, AND teach classes at Ebearz, AND be a star ballroom dancer...you leave me breathless. Hats off to you. I think I could grow to *hate* you too.
Luv ya, :hug:

Congratulations Jenny..what a nervewracking few days you've had! So glad all is well and you have a new little babe to love.

Denise,
I'm really glad that you're so happy with your avatar! I really enjoyed making it too!
I have just jumped into TT on my dad's computer briefly...for some unknown reason. our phoneline is down...which means no internet access.
That happened yesterday (Sat) and they say they'll have it fixed by Wednesday. :/
So I'll be away 'til then. Hope I don't miss too much..perhaps you could just all take a few days break so I don't have too much catching up to do! :dance:

I went to have a look at him Susan...he's adorable!!! What a huge amount of work!
BTW I liked him so much..I pinched him to show him here on TT. :angel:

It's easy to upload pics on TT....just use the 'browse' button when you post and find where the pic is stored on your hard drive and click 'upload'. To make it easy, save the pic to desktop first.

That's wonderful news Shelli! Can't wait to see it (but will have to :mad:).

Before long...TB&F will be feeling left out and will be knocking your door down for there turn...you'll see!!!

Congratulations! :hug: :cake:

Well Glenys...maybe you can't make realistic bears....but your dogs are SO REAL...they look.....umm, REAL! :D
I'm glad you are still around, and that you worked out the avatar thingie...your wire haired foxy is superb (please God...let it be a wire haired foxy :pray:)

Love 'em both Dilu! And your frame is delish too!
The first shot made me giggle....looks like Bergy has told a nuaghty golly joke and Tilly is shocked to the core!
How could Nancy NOT like them Dilu...you are the Golly QUEEN!!!

Daphne,
I was just thinking the other day just how much I love TT but how much LESS I get done because of it..it's kinda catch 22 isn't it? I wonder how many other less than disciplined people have halved their production since joining??

My justification comes from the fact that we all need social time and we can't live without caring girlfriends (and malefriends too of course)..and I'm not a 'going for coffee with girlfriends' type...so for me, you guys are it. :love:
And my life is all the richer for having you all sharing it... I have no doubt that I would be overwhelmingly sad to leave you all.

So YOU'RE STUCK WITH ME...and I'll have to be content to have a little(oh okay...a lot!!!   :whistle:) less bear making time.

Something Jennifer Laing told me too is that the Excelsior we can get hold of in Australia is not the good stuff and she said she would not use it to stuff a bear. Apparently what we have here is far coarser than true fine Excelsior and is really made just for packaging stuff. She said as far as she knows, the USA is the only place you can get the 'real thing'. She also said that Excelsior WILL break down over time, and that's why so many antique bears are floppy.

She mentioned too that the way Steiff do it is by taking the Excelsior in a long piece, they fold it in half and then stuff the fold into the nose area. Then they stuff the rest of the head. :cool:
Isn't it great to hear how everyone's techniques differ!

Jared...I gotta agree with Susan on the wood wool thing when it comes to importing into Australia. It's not a good idea. Having said that, if Excelsior is your stuffing of choice, I can see the problem with not importing into Australia....'cos you don't know who and from what country, is going to adopt your critters. I know customs is also jumping on items that have been stuffed with sand.