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Hello everyone!
I just want to ask for a little bit of advice: I've been investigating armatures in bears and am having real difficulty in choosing the best one. Locline crops up a lot but is really hard to get hold of in the UK and, when you do find a distributor, you need to sell a kidney for a tiny amount! 
I've managed to find some which is 1/2" thick - do you guys think it might be too big for the spine of a 12" bear?
Bear hugs,
Helen 
Well I think it's too thick for a small bear....you can get 1/4 inch and 1/8th locline ....I found a doll site which has it.... but I bought 50 feet about 8 years ago. It was called Doll Artistique ..if I remember rightly.
I think wire is better for limbs if that is what you want when you cover it with bandage...which is what I use it disappears nicely into the limb.
You can get wire from sculpture supply websites ...there are sellers on eBay too...I attach the wire to a terminal ring clip which is actually just a washer and a metal wire holder covered with a plastic tube which you crimp to hold the ends of the wire..any electrical suppliers will stock them.
The wire must be strong enough to hold a shape but not so stiff that it won't bend. Aluminium sculpture wire is designed for this.
Thank you so much for your help 
I will investigate a little more online and look up Doll Artistique so thank you for the suggestion.
I just cant get over how much they charge for the stuff, although I do admit it's a very clever idea.
Helen
btw you make such cuties 
desertmountainbearI use 3/16" for a spine in a 12" bear. I have some 1/4" I use it for 15" and up. I use 1/8" in the limbs of a 12" bear, anything smaller and I wire. Does Cr's crafts ship overseas? that is where I get mine.
CRs might ship here...but I know Artistique do, I think they might have been a bit cheaper at the time which was why I went for them but I don't know about now. The thing to remember about Locline, Helen, is that the 1/2 measurement is the diameter of the female bit of the chain...so if it measures a half inch then you can add 2 or 3 millimetres or so to that so that's why it makes it very bulky. The 1/8th size that Joanne uses is just like a small string of beads. I have seen similar things at the doll and teddy fairs at the Birmingham Motor Cycle Museum fairs here in the UK on the doll stands. So maybe it would be worth checking out dolls sites.
TC Folk OriginalsRight now I do it exactly like Jenny, but I want to try the cheaper version of "Locline" too, and less stuffing!
Can't thank you enough for your help and advice - invaluable!
I managed to find a 1/4"and 1/8" by Jetton on Amazon, so ordered a small amount to try it.
Watch this space I could end up with a furry alien rather than a bear lol
Jetton is what I have...it's just the same as locline...
desertmountainbearJetton is what I use too. Lockline only comes as small as 1/4" which is really too big for many of the bears for me. It also comes in a coil rather than in pieces which is good. I never thought to look on Amazon.
Help! This is all I could find on UK suppliers. Has anybody found a good Uk supplier since last year? I can't believe how difficult it is to get here in the Uk. In the summer I used some that I ordered from amazon but it was in small lengths plus I ended up with some nozzle bits that were a job to get off and are not much use to me. Plus it was a bit on the large size only good for bigger bears and very creaky. Would really like to buy by the Metre/yard with Y connectors. Just had another google (plastic armature/doll armature/bear armature/coolant hose/loc-line/flexible hose...) still no joy. Have you Uk bear artists found a secret supplier or have given in and spent big bucks on the US postage?
Donna's Duin BruinsEdinburgh Imports in the US sells two sizes of locline with the Y connector. They will ship anywhere. http://www.edinburghimports.com/index.p … ts_id=7760
desertmountainbearIt is worth the price to buy it directly from Jeton. They do not answer emails well, I believe there is a language issue. Figure out what exactly you want and ask them for an invoice for the exact items. They will ask you for your address and what you are using it for. It may take a while to get a response, email back. Even with the EMS shipping it is 1/2 the price of retail.
http://www.jeton.com.tw/3-1.html
Thank you for the inputs Donna and Joanne.
My husband recently bought a lovely carved wood picture frame from ebay US. The frame was a bargin at $15 so even though the postage was another $15 (it is the size of a sheet of writing paper) it was steep but as a whole ok. Then on collection from the post office he had to pay a £11 import tax (I think that is about $20) So you can see why I am trying to find a UK supplier.
Donna I have previously looked at the Edinburgh Imports and it is a great site but the postage/tax issue is putting me off.
Joanne I think you may have the answer maybe I need to order whole sale, use what I need and also sell some myself on ebay. Again it just means spending up front that if I'm honest not sure I can afford before Christmas. I need to explore the costs. Be just my luck to buy a load in and then the Uk market suddenly gets flooded with the stuff! It is a shame as I am excited about exploring armature style bears. I have tried using wire coated cable but find it stiffer/less flexable than locline and for smaller bears with thinner cable worry about the wire getting kinks and ultimately snapping but this could be down to my lack of experience.
Anyway the positive is despite the cost we love the little picture! Thanks again
Michelle
desertmountainbearLockline type armature is not really good for very small bears. It will not bend at a 90 degree angle. What size bear are you looking to use it on? Are you going to use it for a spine and in the limbs?
Well Joanne it is actually for an idea for a cat about 10" (without tail) and would like to have a go at spine and limbs so that it could lay/stand/sit as cats do. So I was thinking of 1/2 armature for the back legs, full armature for the front legs both attached with discs and a head, spine, tail in one long piece.
How small can you go with the lockline?
desertmountainbearThe smallest they make it 1/8" and that would be Jeton, not Lockline. The smallest Lockline makes is 1/4" which is big. For an animal that size I would use 1/8" in the limbs and 3/16 in the spine. It sounds like you have a good plan.
