Taking Arthur apart and putting him back together

That was NOT fun. But I managed to do it and tried my best to take pictures of the process too. This is probaply not The Way to Do It, but this is how I did it.
The fun thing is that you really don't need any special tools for this though I really recomment at least getting some thin metal wire or something. All I used was pen, knitting pin ( which got pretty twisted ), crocheting pin and shoelace and boy was putting him back together a bitch >_<

Anyway, here we go...

Open the headcap. This should be no problem as Arthur's headcap is attatched to the S-hook with a very loose rubberband ( I really ought to replace that ). A side note: too keep his headcap in place, I just "screw" it on 'till the rubber band is a bit more tighter and then I put some... er... sticky blue plasticine type of stuff ( whatever it is? blue-tack? ) to the edges to keep it on. If your doll isn't meant to be spinned around and hung by it's legs, it should hold ok :P
Anyway, I took the rubber band off and lifted the whole head away with no special prosedcures.

Decapitated doll. Marvel.

I took the S-hook off and with the help of a pointy object, I stuck the shoelace into the hoop of the strings. This is just so that the knot doesn't snap into the doll uncontrolled.

Nice and easy I let the strings slide off the upper body and to the waist-part. After that I could just lift the torso aside so that I could take the string from the hands off later.

And another look to the waist-part. The crochet pin is there just to show you the knot. After this I untied the knot and lifted the waist-part off the legs.

Like so. Both legs have their own string. Now it was just to pull from the foot and the whole string came out.

Yes, that's where Arthur is different from some of the other dolls I've seen. As you can see, instead of a hook, there's a yarn to where the elastic string is attatched to ( and this is what makes Arthur =)&%)(%=)(?)= annoying to re-string ).

Then the arms. There's just one elastic string holding them together. As I hadn't yet un-strung Arthur completely before, the knot was hidden in between the shoulder-joint. Not much tinkering to take the string off there. Just open the knot and pull the arms off.

You'll have a torso + hands like this. Yea, like with the feet, hands too have a yarn there instead of a hook. Now you're ready to do whatever you want with the parts BUT mind the side of the parts - which part is for left and which for the right side. They aren't marked in any way so it might be a bit troublesome if you mix them. Of course, nothing stops you from taking a marker and hiding little Rs and Ls into the joints if you want to mark them.

After sanding and coating him, it was time for the FUN part \o/ namely putting him back together. Please note that I had no idea on how to put him back together when I was taking him apart ^____^

I decided to start with the easy part and go with the legs first. I'd like to take this moment to mention that no: I couldn't untie the yarn hoops in his feet and hands. Anyway... the picture should pretty much explain what I did :P

I pulled the shoe-lace through the leg-parts ( one by one ) and attatched it to the elastic string hoop. Then I pulled the shoelace back again until I got the elastic string through the thigh-part. This was NOT as easy as it sounds >_>;; I had trouble getting the knots through the tights holes inside the leg-parts. So this is where I would recomment some metal wire or something. Then I did the same thing for the other leg.

After getting the legs together, I pulled their elastics string one by one through the waist-part. I stuck a pen there to keep it together 'till I was ready to pull it through the torso-part.

I did the same thing to the first arm as I did to the leg and just worked the elastic string through the arm same was as with the legs. Easy. Can't say the same for the other arm.

I pulled the elastic string through the torso-part and tied the other end on a pin to keep it from escaping. Then I just kept pulling the loose end of the elastic string 'till it was really really tight.
Now this is the part I don't have pics of because I was KINDA busy trying to keep the elastic in place but I try my best to explain. First I worked the loose end of the elastic through the arm-parts 'till I was able to stick it through the yarn hoop in the hand-part. Then I again pulled the elastic to be as tight as possible and took a hold of it as far away from the end of it as possible, so I had some loose elastic string to work with. Then I used the knitting pin to somehow stick the damn elastic string back towards the torso. This was NOT fun... and even less fun was that I got through two times just to loose the hold of the elastic and having to do it all over again. So it was rather violent operation. And of course I had to watch out for the doll's fingers all the time while struggling with the elastic string >_< If you have someone around to help you with the damn thing; be very happy, because two hands weren't enough. Alternative is to have some proper tools for the job.

After I miraculously managed to pull the elastic string through I figured it was easier to tighter it by pulling it through the neck as well. I managed to pull the elastics in the waist-part through the hole as well, just using the shoelace like when I took the body apart, though I had to use my feet to keep the doll in place so that I could pull the elastic nice and tight. Then I just put the S-hook back in place, popped the head back there, re-tied the rubber-band and so forth.

And all is well. Though I thought Itou looked incredibly insulted after all that o_ô