Hard Head Cap Notching~ Mini Tutorial!

 

Hello there and welcome to the hard head cap notching: mini tutorial! Here I will show you some tidbits on how to notch your own girl's hard head cap in two different styles!

As we all know, it can be quite difficult to remove a hard head cap without the assistance of a hairdryer or prying it off really hard with your fingers and/or a butter knife! So, by making notches, the head cap is much easier to remove and saves you a bunch of time and tears from your poor whittle fingers hurting from your precious DD girl's son of a gun head cap. Even though you may have to result to using a butter knife to still get it off, since the space is too small to get most people's fingers into, it should end up coming off in seconds up to 2 minutes notched rather than un-notched.

Now, onto the mini tutorial!

Here are the items you will need:

- Your DD's hard head cap (detatched)

- An Xacto Knife with a sharp blade of your choice (I recommend not using the blade it comes with)

or

- Utility Knife (though I do not recommend this choice as it does not give you better or as much control as the Xacto knife)

- Guitar Pick (I recommend this but, you can use something in similar shape)

- Pencil (preferably one that has an eraser)

- Piece of Paper

(Tip: You do NOT need to heat up the vinyl to be able to cut it!)

I did all of this notching on my own. I looked at only one reference picture to see how big the other person had their notches. I knew the basics from research but no one had a tutorial of any kind of how they went about it, how to cut it, or even if it needed cutting in a certain way! So, here I am to clear most, if not all, of it up! I ran this project blindly but with a little bit of patience and time, I completed it and my girl's hard head caps are so much better to remove.

Onto the steps:

1) Sit somewhere comfortable and put the piece of paper on your lap. This is for some of the vinyl that will fall once you start cutting away. Most will fall into the head cap but when you start moving it around, obviously, those parts can and will fall out.

Choose your style!

2 and 3) Here are where the two different styles come into play. I first cut my Sakuno's head cap which had never had any modding done to it or any pre-cuts (notching that other people have done but the notches are small). I was able to cut it to the way I desired. I prefer having two larger ones in the back of the head cap and two small ones up front. I believe this one to work very effective and helps the butter knife to get even more leverage. Her head cap flips off in seconds

 

As you can see, it still fits snuggly on her head. I recommend doing it this way if your girl's head cap doesn't have any "pre-cuts". It is still very sturdy on her head, no wiggling whatsoever. But, it comes off like a dream now. The style is two big ones on the back and two in the front. The back ones are kind of at an angle since I want to keep the writing that shows the authenticity of the DD. It still works and I believe it to look very good.

The second style is for Miu's headcap. She had pre-cuts/pre-notches that her previous owner had given her. I honestly did not like where they were placed and could not tweak them to work like Sakuno's. However, I still had to make it work because I needed to be able to get her head cap off when needed without damaging her face-up/head cap from a hairdryer or scraping her with a butter knife. Her headcap was pre-cut with a notch on each side of the head cap. One in front, one on each side, and one in the back. I had to make them all essentially equal (though the ones that were closest to the front still were made smaller since I wanted it to be somewhat like Sakuno's headcap). You can choose to do it like this as well but, it is still harder to get her headcap off versus Sakuno's. It is waaaay much better than it was though, trust me. It's just this style still makes it a little bit harder to get it off than the first.

 

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Miu's head cap still fits snuggly on her head as well. Though harder to get off, it still ended up being much better than it was and I do not need to use a hair dryer, just a little bit of force with a butter knife since I cannot get my fingers underneath the headcap.

With both styles, I do not need to force as hard as I usually did with my butter knife. Some force will still be needed but it is hardly any at all. You will save your wrists and your mind some time! ^^

4) Trace on the sides of the guitar pick onto the head cap with your pencil. This will be one of your notches. Adjust the pick up or down for a smaller or bigger notch. Be careful though, you do not want the notches too unevenly spread out or too big, you do not want to have the head cap be loose or not work anymore. Be cautious. You can always go back and take out more but you can't put it back in if you cut too much! (Tip: When head cap is facing down, the point of the guitar pick is facing down; the fat end should always be at the top where the tip of the guitar pick should always be closest to the inside of the headcap)

5) Make sure to evenly spread out the guitar pick traced-notches (you should have up to four individual notches; five will be too many unless your notches are super tiny, but caution is advised).

6) Of course, you can do your own style of notching but it is best to be on the side of caution. Do not get over zealous. Other hard head caps most likely will not fit your DD's head if you mess this one up!

7) When cutting, make sure to be slow and steady, no jerking or stabbing. I wiggled down my lines and then wiggled across to take the vinyl part out that made the notch.

Hold the Xacto Knife like this (and wiggle back and forth, with the blade away from you).

8 ) Do this for every notch. 

9) When done, make sure to shave any jagged parts or smooth some parts out to your content. You don't want to get scratched when you put your girl's head cap in! To shave the jagged parts and/or smooth parts out of the head cap, make a motion like how you would shave a bar of soap with a knife to make it into a shape. Place it flat on the surface and slightly apply pressure and move the blade towards you/towards the place you want to shave.

10) After you are done shaving to your heart's content, you should be all finished!

THE END~<3

That is my mini tutorial for hard head cap notching! If you guys have any questions, feel free to ask!

Edited November 30, 2020 by Pickle

Oh man, this is super helpful. Today I was trying to get the headcap of my 04 off so that I could wipe her face up and I probably spent 3 or 4 minutes on it. I don't know how many random objects I've probably broken in the time that I've had her while just trying to remove the cap.

Winterplane said:

Oh man, this is super helpful. Today I was trying to get the headcap of my 04 off so that I could wipe her face up and I probably spent 3 or 4 minutes on it. I don't know how many random objects I've probably broken in the time that I've had her while just trying to remove the cap.

I'm glad I could be of some assistance! Hopefully one day you could try notching your 04's head to make it easier! But thank you so much for replying here and letting me know that it helped! It means a lot!

Edited March 21, 2019 by Pickle