Before I started my first reroot job I had a close look at the various
techniques and also had a look inside some factory rooted heads.
The most commonly mentioned technique (pulling a plug of hair
through the head, tying a knot in the end of the plug, securing the
knot with a spot of glue, let it cure and pull the plug back until the knot hits the inside of
the head) sounded rather tedious and time consuming to me (due to the
glue that needs curing). Besides, I like to do things in a way that is easy to undo so that rules out using glue inside a head.
I decided to base my method on pulling folded plugs into the head. One thing I noticed at both the Hinatanao website and by looking
inside a ZC head is that the looped plugs can be secured simply by
threading the loop of next plug through the loop of the previous one. That way only the
final two plugs in a row need to be secured by tying a piece of
thread (dental floss or thick thread) through both loops.
Instead of a needle and a thread to pull the hair through the head
I decided to use folded pieces of metal wire (mine is 0.05mm thick steel wire).
The metal wire is stiff enough to poke through the holes in the
head but can be bent and shaped, which is the only way I could think of
to reach the hole in the neck from the lowest roots in back of the head.
I do use a needle to widen some of the holes before trying to poke both ends of the metal wire through.
The method I use has some pro and cons:
Pro: Requires very little space inside the head; each plug remains firmly in place as long as its preceding plug is in place, so only the final plug in a row needs to be tied down.
Con: The split needle will collect any stray hairs crossing its path inside the head, these hairs will be pulled loose when you pull the needle out of the neck hole, ideally you want to pull those hairs back into their original position, otherwise you run the risk of pulling out an entire plug, thereby unlocking the other plugs.
This makes rooting lots of small holes that are close together (such as a parting line) troublesome.
The (now defunct) Brutal Sun Studio website shows a better way to execute this method, a variation on the anchor thread method with using some loose pieces of thread instead of a permanent thread inside the head.
The only things I would change would be:
using a needle out of folded wire and use it to pick up the thread only, then thread the plug through the loop of the thread, rather than using the needle to pull the entire plug through the head.
using thin monofilament nylon wire instead of dental floss as dental floss will fray badly.
These steps describe the entire interlocking plug rooting method:
Insert a wire needle (with the folded side or eye first) through a hole in the head until it comes out of the neck hole,
Insert a length of thread in the needles eye and pull a loop of thread through the hole in the head,
Slide the needle off and thread a plug of hair halfway through the loop of the thread,
Firmly pull both ends of the thread back until the fold of the plug comes out of the neck hole.
Repeat to insert a second plug: leave the thread around the folded plug, take a second thread and pull that through the hole in the head,
Thread the fold of the second plug through the fold of the first plug,
Double-check which one is the first plug, remove the thread from the first plug and pull the first plug back into the head.
Repeat to insert the next plug, thread that though the fold of the previous plug, and so on.
For the final two plugs tie a piece of floss wire to the fold of both plugs, cut excess floss wire off and pull the plugs into the head.
This way even a parting line can be done without problems.
I have yet to take better pictures of the entire sequence, the ones below only show some of the steps.
Note that for the pictures I used dental floss as the monofilament nylon thread I was using ended up completely invisible on the pictures.
Inserting New Hair
A wire needle is inserted through a hole in the head, its tip comes out of the neck hole and a helper thread is threaded through the 'eye'.
Ready to pull the helper thread through the head.
Note the helper thread on the left for the previous plug, the loop of which protrudes from the neck hole.
The loop of the helper thread comes out of the hole, the wire needle has been removed.
Ready for a plug of hair to be threaded through the loop and pulled through the head.
