Schoenhut before and after pictures

 

16" bonnet head. Restoration to face only.

16" model #302. Restoration to face. Needs a wig next.

 

A 14" bonnet head doll got some facial work....

and some touchups to her bonnet. 

This 14" is model 313. She has smooth eyes instead of the more common intaglio eyes.

This is a 14" 308 model.

This is model 103

 

Mohair monkey repairs

 

This handsome dude is a 'yes-no' monkey made by the German company Schuco. He dates to the 1920's or 30's.

When you manoever his tail his head will nod 'yes' or shake 'no'.

But, his tail has lost its mohair covering and there is a rip in the mohair above the tail.

He has a tear in his mohair behind his ear.

The tears are no problem to repair.

I want to get some new mohair to cover the bare wire of his tail and finding this colour of mohair will be tricky. It is a lovely cinnamon colour.

In a local thrift shop I find some mohair fabric ends. At $1.50 for each, this sure beats ordering mohair online! Now I have to try to dye this mohair a cinnamon colour.

This is the first attempt. I dyed a piece of each mohair plus a bit of muslin for repairing those tears. Not bad....but the mohair needs to have a bit more red in it to match.

This second dye attempt looks better.

To fix that big mohair tear, I insert a piece of the dyed muslin under the tear. That will get tacked to the mohair to strengthen the repair before I start darning the tear.

The tear has been secured. Now he needs a replacement tail made from the dyed mohair.

A Schoenhut girl's makeover

 

This is Schoenhut's model 203. She was bought like this hoping to find something good under all that too-shiny repaint.

Her new owner stripped off the repaint and found this.

Not too much goodness was found under that paint so she was sent to me.

After the usual makeover processes, I sent her home looking like this.

A Schoenhut boy's repaint

 

This is model #201.

He has had an interesting life.

He has very dark hair that is not original.

There is evidence all over his face and body that indicates he was once painted in a dark brown skin tone. That skin colour had long been removed (mostly).

The plan is to improve his appearance somehow.

Seeing as the dark hair is not original, it gets removed.

Pretty well zero original hair paint underneath! And an interesting crack.

He will need more than a few touchups. Repaint looks best when it is done after any unoriginal layers are removed. The vestiges of previous fillers and repaint obscure carved details and also make it harder for the new paint to adhere.

So, I start gently scraping off and digging out all that old dark brown paint and any other paint that had been added over the years.

He actually has a few scraps of original facial paint left. And, he has his original blue eyes under the brown.

After he is down to original paint and/or bare wood he gets sealed. Then starts the repainting process. He will need multiple thin layers of flesh paint.

A few layers later he looks like this. A couple friends are also getting some new paint.

Some time later he starts getting some hair and eye colour. I am also trying out some antiquing methods for his face.

This is his final look.

A Schoenhut girl gets just a few touch ups

 

This is Schoenhut's model 105.

This is how she looked when she was bought by her current owner.

The repaint is very thick. Her new owner decided to take off the repaint.

Under the repaint was this.

This doll had had a factory repaint even before the thick repaint seen above was done. Multiple layers are still present all showing varying degrees of wear. She has 2 layers of gesso in there too!

The factory repaint had changed the colour of her bow. I was able to figure out that the pink colour was the first colour that that bow had had.

Her owner wants just a few touch ups.....not a total strip down and repaint.

I was able to remove the blue bow remnants and added some more pink. Just a bit more.

Her face gets a few touch ups too.

Trying to decide when to stop touch ups is always tricky. 

At least she can see again.

The elephant in the room!

 So, I was asked if I could fix an old bobble head elephant figure. I said 'probably'. I envisioned  being handed a medium sized cardboard box containing elephant bits.

Instead I was asked to come out to the car to inspect the elephant bits. In the back of an SUV was a very large elephant head, torso and a couple other bits.

It seems I like a challenge. The elephant parts were transferred to my SUV and home it all went for inspection.

Here he is.

He is an antique figure made of felt covered papier mache. He was probably a store display.

This is his main problem. The piece that has hooks to hang his head from has come out.

Fortunately that piece was one of the bits that was handed over to me.

It gets glued securely in place.

Then it is on to repairing the raggedy areas where felt is coming away and the papier mache is shredding.

While I figure out how to repair this type of damage I amuse myself by contemplating this pachyderm's head movement.

This big guy has another problem in that his whole left ear is missing. There is a hole in his head near the missing ear too.

It may be hard to make out but here I have glued cardboard under the hole. This will support the new papier mache. Just south of that is some new paper mache that I applied to repair a raggety area.

After some experimenting, I am making progress on a new ear. This is made with a wire mesh base covered in paper mache. Then wool felt is glued onto the paper mache.

It needs lots of antiquing still, but this could work!

Getting there.....

Finally Big Guy is done!

He shows off his new left ear.

And then....he leaves.

Grumpy gets a new finger.

 

This guy looks seriously grumpy!

Maybe he is grumpy because he has lost a finger?

I should fix that!

First, a wire support for the new epoxy clay finger gets glued in.

He has his new finger....but he is still grumpy!