New eyes

 

This doll has arrived to get new eyes and some hair touchups. 

She was made by her owner's mother and has a vinyl mask face on a totally crocheted body with crocheted clothes. A labour of love!

Her eyes are missing the plastic bits that form the irises and pupils. Some creative person has drawn pupils in the empty space to make her look better.

While she is here she is going to get some touchup paint on her hair.

This is what will fix this doll's eyes. These are pre-made irises/pupils, sometimes called lenses.

Blue irises were chosen and she got some hair touch-ups.

Unfortunately the dark stains on her face will not come out easily. Sometimes stains like these will come out with applying strong peroxide products and letting them sit on the stain. This process can take weeks or even months.

Time to head home!

Vintage vinyl dolls go to the spa

 

A box of family dolls has arrived for their spa treatments.

First out of this box is a Vogue baby doll. 

She needs a clean up for sure.

She has a dent in her forehead and her eyes are foggy.

Foggy eyes are caused by the plastic ageing and leaching plasticizer. 

Some folks think this foggy look is caused by mould but it is not. Mould is a living organism, a fungus. It does not grow on plastic like this.

Leaching plasticizer can look like powder on the surface on plastic. It has other looks too but here we have

the powdery form of plasticizer.

This doll's hair also need attention.

Here she is after a cleaning, a steaming and a comb out.

Her eyes cleared while I was steaming her head to get the dent in her forehead out. They cleared further when I used a hair dryer to dry her head from the steam.

Some forms of leached plasticizer will reabsorb into the plastic with heat. How long this will last is anyone's guess.

This doll's hair is incorrigible! This is the best I can do with that 'do.

Next out of the box is this doll. She really only needs a bath.

She has an interesting body construction.

After a bit of research I find she is "Baby Crawl Along" made by Remco.

She once had a remote control unit that was called a 'magic pocketbook'. That unit has been long lost.

Here is a link to an original TV ad for the doll: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x962gsm

She gets the usual bath.....here is the water after shampooing her hair!

Hip reconstruction

 

This doll is a lovely large doll by Armand Marseille. She has arrived to get fixed and restrung. 

What needs fixing?

One thigh section is missing the top part. The ball is gone from the ball and socket joint.

How do you reconstruct that? The thighs are made of cardboard. The intact thigh's ball area is made of a wood piece that has been glued onto the shaped cardboard.

After finding a wooden sphere that is close to the same size, I saw it in half and then saw a groove into it.

That will be glued onto the broken thigh and then epoxy clay can fix the defects and make the contours better.

Here we have the reconstructed thigh next to its mate before they get paint touch ups.

Now the touch ups are done and the doll is restrung.

 

A well loved Puffalumps doll

 

This is 'Dolly'. A well loved Puffalumps doll. She has arrived for a cleaning and a replumping.

She needs a good long soak in the tub. Maybe a new hairdo?

For these type of cleaning jobs I remove the stuffing so I can clean it separately and replump it. Polyester stuffing can be washed and replumped quite nicely.

When I unstuff Dolly, I find she has a squeaker inside.

This squeaker no longer makes a noise. The reed is mangled and looks suspiciously chewed upon.

Fortunately I can replace this squeaker's reed with one harvested from a new dog chew toy.

After several long soaks in the tub, Dolly is much cleaner. Her original fabric colours are more evident now.

After getting stuffed with her cleaned and replumped stuffing and getting her now-working squeaker installed, she gets a comb out and curling of her hair.

She is ready to go home.

Wrecked Schoenhut eyes

 

This is a Schoenhut doll as he was found by his owner. He has obviously had some work done. Why he is white is anyone's guess.

His owner stripped the white paint off and found this. He then got sent to me. He looks like a model 300 or 403 but those eyes look weird.

After a bit of excavation, which consists of removing a variety of fillers that should not be there, I find an eye bulging out. This is not right. Schoenhut made intaglio eyes and smooth eyes. Intaglio eyes are carved into the head. Flat eyes are flat. Nothing should be bulging out here.

A bit more excavation and out pops a small piece of wood that someone had glued into the eye area.

Here is a clearer view of the other eye area just before I popped out its wooden 'eye'.

This poor guy once had intaglio eyes but, during whatever misfortunes he suffered, his eye structure got completely wrecked.

Fortunately his eyes can be rebuilt.

Here his left eye is starting to look as it should thanks to some epoxy clay.

Here he is after some more eye surgery and a few other contour tweaks to his face.

Now he is starting to get some paint applied.

Paint job done.

He looks even better with a wig.

An elephant's trunk rehabilitation

 

This is an old toy elephant who has a droopy trunk. He is made of mohair that has become quite sparse. The stuffing in his trunk has shifted over the years and his owner does not like its droopy look.

Under his trunk is a seam. The seam has a gap that looks as if someone has opened it up before. Some sawdust or wood chips are peeking out from the gap. This is the natural place to access his trunk to err.....make it more erect.

The seam is easy to open up as the old thread is suffering from a bit of dry rot and it pops open easily. I find a variety of stuffing in the area.....kapok, sawdust and wood wool. Mostly wood wool. That is most likely what his original stuffing was. It will fill out his trunk and hold it more erect without putting undue stress on his aged mohair and the remaining old thread in the seams. Wood wool is usually called excelsior in North America.

Here I am gently stuffing some wood wool into his trunk, one or two strands at a time until I think he has enough to fill out the trunk but not too much as to stress his old fabric and thread. Then I sew up the opened seam.

It works!

He is a happier elephant now.

Let's count paint layers again.

 We are now counting how many paint layers go on a Schoenhut doll during a restoration.

I sometimes wonder why it takes me so long to do a restoration. I have always assumed that I am slow or, that I get distracted by another project etc. But sometimes, mid restoration in the painting phase, I start wondering how many coats of paint I actually put on. So, I decided to count them!

Here is my test case. A nice model 308 Schoenhut doll. Before I start counting the layers of paint I put on I have to take off all the lingering repaint and the filler from her previous restorations. Then I have to stabilize her remaining original paint and put new filler into the areas where the original paint has gone missing.

Here she is after several days getting all that done. She is ready for paint. I try to keep my repainted areas confined to the filled areas so that as much as possible of her original paint is left exposed. The process is simple. Paint a layer of paint, let it dry at least a day, sand the dried paint and then apply another coat.

Here she is after 5 coats of paint. Sometimes I can sneak 2 coats in one day with no sanding in between but still, 5 coats often takes 4-5 days to put on.

Here she is after 10 coats. The filled areas are starting to fade away put are still visible.

Here she is after 15 coats of paint. I have also been able to get in a few touchups to her eyes. She is getting there!

After a few more coats to her skin to tweak her colour and of course all her facial features and a bit of blush, I declare her done.

Final count for just the skin tone layers.....19

This is one of the easier restorations as she did not need many contour corrections. Those will totally erase any paint I have applied and so the layers all have to start again.

A slow process!