Rebuilding of fingers

Many dolls are found with missing fingers. They are small and delicate and prone to damage.

 These are the hands from a ball-jointed composition body. The body is in great shape other than the 2 missing fingers.

The finish on the hands is cracked but filling the cracks would mean a total repaint. The cracks do not detract from a 100 year old doll so they will be left.

The fingers will be rebuilt with minimal damage to the original finish.

 The first step is to install wire supports for the new fingers.

The fingers have now been rebuilt with epoxy putty.

The new fingers are painted to blend in with the old hands. The original finish (and cracks) remain on the rest of the hands.

Victorian match-holder repair

Another not-a-doll.
My mother has an extensive antiques collection and occasionally has a mishap. This time she stumbled in the dark and knocked a Victorian plaster match-holder off the wall.

This dude had a bad nose fracture and only half of his nose pieces were found. Plus his pipe had been knocked off.

He needed to be pieced back together, have his missing piece of nose reconstructed and all the repairs painted to match the original surface.












Done :-)

Eatons Beauty repair.

This Eatons Beauty was brought in with a request to get it prettied up for her original owner who was now in a nursing home.
The request was for new hair and some clothes.

This doll has it's original slip, shoes and Eaton's banner. Her hair is original but very little remains.

Her head has been solidly  glued into it's socket...why?
Her eyelashes are mostly gone.

 After determining the head was undamaged, I figured it had been glued in because someone could not figure out how to restring the doll?
The glue put up a fight but I was able to remove the head. Unfortunately the socket came off the body in the process. But it is all reparable....

Here is the doll with the socket repaired, paint finishes matched and restrung properly. Her head now swivels again.
Oh, and she has new eyelashes.

 She is now decked out in a new synthetic wig. Mohair would have been preferable but the added expense was not in the budget.


















This is how she was presented back to her owner. Her original chemise is under the dress and her original shoes and socks were repaired and she wears them with pride :-)

Kid body repair.

This is a typical kid leather body with composition lower arms and legs
His body is in decent shape but the arms have issues. They have been taped up at the shoulders and elbows and the normal articulations  are missing and/or broken. A thumb is missing. The tape is dried out and the arms are leaking cork stuffing.

The plan is to remove the tape, dismantle the arms and then repair them closer to the original form. No tape allowed!
Leather can be repaired and patched. Tape is never good for repairing dolls.

The legs have some finish issues but are sturdy and free of chips. They will not be touched.

What the tape hid...

Smashed ball hinges at the tops of the forearms and a big hole in one shoulder.

Kid body shoulder joints often develop these problems. The zinc button holding the wire wears at the kid and holes develop. One original button was found inside the sawdust stuffing. The other was missing and will be replaced with a similar vintage button.

These are the arms with the kid leather patched. The composition arms have been rebuilt and the repaired areas have been painted to match the original finish.

The repaired arms have been reattached and have their proper articulations at the elbows and shoulders.

Madame Alexander Cissy

There are usually several dolls on the go at once here.
Cissy is a Madame Alexander doll from the 1950's.                                                                                                            

She is made of hard plastic with a painted finish. She unfortunately has a cracked head, a bad DIY face paint job and deranged hair. Oh, and is missing most of her eyelashes.

Cissy was a high end doll in her day. She would have sported an elaborate hairdo and very nice clothes.






So she starts her renovation...

This is Cissy with her DIY paint scraped off and her wig removed. That is a large crack!

This is Cissy with her crack repaired and painted.

 This is Cissy with new eyelashes and freshly painted facial features.

Cissy's wig has been washed and re-styled.

Almost respectable now :-)

Her owner wanted a dress made from modern sequined fabric. I  patterned the dress from some original Cissy dresses so she still has hints of 1950's glamour.

'Rosie'. A composition doll.

 'Rosie' arrives in the mail for restoration. She is another composition doll who has seen better days.

She once had a mohair wig but sports only remnants now.
She has had lots of loving!

She will need to be dismantled to access the eyes and to make her a new body.


















Progress....Rosie is dismantled and her old cracked/peeling pain is removed.

This is Rosie's head minus all the cracked and peeling paint. Some composition dolls that were sold with wigs have molded hair under the wig. Rosie's molded hair is nice but as she had a wig originally, she will get a new one.

This is her head after filling/sanding/priming and a base coat of flesh color.

Now Rosie has a completed paint job

Her limbs have been repainted and she has a new body covering. Her stuffing and voice box are original.

She is waiting for a wig and clothes now.

A new mohair wig and some clothes and she is ready to go home.

 

'Mary'

Teddy's owner was very happy to see Teddy rejuvenated. She then presented me with 'Mary'...her childhood doll who had seen some rough times. And asked to have Mary rejuvenated.

Mary was missing several fingers and toes in addition to her obvious facial issues.

The first thing to do with Mary was to remove her head and limbs and extract her eyes. Her loose paint was peeled off....that was pretty much all her paint!

She then got her holes filled, fingers and toes rebuilt and coated with a couple layers of filler/primer. Lots of sanding between each layer.












Finally, it was paint time.
A new body was needed and was patterned from the remnants of her old one.
So she looks like this now:

Add some appropriately styled clothes, and Mary is ready to return home.

'Teddy'

Ok....this is not a doll. But I was asked to renovate "Teddy". He was a cherished childhood possession from the 1950's and was falling apart.

Teddy was made of sheepskin. The skin was dry and crumbling. He could be pieced together but would remain fragile and prone to more damage.

Teddy's owner wanted to have him sturdy enough that her grand daughter could play with him so it was decided to make him a new 'skin'

Here is Teddy with new 'skin'.
New sheepskin is prohibitively expensive so he is decked out in synthetic shearling. He has his original stuffing and his original eyes/nose.

Teddy should last another several decades or more now :-)