A return to Effanbee Lovums

This is the 'before' picture of an Effanbee Lovums doll who I started renovating in Florida. She got put on pause a few times and now is finally nearing completion.

These were her eyes  before.

And these are her eyes now......

Unfortunately Lovums' lambskin wig was in poor shape and missing some chunks. Under the wig is molded/painted hair. Many Lovums were sold wig-less. It was easiest for the factory to churn out a line of molded/painted hair heads and then just plunk some wigs on a few of them.

Here is Lovums now.

Her body has been washed, patched at one shoulder and her voice-box squawks again.

A nice vintage baby dress.

And then a vintage baby sweater set completes her.

Vinyl doll eye repair

This is Sera....a young lady's beloved doll.
Sera has developed an eye problem. The sleep action of her left eye no longer works.

One usually needs to remove the head to work on eyes.
Many newer dolls have their head attached with a zip-tie. A little pressure on the release tab and off her head comes.....

.......and out falls this.
The diagnosis is evident now. The weight that is supposed to sit in her eyeball to make the sleep action work has come off.
But the hard part comes now. That would be the taking of  the eye apart to get the weight glued back!

Some heat to soften the vinyl and lots of elbow grease worked to extract the needed parts.
The weight gets glued inside the white plastic part.
Then back to the heat and elbow grease to get it all back together.

Sera has two functional eyes again.

A beat up Schoenhut doll

This is a Schoenhut doll. She is all wood and jointed with a cool system of springs.
She has a dangling arm and lots of paint issues.

She has lost her eyebrows and much of her eye paint.
Unfortunately she has met someone who painted over her mouth. It is not a bad paint job but she originally had different colour lips that were parted to show a row of teeth. The dark red mouth bears no resemblance to her original.

The worst of the paint damage is seen here. You can also see her carved hairbow and it's remnants of blue paint.

Here is the insides of the dangling arm. The rod is supposed to have a spring on it.....it has gone missing. The loop on the rod gets held in place in the upper arm with a nail.
I have found a few potential replacements.

Spring chosen and altered to do the job.

Here she is with her arm re-attached.
Some clothes help her look less beat up?

The dark red overpainted lips have been removed and remnants of her original smile are visible.

The question now is how much restoration to do to her?
Schoenhut dolls were meant to be played with and many show the marks and dents of years of love and play.
Many collectors like keeping these dolls in all their battered glory.
Many prefer they get restored...at least the visible facial defects.

As this doll is one of my own, she will sit like this for a while as I contemplate how much, if anything, to do to her.....

Touching up composition

This composition doll is from the 1940's.
She is coming in for touchups, not a complete re-do.
And she needs some missing eyelashes replaced..

Her main blemishes involve damage to the base compo that need to be filled in before paint goes on.

All done.

The hobo who lived in the shed.

This guy has spent time stuffed in a shed. He has lost his hat, acquired some grime and is about to lose his hair.

All cleaned up with a new hat and adjusted hairpiece.

Facial rejuvenation in composition

Here we have a 15" compo doll who does not look too bad at first glance.
She is missing a wig and some eyelashes.
Her body has some crazing but is in quite acceptable condition.
I am only going to restore the head.

Her face has the issues.
Cracked and lifting composition.
I think someone gave her a new lipstick application too!

Here, you might be able to see some impressive compo lifting in the corner of the eye.
To restore this properly, all the cracked and lifting compo has to be removed.

Well! It seems as if practically every bit of skim composition was lifting. It got all removed.

Those are staple holes on her chin with matching ones on the other side. Did she have a hat or other item stapled to her head? Ow!

This after 3 layers of filler/primer with sanding in between. This gives the bare compo a nice smooth finish for paint.

Now she has her skin tone paint on and is starting eyelash replacement.
I often use a paintbrush with the right color and texture bristles to harvest eyelashes from.

This style of eye has a slot in the tin that eyelashes get inserted into.
Here one eye has had the slot filed up with bristles.
I dip small clumps of bristles in glue and then insert them into the slot. A pin is useful to adjust their position in the slot before the glue dries. I also add a bit more glue inside the eye to secure the bristles better.

The bristles get trimmed to the right length once the glue dries.

On to the next eye.....tuft by tuft....

All done and looking for a wig.....

One potential wig.
This one is mohair.

Replacing a cloth body

This is 'Carolyn'.
She is made by Corolle and has a cloth body that is ripped, frayed and losing it's grip on the head.
One could patch the old body but a new body was requested.

This is often an easy job but....

Alas for me, Carolyn's limbs are stitched onto the cloth.
Older dolls tend to have their limbs wired on so replacing the body just involves undoing the wires and rewiring them later.
Dang, I have to sew cloth to vinyl to repair Carolyn!

A stitch ripper is a handy tool.
Here, every stitch has been picked apart including the ones that sewed her limbs on.
The most accurate way to make a new body is to use the old body as a pattern.

Carolyn's new body.

Happily, no injuries happened while sewing the new fabric onto her limbs. If you are wondering how one could injure themselves doing this, let me introduce you to the sewing awl....

This is the perfect tool for sewing thick materials.
It can be a little hazardous to fingers!

Topsy needs a massive skull repair

 This cutie is a 'Topsy' doll. From the 30's and 40's...named after a character from 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'.
She has met with a severe accident.
She has several cracks and part of her head is missing.

Here is Topsy in the midst of getting her head rebuilt.
She now has a metal mesh spanning the head defect and several layers of epoxy putty are getting applied overtop.

Head repair done and painted to match the original finish.

Love the hairdo!

A dress and some hair bows complete her.....