Arabelle.....a full composition restoration

Arabelle has traveled from Nova Scotia to get restored.
She arrived already beheaded :-)

 The eyes are the first thing you notice. The irises have shattered and the sclera have yellowed.

She has a lot of crazing paint.
Several areas of her outer skim composition layers are lifting away from the base composition. It may be hard to tell this from the picture, but if you press a fingernail along the side of the nose where that layer is lifting....it cracks and falls off.

Here you can see where some of the lifted skim coat has already fallen off revealing the base composition underneath.

Here is another problem typical of these dolls.
In the factory, the doll was often formed in different pieces in a mold or press. The pieces were glued together and the ridges smoothed over with plaster. Unfortunately plaster is very susceptible to moisture and the plastered seams are the first to crack.
All of the loose and lifted material must be removed to make a stable smooth base for paint.

So we start with the usual....unstuffing the body and removing the limbs to get worked on.
Another silent voice box. This one is quite petite for such a large doll but hopefully it can be made to squawk again.

Out come the eyes.
The main eyeball is metal with inset plastic irises. The shattered irises have to get reamed out and new ones glued in. The yellowed sclera will get a coating of paint so she does not keep that jaundiced look.












Another doll stalled by nasty weather. Acetone is used to remove the cracking paint and that needs good ventilation....ie. outdoors. 4C and raining yet again today!

So some nice weather finally. I can use some stinky stuff outside without getting frostbite...
But first I drill out the irises. That is a messy job with plastic bits flying so it is designated to the outdoors too.

Hmmm...first iris out to find a metal post in the middle. That is a new finding for me. Every doll seem to have a surprise somewhere.

It may not look like progress but it is.
About half of Arabelle's skim composition was cracked and/or lifting off of the base compo.
Removing the unstable layers and sanding the rest down to get a smooth surface is the most time consuming part of this type of restoration.
Happily, Arabelle's base composition is in great shape so she does not need features re-built.

This is one leg showing the seam that was glued and plastered during manufacturing.

Here we have the eyes after some fresh paint and new irises.
Eyelashes are still to come....they get inserted tuft by tuft into the slots you can see above the irises.

Woot woot....eyelashes are done.

Arabelle (and a friend) are getting many layers of skin-tone paint applied now.

Arrabelle's body is done. The cryer works again and the old ripped cloth has been replaced.
It seems to be patiently waiting for hair and makeup to be completed?
Arrabelle had to go through hair painting twice....the first hairdo did not quite look right!

The hair and makeup departments have finally completed their work and the eyes have been re-inserted.
Last thing is to re-attach the head.

Head attached....ready to go home.....

Oh dear.....the poor thing!!!

This is a composition doll from the 1910's or 20's.
She has had a hard life. She unfortunately seems to have had previous repairs using plaster that was not sanded smooth or contoured.
She has a layer of bad over-paint on top of lumpy plaster on top of hardly-there original paint which is barely hanging on to the cracking skim composition layer. There are a lot of layers to remove before she can start her renewal!

Every old doll deserves a chance.
This was likely some child's cherished doll so it too deserves to be restored.

The first thing to do is to try to uncover and document the original features so that they can be restored or re-created.
A bit more original eye paint is uncovered No original eyebrows are left.

The poor thing is beheaded and unstuffed to start repairs.
The stuffing is excelsior....shredded wood. A typical stuffing in early composition dolls.
The voice box is extracted. It is silent.

The voice boxes can usually be repaired so that they make noises again. It was originally advertised that they say 'Mama' or cry like a baby. This one, when I tested it, sounded more like a indignant goose. These were not high-tech sound machines!
The usual problem is that the bellows that forces the air through the squawker has stiffened with age. The bellows needs to be replaced.





The next steps involve chipping off old cracked paint and that is messy! Without a good workshop I do that outside....but where is our nice Spring weather???? It has been cold and soggy far too long!
But at least I got the bellows replaced. This doll will squawk again.

Ah....some nice weather....the work continues and my deck is littered with pieces of cracked paint now.

And here is the result.

All the cracking and defective layers are gone leaving bare composition exposed in most areas. The composition has some issues that  were likely caused by past exposures to moisture.
Composition is basically a sawdust and glue product. It does not like moisture!

The missing bits will get filled in with epoxy putty.

Here we are in the middle of rebuilding/filling/priming.
This poor doll is needing many layers. Each layer has to dry 24+ hours then gets sanded and recontoured for the next layer.
Slow but steady progress......

On to the paint booth for many layers of skin tone.

She has finished the journey through the hair and make-up department.

A new muslin body replaces her old shredding one and her repaired voice box is packed inside with the original excelsior stuffing.

She gets a simple cotton dress. This one is antique baby dress that was repaired and altered to fit her.

A Gebruder Heubach doll gets presentable

This doll is in a bit of a mess. His head is perfect but his body is in pieces and is leaking sawdust everywhere.
The kid leather bodies often have a cotton cover to the sawdust stuffing. This cotton was shredded and had a few previous repairs..
The cotton gets replaced so the sawdust stays put and the whole doll gets reassembled.

Now for some clothes.
I found an antique pair of baseball pants that were a little worse for wear. Still lots of usable fabric left.....maybe a baseball uniform then?

Magic Skin dolls deteriorate

This is a doll from the late 1950's who has a vinyl head and a magic skin body. Magic skin was an early latex/rubber material that was meant to give a doll a more realistic feel. Magic skin certainly did give that realistic feel to the dolls but it unfortunately did not stand the test of time. Magic skin often develops problems such as discoloration, pitting, tearing and stiffening.
This doll has several tears in the magic skin and it's left wrist has hardened and cracked with the hand torn totally off.
Magic skin can be patched and repaired but will remain fragile and will likely continue to deteriorate.

Here is the doll's wrist close up.

The doll's eyes have a problem characteristic of early plastics. The cataract like coating is leaching plasticizer. Many early plastics are degenerating and one way they show this is this powdery coating.
This coating can be cleaned off but is likely to recur at some point.

Here she is cleaned up.
Her eyes have some pitting and changes from the plastic degeneration process but they still have a nice vintage look to them.

Her owner preferred the body to end up strong enough to get played with by the grandchildren.
So, rather than repairing the old magic skin, we opted for a body transplant.

I was lucky enough to find a vintage stuffed rubber body that was similar to her old magic skin one. The rubber on this body was thicker and sturdier and should stand up to play.

Her clothes and hair got a bit of sprucing up and she is ready to return home.