Another amputee

Now we have a cute Japanese baby doll with a foot problem.

That foot looks like it has been gnawed on.

Epoxy putty to the rescue....

Some tweaks on the shaping and some paint to disguise the repair and she is no longer an amputee...

A mysterious doll

Here is a doll who was listed on eBay as an old girl doll.
The doll has a lovely dress and bonnet but there is something about her construction........















Undressed, the doll reveals itself as a Schoenhut doll......and that is no girl.......that is a boy doll with carved hair that has had a few DIY paint jobs.

His head has had at least 5 layers of bad paint including one layer of a mustard colour.....what was someone thinking to paint a doll the colour of mustard???



So, the plan is to remove all the DIY paint layers and get him back to what is left of his original paint.


He is worth the effort as he is one of Schoenhut's earliest models that was produced only in 1911.

This is what he is supposed to look like.

Here he is partially stripped.
It is a slow go.
Some of the bad layers are quite thick!

A return to the 1920's composition doll

This was how the 1920's doll arrived to me last Winter in Florida.
She had a beautiful organdy outfit but her paint layer was shot and her skim composition layer was no better. Her eyes were stuck shut.















After her lifted and peeling layers were removed she looked like this by the Spring.

She got left in a box for the next few seasons while we migrated north but finally got back into the repair queue just recently.

She got filled, sanded, primed and painted and now looks like this.

This is her teeth and tongue. Both are made from celluloid.

Here she is now.
Her original mohair wig has been washed. It is sparse but when her bonnet goes back on it will only be peeking out. Her wig will still get a few plugs of mohair that fell out during the washing process....maybe fill in the bangs a bit?

It is good to save the original wigs where possible.

Her head is a shoulderplate style that is glued on to the cloth body.
The cloth body was washed. The crier was fixed.....it squawks like all the rest of them......and her original stuffing was replaced.

Back into her organdy outfit she goes....

Modern doll repairs

This is a doll made by June Goodnow. She was a doll artist who made several lovely one of a kind dolls sculpted with polymer clay. She often used native Americans as subjects.

This dude of hers is in triage here for a few injuries.

He has two missing fingers.

 And the tops of both ears are missing.

So we start with the usual.....
Installing a wire support to build the first finger on.

Now he has roughed in ring finger and a wire support for his pinkie.

His missing ear bits are getting rebuilt too.

And now he is done.
2 new fingers and both ears are repaired.