Cloth body replacement

This is 'Biggie' who has arrived to get her cloth body repaired.
Her dreadlocks and facial stickers are not to be touched....they are special features that her 5yo owner wants to stay as is.

Under all the duct tape is torn cloth at every limb.
Biggie's owner and I agree that she should get a new cloth body.

Done.

Hard plastic and when to leave it well enough alone......

This is a very large hard plastic doll that was made in Britain in the late 1940's. It was one of the very first plastic dolls produced there.

It has arrived to be restrung and for touch-ups.

In its back is a silent voicebox.

The top cover comes off the voice box easily but the main part is wired and glued into the torso.
It will not come out without damaging the torso excessively.
So it will stay put and remain silent.

The eyes are a bit discoloured and there are multiple dark marks within the plastic.
The dark marks will not clean off.
The eye changes are typical of aging plastics.

After the head is removed a small rocker mechanism is found. It once made the eyes open and close but with time the plastic has warped a bit and the eyes are stuck open.

There is really no good access to fix these eyes and get them sleeping again without risking breaking fragile plastic.
So the eyes will stay stationary.

Even the doll's joints show signs of plastic deterioration. They have all warped a bit and do not sit flush like they once did


Plastic items do not last forever. This doll and many other plastic and vinyl dolls will continue to deteriorate with time. Every plastic item deteriorates at it's own rate. It could be many decades or it could be just a few years before you see changes in your plastic dolls. You can slow the deterioration by keeping plastic out of direct sunlight and away from extreme temperatures

Restringing and a few facial touch-ups done.

A really sad Schoenhut doll!

This doll has a story behind her current sorry state.
She was bought as a fixer-upper doll. Someone had already been trying to fix her up.
She was stored in a tub in an RV with several other dolls in the same condition. The RV had a leak. It rained....lots. The tub containing the dolls filled with water. The dolls got wet and presumably the dolls at the bottom of the tub got the wettest. Then they all got rescued.

This doll has been beheaded to help her drying out process. She also has had a spraying of vinegar to help her rust and mold issues.
That is powdered rust in the picture.

The first thing to do is to remove the water damaged paint and other gunk.

Here she is after her first round of scraping/sanding/filing the bad stuff off.

Inside the torso is this widget.
This is the spring assembly that hold the head on. It was so rusted, I decided it needed to come out for a cleaning and assessment.

It is not a healthy looking piece.

But, once the rust is removed, it looks OK.

The torso was originally made with dovetail joints between 2 pieces of wood.
The water has separated the join and warped the front piece of wood.
The wood is completely dry now so the separation and warping is permanent.

Wood glue gets injected into the gap to make sure there is no further movement.

And then a wood epoxy paste is used to fill the remaining gap and level out the surface.

The head needs the most attention.
The left eye has warped and lost some of it's carved details.
There are splits here and there and areas of softened wood.
The nose and lips are smooshed.

First, I stabilize all the old wood with a wood hardener.

Then the worst cracks and defects like the ones pictured here get filled with a wood epoxy.
That gives a stable base for the final finishing.

With epoxy putty and clear gesso tinted with acrylic paint, the damaged features can be rebuilt bit by bit.
Here she is part way through this process.

Her progress gets contemplated a lot.

And here she is with 2 similar dolls.
Her body has been painted and antiqued a bit.
She is getting some facial antiquing too.
After the adventures she has had, she should not end up looking brand new.

A wig and an outfit help a lot.

She looks a bit different than when she first arrived!

German ball jointed body repair

This is a bisque headed German doll who has arrived to get some repairs.
She has her original wig and clothes.

Her biggest problem is her torso.
It has caved in at the hip sockets, likely from too much tension from her elastic stringing.
This is a structural problem and she should not get restrung until this is repaired.

Another view of her lower torso.
The torso is made of cardboard.

100 year old cardboard does not bend back into shape very well.
But, with small clamps, I can put pressure on spots to try to gradually coax it back closer to the shape it is supposed to be.

Once the cardboard bits are as close to their original position as I think they can get they get epoxied into position.

Some other areas of the body will get a bit of epoxie and paint too.

Back together after the epoxied areas are painted.

The hip area is no longer caved in. It is strong and the repairs have been painted to match the original body finish.

Under her pink dress was this.
This is her original chemise. Some dolls were sold wearing only a chemise like this. German chemises are typically made of a very thin cotton and are simply trimmed.
This one has some seam issues down the side but is in decent shape otherwise.

With a few repairs and some ironing.

While the body is getting it's repairs and paint, the wig starts getting spruced up.
It starts as a bit of a matted mess.

Some time later it looks like this.

And then, more time later, it looks like this.

Curlers out.......

....and chemise on.

This is the way many German dolls were sold. Barefoot and wearing only a chemise.

This doll arrived with a very nice factory made pink outfit that just needed a bit of mending. She may have been an upgraded doll that was sold with a real outfit......one step up from just a chemise. She would have had oilcloth or paper shoes to go with this outfit but they are long gone. She is wearing a modern equivalent pair in the picture.

Time for her to head home!