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The torso was originally made with dovetail joints between 2 pieces of wood.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!