Repairing a Schoenhut animal's leather bits

 

This Schoenhut goat was poorly packed for shipping and arrived with one ear and one horn broken off.These bits are original to him so it will be nice to save them.

The horns are made of leather but the leather has become brittle over the years. Both horns show evidence of 'red rot'. That is a degredation process common to old vegetable-tanned leathers.

The horns were inserted and glued into a hole drilled into the head, then painted.

How does one piece together 2 bits of old degenerating leather?

First, the deteriorating leather is treated with a leather consolidator. I treated both bits of the broken horn and also his intact horn as it was brittle and starting to flake.

Once I had sturdier leather bits, I could fasten them together.

Because of the shape of the horn and some missing leather at the break, just gluing the bits together would not last long.

So the broken horn will get internally fixated with a wire.

Here the broken off bit has had a wire installed. A hole was pre-drilled and acid free glue was used to secure the wire.

Drill a hole on the other side of the break to receive the wire and glue the bits together.

Success!

I glued his ear back on without support. It seems to work.

Keen eyes might notice his beard looks odd at the top? 

It apparently broke off in the past and someone taped it on with a little bit of white cloth tape. But now the tape is starting to peel away.

Time to fix his beard!

Here is how the last person fixed his beard.

Getting the tape off of aging leather will be a delicate process.

This is his beard finally extracted from the tape and the hole it was glued into.

The brittle leather has been consolidated and treated with a leather conditioner.

Then the bits have been glued on a piece of Japanese paper for support.

Here is his beard after being stabilized and reinstalled without the tape.

Another Eaton's Beauty Doll

 

This doll was made by the Canadian company 'Reliable' and was sold as an Eaton's Beauty doll.

She was made between 1939-1943

She is all composition with tin eyes and a Saran wig.

He eyes are a little skew-wiff but seem to be in their original setting and alignment.

She has lost some eyelashes which will be replaced.

Her biggest problems are a few structural cracks in her torso.

Lesser problems are a crack in a side seam and....

.....a couple partial finger amputations.

Off comes her wig. That will help do a more complete wig repair and it will help in dealing with the excessive glue and various finish issues.

A bit of a crack up one side.

This doll's paint was applied very thinly and is worn off in many areas. Well over 50% of her paint is gone.

So the rest of the paint will be removed with acetone to prepare for a new painted finish.

Her torso cracks have been filled.

The hip sockets also needed reinforcing.

Her structural issues have been corrected and her paint has been refreshed.

Her wig is made of Saran and has stitched curls. That makes combing it out impossible. But the stray hairs can be corraled and eventually tamed enough to wrap around curlers.

Finally she gets put back together and clothed.

Another Schoenhut doll

 

This head has arrived with most of it's paint already removed.

It had had a poor repaint but, unfortunately, when the repaint was removed, there was essentialy no original paint underneath.

The nose and left eye's contours need rebuilding.

There is lingering bits of dark brown paint and a varity of fillers that should be removed to get to a stable surface for rebuilding and repainting.

Now the head is ready to get gessoed which will seal the bare wood.

First layer of filler and paint and we get this.....

Multiple layers later....

Then a bit more paint.....

A large bisque headed doll repair

 

This is a large German bisque headed doll who is a family heirloom. She has arrived to make her look less scary.

Apparently the white colour of her eyes when she was supposed to be 'sleeping' was unnerving to the family member who handed me the doll :-)

That is just some missing eyelids.....but she has scarier issues than that to me.

She has some serious cracks. Cracks in the front...

...and cracks in the back.

Even a few chips and missing chunks of bisque.

This head looks to be almost completely broken in two. What is holding it together?

Inside the head I find someone has reset the sleep eyes with gray epoxy clay and then added hot glue gun glue to that for extra measure.

Another view.

These compounds are solid and trying to remove them will be hazardous to the eye rocker, so the cracks need to be consolidated from the outside.

But first, this very dirty head needs a good scrub and all the old glue from the wig needs to come off.

After a cleaning the cracks get consolidated. That gets done by painting a thinned adhesive along the cracks that can seep in and harden.

Next the cracks will get filled a bit.

A wig, eyelashes/eyelids and some age appropriate clothes help her look less scary.

Maplelea Doll hips again

 

This is 'Elise'. She has arrived in a wheel chair!

Why is she in a wheel chair?

Both of her hip sockets are almost fully torn out of her body.

This happens to these dolls when the thread stitching the plastic hip socket to the fabric body gets worn down by movements at the hip.

To re-stitch the hips you need to remove the legs from the plastic hip sockets.

You will need to remove the head and unstuff the body to complete this repair.

There are a few stitches at the top of the neck that need to be picked out.

This doll's head is attached with string. Some are attached with cable ties.

Undo the knots or cut the cable tie to get the head off.

Stitch the hip socket back on to the body.

Here one hip is done.

This is a tension cup or stringing cup. You will have to fish this out of the leg. Warming the vinyl up with a hair dryer and using needle nosed plies to pull it out usually works nicely.

New elastic is secured with a big knot and then you push the whole thing back in the leg.

The leg should look like this.

Now you thread the new elastic through your nicely stitched hip socket, pull it and knot it.

Restuff the body, attach the head and....

Dog vs. doll

 

This is a nice antique baby doll who likely dates from the 1920's.

She has been chomped on by a dog.

Her hands and the ends of her arms are missing. Hopefully they did not cause too much indigestion to the dog?

Her feet have been munched too.

The sole of one foot is missing along with it's cardboard insert.

Some suspicious tooth marks?

Bad dog!

Fortunately her porcelain head and glass eyes are unbroken although she is missing a tooth.

From my parts stash come a pair of antique composition hands that need some repairs and alterations to fit this type of body. They once had a hook but now are on their way to getting flanges made so that they can be wired into the cloth arms.

Inside the torso is a silent voicebox.

The voicebox.

The inside of the voicebox.

The bellows is supposed to push air through a squeaker. The bellows cloth has no rips or holes but the glue along the seam has dried out. Now air goes through the seam instead of the squeaker.

Hopefully regluing the seam will be all it needs?

While the voicebox glue dries, I start on the body.

Here I have taken apart one leg to make a pattern for a new leg.

Similar patterns are made for the other body bits.

Here is one leg done and the other leg waiting to get stuffed.

The voice box works again too.

She is done.

Her joints are simple wire and washer types.

This was a common joint style and was simpler to do for the factory than an inside-the-joint cotterpin and disc style.

The string in her mouth is there only to hold her eyes stationary while she returns through the mail.

It will be snipped and removed once she gets back home.

Glass sleep eyes should always be immobilized for shipping. If they flap around while the box gets tossed around, there is a big chance they will arrive broken.