Glass sleep eyes

 

This very large doll is in pieces but her main issue is her lack of eyes.

These are her original eyes. 

Unfortunately the iris part of the broken eye is missing. If it was still present the eyeball could be pieced back together.

She will look her best with new glass eyeballs.

Her owner has sourced out blown glass eyeballs of the right size.

Hopefully I can get them mounted on the original eye rocker.

First, the remains of the old eyes get removed from the rocker.

Then I try a dry run with the new eyeballs and old rocker inside the head.

So far, so good.

The eyes have been glued into the rocker and some eyelashes have been applied.

Next the missing plaster eyelids need to be recreated.

Some things just do not go well!

The plaster eyelids got applied by dipping the whole eye rocker in freshly mixed plaster. That made the eyelashes fall off.

To add to that, as I was contemplating how to reinstall the eyelashes, I heard a 'pop'. The left eyeball just cracked!!!

Plaster of Paris as it cures and sets into a solid gives off a wee bit of heat. Could that have cracked the vintage glass? There was no obvious trauma to the glass.

Now what?

The glass pieces stayed together after cracking so I consolidated them and coated them with a water thin cyanoacrylate adhesive. That seemed to work so I reapplied the eyelashes and waxed the eyelids. The cracked eyeball survived all that so now we have this. An intact eye rocker!

The old eye plasters did not fit the new eyes' contours so new plaster mounts were made.

Once I pull her body out of the box I find another issue. Her neck socket is cracked and needs to be reinforced before she gets restrung. There will be a large anount of pressure on this socket from the stringing elastic. If it gets strung as is the neck socket will finish caving in.

After lots of glue is applied around the outside and inside of the neck socket, the missing areas can be rebuilt with epoxy putty.

Then the repaired area gets disguised with paint.

The rest of her body is fine so she can get put back together.

At 36" tall, she is an impressive doll!