A celluloid doll with eye issues

 

This doll has arrived to address her missing eye. It hopefully is not missing. Something is rattling around inside her head. We shall hope it is her eye and it is not broken. The eyes are glass.

There are glue remnants around the remaining eye. According to her history, her eyes were repaired before.

She was made by the German company Schildkrot. She is made of celluloid.

On further inspection I find some cracks in her legs. Someone already has had a go at the cracks as there is lots of glue residue along them.

Happiness!

Once the doll's head is removed, out pops the missing eye......intact!

The curved widget is the piece that sits inside her head to string it to the body.

Here is a view inside her head. I have to re-glue the loose eyeball into the socket. But, my fingers are not long enough to position the eyeball.

I need an eye holding tool.

A bit of wire gets bent into an odd shape.

This shape will hold the eyeball as I insert it into the socket.

I use a few dabs of tacky glue on the socket. It is water soluable so, if I mess up, I can reverse the installation with water.

Success!

As the old glue holding the eyes is aging and weakening I added a layer of epoxy around each eyeball inside the head to hold them in more securely.

Her legs were more troublesome.

Normally broken bits of celluloid can be fused together with acetone. But, the previous repair and the old glue remnants were not letting that happen. So, I elected to use tinted epoxy to fill in the cracks. She has scars which could be filled/sanded/painted to disguise them. But she has clothes that will hide the scars. They will remain as is.

Ready to go home.