A Japanese gofun doll

 

This doll has arrived for repairs.

She is a Japanese doll from maybe the 1930's.

Her head was wrapped separately from her body as the connection had broken.

Her nose needs fixing.

This doll was finished with 'gofun'. That is a ground up oyster shell product.

There are issues with the doll's limbs.

All the limbs have silk upper parts stuffed with wood wool. The silk is shredding.

Silk is not available locally so I have found the next best fabric to use. This is a rayon fabric that I will use to wrap the shredding silk parts. I dyed the rayon to turn it from the bright white into a more subdued and antique looking colour.

Here are her legs wrapped in rayon.

No more wood wool leaks.

Her arms get a similar treatment.

Her nose is filled and the repaired area is getting the colour tweaked to blend in with her original surfaces.

After a bit of reseach, I find out that the head is connected very simply. It is mounted on a stick that gets pushed into the wood wool inside her torso. That allows the head to turn.

So, I replace the broken stick with a bamboo skewer.

A vintage voicebox squawks again

 

This vintage plastic doll has arrived with a few requests.

She needs lip and eyebrow paint as her originals have long won off.

She needs restringing as her legs are attached with hooks and elastic. The elastic has stretched out with time. The elastic seems a bit odd as her arms and head are attached with more typical flange joints but, it is most certainly original.

More troublesome for me is that her voicebox is broken and silent. I have never tried fixing a plastic voicebox like this.

Off come the legs and out comes the voicebox.

I still cannot see how the elastic attaches.

After she gets beheaded, the elastic attachment is exposed. It is a simple nail holding the two ends.

Back to the voicebox.

I can see the weight inside but I need to get it out to analyse why it does not make noise any more. It will not fit out through the broken top and the top has been solidly glued onto the body.

The only option is to saw open the body of the voicebox.

Here is the weight freed from the voicebox.

How does this make noise?

Flipping over the weight reveals the reed. Blowing air through it makes it squawk so it is not the problem.

The weight has a latex gasket held on by a cardboard ring.

The gasket seals against the sides of the body to push air through the reed in the weight as the weight moves back and forth.

The problem is likely that the gasket has lost its flexibility so replacing it should work.

Here is the gasket.

Before I tried to make a new gasket I sawed open a brand new voicebox that was too long to fit in this doll. Inside was an identical gasket. I swiped it and installed it in this voicebox. It worked!

Here is her new facial paint.

And here is her repaired voice box that actually works!