Mechanical stuff and plastic woes!

 I was sent a mechanical Santa and Mrs. Claus to see if I could restore them. They look to be from the 1980's. They both sit at a piano which stayed with their owner. I was handed a plastic bin into which the Claus couple had been unceremoniously stuffed.

First out of the bin is Santa Claus. He isn't too bad. His feather quill has broken and he has a few spots to clean.... but he works!

I fixed his quill by inserting a wire into the broken spine crossing the breakage and glueing it all in place.

Next out of the bin is his wife.

Mrs. Claus has some yellowing and other ageing problems of her clothing. More worrisome is her mechanical issues. One of her arms no longer moves. I need to get into her mechanism to see what is the problem. These figures were not designed to be repairable. The clothing is glued on.

Here is one example where her sash is gued to her dress.

But, after some experimenting, I find this glue softens with heat. So, with some picking out of stitches and heating of glue blobs with a hair dryer, I can disrobe Mrs. Claus.

I am not sure this is progress. I am still a long way from the dysfunctional mechanism.

Under the foam is a plastic shell. Of course the  foam is glued on.

And her head is glued on too!

More work with the hairdryer loosens the glue and I get this....

The torso comes apart by removing a couple screws.

Now I can see how the mechanism works and what has gone wrong.

There is a plastic bit sitting loose behind the axle. Another plastic bit and a few chunks of plastic have already fallen out when the torso was opened.

Most of the components driving Mrs. Claus' arms are made of plastic. Her forearms are made of bisque and are relatively heavy for little plastic bits to move around. So the plastic was given a pretty heavy job to do from day 1. Most plastics get brittle or weaken with time. Mrs. Claus' plastic bits are disintegrating.

The red arrow points to a tooth or cog that has broken off the left arm. The yellow arrow points to the top of a plastic support that contained the bushings for that cog to sit in and also another critical piece. The top of this support has broken totally off.

Here is a better view of that support with the broken top.

Then, the parts that are not yet broken are cracking. Here is the right arm's support/bushings with a crack quite visible.