Re-assembling a German bisque doll

So, now we have a small German bisque headed doll.
It needs it's head re-attached and it's wig prettied up.

This type of doll does not have stringing hooks. The elastic was glued into the limbs with no thought to eventual elastic replacements.
But here, someone has already replaced the old elastic. They drilled out the old stuff and jury rigged elastic bands to replace the stringing.
Pretty inventive, but now the elastic bands are rotting and need replacing.

Here the elastic has been replaced with fresh stuff.

 The wire piece that arrived with the doll is part of it's original stringing system. One end hooks around the elastic between the legs and the other end hooks over the rim of the head.

Prettying up the wig will take some work. It is missing a chunk of mohair.

A few extensions added and she looks better.

This is another topknot wig. These wigs were made by stuffing a wad of mohair into the top of the head....in this case it was stuffed into a cardboard pate. Then it was glued to the head and styled. They were never meant to be combed out. If you try to comb out one of these wigs, half the mohair will fall out.
The topknot wig was typically seen on the lower priced dolls of the time. A hat was usually part of the doll's ensemble and disguised the sparseness of the wig.

How about this hat?

A return to the beat up Schoenhut.

This is the beat up Schoenhut doll who got her arm fixed and then she sat while I decided how much restoration, if any, to do to her.

Well, she kept looking so pathetic I decided she needed something done.
So she got her dings filled with colored epoxy.
And, she had already had her dark lipstick removed,

so that made her look like this......

She once looked like the saddest doll on this shelf but after her dings got filled she started to outshine a couple of the others.

Finally, I got around to disguising her patches and getting her dressed.
I wanted her to still look old and played with so this is her final look.

She wears an antique dress and shoes and looks like an old played-with doll.

A 'patent washable' doll

 This type of doll is sometimes referred to as a 'patent washable' doll. They were made in the 1880-1915 period and have a cloth body with papier mache head and limbs.
Most of the problems that plague this type of doll are about to be seen here....

The area around the eye is prone to damage.
Her one eye socket is chipped and the other......well the whole eye is gone.
Something is rattling around inside the head. I hope that is the missing eye!

The cloth used for these bodies is typically a very thin cotton prone to fraying and ripping.
The arm cloth on this doll is almost non-existent. Actually her whole right arm is non-existent.

This particular doll has an interesting hole in it's side leading into a cardboard tube. I sense I am going to be finding some sort of mechanism inside.

The lower legs were being held on only by socks that were pinned to the upper legs. At least the lower legs are still present.

The back of the doll's head looks quite damaged under all that cloth and string.

Sure enough......lots of damage was being covered up by that cloth.
Happily the missing eye was inside the head!

This papier mache is quite thin and is obviously easily damaged.

Further disassembly finds the mysterious mechanism that the hole led to.
The doll once had 2 strings coming out of that hole. Pulling the strings operated a bellows type mechanism to produce a sound.

This is what was considered hi-tech at the turn of the 20th century!

The head is making progress in that the pieces are back together.
Now on to disguising the scars.....

So far she has gotten her voicebox repaired and re-installed, her feet mended and re-attached. Her replacement right arm is taking shape too.

Disguising the scars involves spraying sealer....which should  not get onto the glass eyes.
And, this doll's hair is not removable without destroying it.
So, she gets a head-wrap to protect her hair and lovely blue goggles to protect her eyes.

Her current backside view.

She is now cleaned up and her scars are disguised.

Next is contemplating what to do with her hair. It is mohair and original to her so it would be nice to keep it.

This type of wig is sometimes called a 'topknot' wig. It was made by stuffing a handful of mohair into a hole on the top of the head. The mohair was then spread around the head, glued down and styled. This type of wig is very prone to losing mohair and often end up looking sparse and straggly.

I could resort to what many folks do on a bad hair day.....put on a hat.
Or, maybe extensions would work? I install several extensions by gluing in multiple small clumps of a similar coloured mohair.

Then she goes off to the doll hair salon.

Here is one of her arms getting stuffed.

The piece of cloth someone had used to hold her head pieces on was big enough to make new upper arms. And, it was the same style of antique cotton.

The stuffing is excelsior, or wood wool. This was a common stuffing used in the era this doll was made. The body and legs are stuffed with excelsior so the arms, ideally should be too.

All back together and waiting for her clothes....

A very well loved bear gets some repairs.

This is 'Pookey'.
He is one of the most well loved bears I have ever met.
He has arrived for a few repairs.
He has had multiple holes stitched up over his years and his stuffing is compacted all over.

 Pookey's main problem is that his eyes are tearing through his fur fabric. These are safety eyes and the two parts need to be separated to patch his fur properly.

Here is Pookey unstuffed, eyes out and ready to be patched.
His stuffing has been re-fluffed from it's ultra-compacted state.

Here is Pookey ready to go home.
He has been patched, darned, re-fluffed and even had his smile touched up.
He still looks like a very well-loved bear but there is a limit to what his aging fur was going to be able to withstand!

Broken bisque foot

 Here we have another modern bisque doll.
She has arrived to get her one foot restored.

 Her foot has been broken in several pieces and then pieced back together with construction adhesive.

This was not the best glue job....the edges are not well matched.
But trying to dissolve the glue would be harder on the doll than working with it's current state so....

I start by gluing in some metal mesh for a base for the missing bisque.

Then some epoxy compound over the mesh.

This is after many layers of epoxy putty with sanding in between each.
It is off to the paint booth next.

A couple layers of paint and now I can see where the contouring can be improved.
Back to the epoxy putty now just to tweak a few areas.















I have tweaked the contours of the foot with epoxy putty but arghh...... just as I start the last layer of paint....my compressor for my airbrush malfunctions :-P
It is leaking air. Time to study compressor repairs.......

The compressor is toast! It will be cheaper to buy a new one than to buy parts.
But I coaxed one last spray out of it, then did some hand painted shading and:

We have a finished foot!

The doll should look a bit happier now her foot is mended?

That is a rather expressive face!

Repairing and restringing a Gebruder Heubach doll

This is a larger sized Gebruder Heubach character. He needs to be restrung.
His head is perfect and his body is in pretty good shape.
There are a few issues with the body that I will fix before restringing him.

The top of his torso  has lost parts of the outer gesso and paint. This is not a structural problem but repairing the defects will strengthen the neck socket a bit and it will look better.

His limbs have minor losses of the gesso and paint.
His hands have had at least 2 fingers rebuilt and they have been totally repainted. The repaint is too glossy and bumpy and is starting to chip off.
So I will remove the repaint and touch up the rebuilt fingers to match the original finish......if I can salvage the original finish.

Here are the body parts ready to assemble. The neck and other chipped areas have been filled and painted to match the original finish.
The hands did retain the original finish under the overpaint.....including fingernail markings. The  three rebuilt fingers were tweaked a bit and then repainted.

Stringing complete.

A nice outfit and he is ready to go.

Ow, my eye!

This is a doll from the 1950's.
She has a vinyl head and a magic skin body.
She got played with a bit roughly and now her right eye is wonky.

The wonky eye has been pushed into the socket and is wedged at a creepy angle.
Her left eye does not work either. it is stuck closed.

The usual start to doll repairs....off with the head.

It helps to heat the neck area with a hairdryer to soften the vinyl a bit before you attempt to remove the head.

Here you can see that the eyes sit inside pockets that are molded into the vinyl head.

To get the eyes out, you can heat the eyeball area with the hairdryer and then push the eye out of the socket with pressure on those eye sockets inside the head.

Here is what the eyeball looks like once it is extracted from the pocket.
You can buy replacement eyes but fortunately this doll's original eyes were repairable.

This is the inside of one eye.

Both eyes needed a deep cleaning and repair/adjustments of the pivots.

Back go the eyes (the vinyl got warmed up again for that), a freshening up of her face and lipstick, and she is ready to go home.