Vinyl doll body and eye issues

 

This is 'Cathy'. She has arrived to get a new cloth body and some eye repairs.

Her body once had a voicebox which has been long lost. She is also stuffed with foam.

The plan is to delete the opening in her back and replace her foam with polyester fibrefill. Foam degenerated with time and Cathy's foam already has developed hard crusty areas.

There is a lot of glue residue along the top of her forehead.

One eye does not open and close well. The other eye is missing it's lashes.

Out come her eyes......lots of rust!

Inside the one eyeball are the missing eyelashes :-)

The rusty bits will soak in vinegar for a while and then get a good scrub.

Fortunately this rust is just on the surface and has not weakened the metal.

She is starting to look better once her eyes are fixed and replaced. She has also had the forehead glue removed and a hairbrushing.

Her body gets dismantled to use as a pattern for her new body.

Oh the fun of sewing vinyl to cloth!

It needed two tries to sew the body with a big enough opening to fit Cathy's huge head inside :-)

But finally her head is sewn into the body. Now her head has to be extracted from the body and then the limbs get sewn in.

Limbs are in. New stuffing is in.

Cathy is ready to go home.

A bag of plastic dolls

 

A bag of sad dolls has arrived to see if they are salvagable.

They are a variety of 1950's dolls.

First out of the bag is Betsy Wetsy.

She has a hard plastic head on a vinyl body.

This doll was made so you could put a bottle of water in her mouth. The water came out of holes near her eyes and near her bottom making her look like she was crying and wetting.

Her main issue is her eyes. That white stuff is reaching plasticizer.

Off comes her head....this is the head's inside view.

There is rust everywhere.

This is not too surprising given the doll was made to have water flowing around inside her now and then.

Besty Wetsy ads often show the doll getting bathed.....another water source to start rust formation.

Rust weakens metal. The spring that holds the eyes steady has already weakened and is non-functional. If I pry the metal clamp off it's mount to fix the eye mechanism I could cause more damage.

So let's leave the eyes in and see what can be done without removing them.

Here is Betsy with a new set of eyelashes.

The eylashes help hold her eyes in a better position and she looks much better.

Next out of the bag is this doll.

Her body is shaped like the magic skin bodies of the 1950's but this one is vinyl.

She needs some eye work too.

Off with her head. It is stuffed.

The inside of her head after the stuffing is removed.

To get her eyes out, I fill her head with boiling water to heat the vinyl, pour out the water and then push the eyeballs out of their sockets by pushing on those blobs in the picture. 

One eye is missing it's lashes and both need tweaks in their pivots but they are in decent shape. No leached plasticizer!

She looks better once her eyes are back in and she is reheaded.

Barbara Ann Scott doll

This doll was made by Reliable and depicts Barbara Ann Scott who was the 1948 figure skating gold medalist.

At first glance she doesn't look too bad?

Her outfit is original but the dress is quite faded.

She has a deep crack near her right eye and a couple smaller cracks in her chin. Much of the skim composition in the facial area has bubbled off of the base composition.

The paint on her limbs is faded, crazed and flaking in some areas.

Interestingly, her torso never had a skim composition layer. The factory skipped that step and sprayed paint directly on the base composition.

Barbara Ann has arrived with a request to get her composition totally restored and have a new, replica outfit made.

So, off we go.....

First, the crazed paint and lifting compo gets removed.

Here is what is left of Barbara Ann's face once the lifting layers were removed.

And here is her face filled, recontoured, sanded and primed.

Barbara Ann dolls have rather muted eyebrows and eyelashes.

They have brown eyelashes instead of the typical black. Multistroke eyebrows instead of a single stroke.

So that gets all duplicated on this doll's features.

On to hair and wardrobe next.....

New replica outfit. Her original outfit will be saved.

Original wig and skates....freshened up.

Restringing all-bisque dolls

 

Here are 4 small all-bisque dolls who have arrived to get restrung and dressed.

The smaller two are assembled with wire.

This is their original assembly method so, other than a wee bit of twisting one wire to tighten up the joint....they will be left as is.

The next biggest is assembled with pegged in elastic.

The elastic is shot so it will get replaced.

The legs are already done.

Here are the arms after taking out the old elastic and pegs and inserting new elastic.

One side of the elastic gets held in place with a new peg.....here a toothpick is working nicely as a peg.

The elastic gets pulled to a nice tension and then it gets pegged in place on the other side.

Snip off the elastic and peg flush to the bisque and voila!

The biggest doll is strung with elastic through loops on her limbs.

The elastic needs replacing.

Here is a better view of the stringing loops.

To restring this type of system you pass elastic (I used 1.5mm round elastic) through all the loops and tie it off tightly.

The biggest doll gets an outfit made first so I can get the hang of miniature clothing.

The biggest doll is only 6" tall!

Their small sizes makes good use of scraps of antique fabric. I knew saving little bits of fabric would come in handy some day...

Then the next smallest gets some clothing....

And then we go even smaller...

All done.

 

"Baby", the Puffalump, gets a new body

 

"Baby' is on the left.

She is a well loved Puffalump doll.

She has arrived to get a new body. Her owner has already found a body donor....that would be the doll on the right.

Puffalumps were very soft, light toys made from a type of parachute material.

This light fabric did not hold up well when Puffalumps were well loved.

There is almost no fabric left on the back of Baby's head.

Baby's face gets separated from her body and her body gets unstuffed.

This is a view into Baby's new body.

Her access point is in her derrier. This is looking up into her head. Her head has to be unstuffed and turned inside out in order to do the face transfer.

The face switch has been done.

Baby's old body has had a bath and is going to be placed into her new body along with the stuffing.

Re-stuffed with the old body nestled inside.

Now to stitch up the access spot....

Done!