Another amputee

Now we have a cute Japanese baby doll with a foot problem.

That foot looks like it has been gnawed on.

Epoxy putty to the rescue....

Some tweaks on the shaping and some paint to disguise the repair and she is no longer an amputee...

A mysterious doll

Here is a doll who was listed on eBay as an old girl doll.
The doll has a lovely dress and bonnet but there is something about her construction........















Undressed, the doll reveals itself as a Schoenhut doll......and that is no girl.......that is a boy doll with carved hair that has had a few DIY paint jobs.

His head has had at least 5 layers of bad paint including one layer of a mustard colour.....what was someone thinking to paint a doll the colour of mustard???



So, the plan is to remove all the DIY paint layers and get him back to what is left of his original paint.


He is worth the effort as he is one of Schoenhut's earliest models that was produced only in 1911.

This is what he is supposed to look like.

Here he is partially stripped.
It is a slow go.
Some of the bad layers are quite thick!

A return to the 1920's composition doll

This was how the 1920's doll arrived to me last Winter in Florida.
She had a beautiful organdy outfit but her paint layer was shot and her skim composition layer was no better. Her eyes were stuck shut.















After her lifted and peeling layers were removed she looked like this by the Spring.

She got left in a box for the next few seasons while we migrated north but finally got back into the repair queue just recently.

She got filled, sanded, primed and painted and now looks like this.

This is her teeth and tongue. Both are made from celluloid.

Here she is now.
Her original mohair wig has been washed. It is sparse but when her bonnet goes back on it will only be peeking out. Her wig will still get a few plugs of mohair that fell out during the washing process....maybe fill in the bangs a bit?

It is good to save the original wigs where possible.

Her head is a shoulderplate style that is glued on to the cloth body.
The cloth body was washed. The crier was fixed.....it squawks like all the rest of them......and her original stuffing was replaced.

Back into her organdy outfit she goes....

Modern doll repairs

This is a doll made by June Goodnow. She was a doll artist who made several lovely one of a kind dolls sculpted with polymer clay. She often used native Americans as subjects.

This dude of hers is in triage here for a few injuries.

He has two missing fingers.

 And the tops of both ears are missing.

So we start with the usual.....
Installing a wire support to build the first finger on.

Now he has roughed in ring finger and a wire support for his pinkie.

His missing ear bits are getting rebuilt too.

And now he is done.
2 new fingers and both ears are repaired.

Shipping disaster!

Sometimes the postal system is not kind to your treasures.
This gorgeous porcelain ball-jointed artist's doll was sent from overseas.

She was very well packed in a wooden box but the box showed some hints of trouble.....the lid was separated at one corner.

Inside the box was this sight....

The doll has broken in the neck and upper chest area.

It is had to tell from the picture but the doll's porcelain neck and upper chest pieces have broken into  many pieces.

Here are the bits of the upper torso piece after the doll was unstrung.

And this is the neck part.
It had broken into 8 pieces. The original  bisque had been poured very thin which likely contributed to the breakage?
Here some pieces have already been glued together.


As this is a current artist's doll, could the artist make a replacement neck and upper torso piece? That would be much preferable to piecing the broken original pieces together and repainting them.
I will continue to repair the broken bits while we see if the artist can make new ones....maybe with a thicker neck piece?

Now we have the neck pieced back together, filled and sanded. It has also been reinforced internally with a layer of epoxy.

The torso has been pieced back together but not filled yet.

Relief!
I was not looking forward to the intricate paint work needed around the molded necklace of this doll.
The artist was able to make new pieces to replace the ones that broke. The new neck looks thicker and sturdier than the original which broke.
So now  the doll can get restrung.

Here she is....wigless, but no longer a broken doll.

Undoing previous repairs

This guy is an antique doll from the Armand Marseille company.
He has had a previous repair on the top of his torso.
And, he needs to be restrung.

The repair was coated with a very thick layer of paint that poorly matches the original finish.

And the repair is not holding up with time.

Here is the original repair site uncovered.

The thick overpaint scraped off quite well. That amount of overpaint was unnecessary for a repair that was confined to the neck socket.

Progress.....the torso is repaired and the repair is starting to get disguised.

Fully disguised now.

Body repairs complete and he is restrung.

Amputee....times two!

These are two little antique dolls made by Armand Marseille.
Each of them have lost part of their left feet.

When you are rebuilding parts it is helpful to have a support inside the putty for strength.
One leg has a wooden peg sticking out that will be enough support.
The other leg gets a small bit of wire glued in for support.

The feet have been rebuilt and it is time for paint.

Paint done.

German bisque head doll restoration

This is a nice sized antique doll made by the Armand Marseille company. Their name sounds French but they were a German company.

She has some issues.....she needs re-stringing for sure.
Her body could use some repairs before re-stringing.

She has lost all her fingers and thumbs. I would like to know if there is a story behind this. It is not uncommon to find a couple of missing fingers on these bodies....but all of them?

The fingers can be rebuilt.

This is one of her body issues. The seam between the cardboard bits is splitting and some of the overlying gesso and paint is gone.

These cracks can be glued with a good carpentry glue and then the defects get filled in with epoxy.

This doll needs some dental work too.
Her middle 2 teeth have been broken.
This type of doll has porcelain teeth that are made in one piece. It would be hazardous to try and get the remainder of the dental work out so I will make her a bridge.

Her missing fingers are starting to be rebuilt.
I do one at a time on each hand and let each new finger harden before I start the next. That way I am not knocking a newly built and still soft finger out of place while I work on it's neighbour.

Right now each hand has 2 new fingers formed. The third fingers have gotten their supporting wires installed and I am waiting for the glue to harden before adding epoxy clay and forming the finger.

All the holes and cracks are filled and sanded. Her fingers have been rebuilt.
Next is paint.....

Here she is with her new fingers and her repairs disguised.
She is modelling a potential wig.....vintage mohair with rather impressive sausage curls.

Here she is dressed in an antique dress.