Old Baby gets a new cloth body

 Old Baby has arrived to get a new cloth body.

It has been a season of new cloth bodies here!

Done

Getting packed up to go home.

Yet another cloth body!

 

This is 'Jessica' who has come in to fix her body.

Her body was originally stiched together with invisible thread which had disintegrated over the years. She had had a lot of hand sewn repairs to keep her stuffing in and her limbs on.

Someone did a lot of work keeping her together!

Some tape got used to keep one leg on. It didn't work too well as that leg is almost off. That sticky residue will be fun to get out!

Jessica needs some new eyelashes too.

After a few long soaks, her body get totally taken apart.

Because this doll has a family member's name written on her bottom and the fabric is in decent shape, I am going to line the body instead of making a new one.

This involves stitching each piece to new cotton and then reassembling everything with the original fabric.

Here the top piece is lined and ready to go. The bottom piece has just been stitched to some cotton.

All done.

Lining the body kept the label and the handwritten family names intact. I just marked over the names on the photo for privacy. 

Another new cloth body

 

This is 'Vanessa'. She is a Madame Alexander doll from the 1960's.

She arrives like this.

There is an obvious leg problem.

Her body is rather stained and has a variety of tears and mends.

After dismanling, she gets a good bath. Even her stuffing needed a wash!

A silent crier was inside her body.

Opening up the crier I find the only issue is that the seam on the bellows fabric had come apart. A bit of glue will fix that.

Then it is the usual....take apart the body to make a pattern.

Violet, the compostion doll, needs some work!

 

This is 'Violet'. She has arrived to restore her composition surfaces.

Poor Violet has obvious issues!

A big split in her head.

When her wig gets removed her head falls into 2 pieces.

Progress!

All that flaking paint needs to get removed and, as old paint contains lead, this is an outdoor and weather dependent job.

And even more progress!

Violet's head has been put back together and several defects in her composition have been filled so she is finally in the paint booth.

This is after 4 coats of filler/primer with lots of sanding in between and 3 coats of paint. One coat of paint to go!

While Violet's paint dries, I contemplate her wig.

It is made of mohair which is very matted and is missing some sections.

After combing out the mats it still doesn't look much better.

It could get a few added wefts of mohair if some similar colour mohair was found or.....

....she could get a brand new wig.

Violet's owner liked this option best.

Which means Violet can get put back together.

Time to head home!

A new cloth body

 

This is 'Carol Smith'. She has arrived to get a new cloth body. At first glance her body doesn't look too bad?

But, her arm is being held on by an elastic and it doesn't take much to fall off again. The cloth is stained, weakened and has several mends.

Dismantled and unstuffed.

Old body taken apart to make a pattern for a new body.

A new cloth body made from unbleached cotton muslin.

Back together.

A Schoenhut carved hair girl

This girl is Schoenhut's model 105. She has had previous work done and has arrived to improve her appearance. On first glance she has some issues of her left face and has a squinty eye.

She has areas of missing paint throughout her hair.

How many layers of paint are on this doll?

There seems to be multiple layers.

How far down is her original paint?

Painting over surfaces like this will not be successful so I like to remove the layers until I find original paint if there is any left. 

I start by taking off the top most layer of repaint and some crumbling filler. this shows she has lost some of the definition of her left eye and there are  irregularities in the wood under the eye.

Iam also finding she has had 2 thick layers of gesso applied. maybe she was one of the dolls that got sent back to the factory to be repainted?

She has wood damage around and under her left eye.

The gesso layers on the back of her head were quite damaged so they all came off. This does reveal lovely hair contours.

The right side of her face is stable and may be original so the excavation stops here.

Now to repair the wood and countours on the left and get her painted.

First she gets some wood hardener applied and then some epoxy to fix the left eye contours that have been lost.

A bit of paint helps to identify contours that need tweaking. Here I see her left eye looks a bit droopy and her left lower lid doesn't look defined enough. I don't want to recarve her whole eye area as I am just fixing the original carving. I might be able to adjust the epoxied areas and the paint.

A bit later she has had some paint applied.

And then she is done!

 

A Schoenhut boy

 

This little guy has come to get his dings repaired.

He has dings on his face that have been given a coating of something. Probably a PVA glue. It needs to get removed to fill the defects.

He has more dings on the back of his head.

On first glance, his hair looks original.

But....

.....you can see paint speckles all over. That is not a factory hair paint. That is a newer airbrush job. 

You can even see overspray paint speckles on the body.

Sure enough, the dark hair paint wipes off easily with acetone. Factory paint does not remove so easily.

A bit more work with acetone shows that this doll has had some repair work done before. The yellowish area is filler. His current dings were caused by the filler failing. This filler needs to be all removed.

Out comes the filler.

In goes some new filler and then some paint.

His face dings get filled too. Here he is starting to get the filled spots painted to blend in.

Then he gets his facial features touched up and some new hair.