I Almost Cried...

 Ever have one of those moments where you stare in disbelief at what just happened?  Where you blink several times and think you must be dreaming, but deep down you know you have to face the stark, cold reality of what horrible event just unfolded in front of your eyes?  Yeah.  That happened to me recently, and I almost cried.  

Several years ago I went to a doll show and picked up a large, celluloid head girl on a sturdy, composition body.  I don't even think I have a "before" picture to show you, so you'll just have to go by my description.  She was probably about 20" tall.  She needed to be restrung, so I removed her limbs from her body recently, which is why I don't even know how tall she actually was.  She had a darling, celluloid head, marked with the "turtle mark" symbol on the back, indicating she was made by the German Schildkrot company.  She had some issues--needed to be restrung, needed new eyelashes, and needed a repair done on her compo body.  So I purchased her for a mere $15, thinking she would be a fun restoration project.  She's been patiently standing in a corner of my doll room, waiting her turn.  Well, I finally decided this past week that it was time!  Here is a picture of her head, before the Horrible Event happened:  

This is AFTER I made her some new eyelash strips (I'll explain more about those later) and inserted them under her lids.  This doll came with a lovely, human hair wig with braids, but it was removed so I could work on her more easily.

It was at this point that I set the head aside on my desk while I took a break to look up more doll repair information on my laptop. While I was busy doing this, I didn't notice that this little "helper" had entered my room: 

Meet Waffles.  Also known as Mr. Hims.

He really is just the sweetest cat.  But he's still young and curious.  Too curious.

Because as I was sitting there, paying attention to the information on my laptop, this fur ball jumped up onto my desk.  In doing so, he tipped over a small lamp which in turn knocked the doll head off my desk.  This wouldn't have been so bad because my floor is carpeted, and the head would have probably survived the fall just fine.  But it didn't help when the lamp fell off the desk as well, landing directly ON TOP of the fragile, celluloid head.  It all happened so fast...I just remember hearing a horrible crash and looking up to see the lamp on the ground, and a celluloid doll head, now shattered in about a gazillion pieces.

I almost cried.  I just sat there for a good 30 seconds, frozen in disbelief.  Once I finally got over the shock, I started inspecting the damage.  The one good thing (if there can be a good thing!) is that the front of the head was mainly left intact and undamaged. (I think this is because it was reinforced with plaster from setting the flirty/rocker eyes) But the sides and back of the head had completely broken into at least 50 pieces. (I know I said a gazillion earlier, because that's what it felt like!)  At first I thought there was no way I was ever going to be able to fix this, and I immediately picked up my laptop and started looking for replacement celluloid heads I might be able to purchase to replace this one.  I kid you not!  But after a few minutes on eBay, I calmed down and decided to really assess the situation.  Could it possibly be pieced back together?!?

I've always liked doing jigsaw puzzles.  Not the super crazy, 1000 piece and above puzzles, but 200-500 pieces is okay.  So I got out my super glue (which ironically I had just purchased the day before!) and got to work.  I figured I had nothing to lose.

Several hours later, and I have used nearly every broken piece to rebuild the two halves of the head!

There are LOTS of tiny cracks everywhere.  I don't care too much about the back of the head because most of it will be covered by the wig.  But there are some cracks along the right side of her face by her eye and cheek.  I'm hoping that I'll be able to make those less conspicuous with some filler and paint.

After gluing all those pieces back together, I realized that I would need to do something to stabilize the fragile head.  So I decided to soak strips of fabric in some sort of glue paste and layer them inside the head.

I ended up making a liquid consisting of Durham's Water Putty, water, and a couple of squirts of wood glue.  I don't have any exact measurements--I just mixed the Durham's powder and water together until it was a thin consistency, and then I squirted in some of the glue.  Then I took strips of cotton batting (which I had leftover from a recent quilting project), soaked them in the liquid, and then pressed them into the head.  My hopes were that they would dry and harden and really stabilize the head.  

Here are both halves of the head, covered in wet batting strips.  Once I get both halves of the head glued back together, then I will go in and add some more strips to those seamed areas.  

I wasn't sure if this experiment was going to work.  Would the batting glue itself to the celluloid like I hoped it would?

Well, I needn't have worried!  The next morning, the batting was completely dried and rock solid, completely adhered to the celluloid.  My fragile celluloid head now feels like cement!  It's heavy and stable.  I could probably drop it 10 feet onto concrete and it wouldn't break!  Haha!  Not that I'm going to try it, but you get the picture. Which makes me realize, if celluloid doll manufacturers would have reinforced their doll heads initially, how many more would have survived to this day?

Prior to the horrible event of witnessing this head shatter, I had been working on the composition body.  Somewhere in time, it had received a bunch of damage to the left hip/crotch area, and was very misshapen and not symmetrical with the other side of the torso.  So I used my trusty Durham's Water Putty again to mix up a thick putty/paste to rebuild this area.

This is what it looks like.  A friend of mine who restores dolls recommended this to me.  It is basically a powder that when combined with water, dries rock hard.  After it dries, it can be sanded smooth.  You can buy it at Home Depot, among other places.  I use it for all my doll restoration projects now.  It's good stuff!

I wish I had a before picture of the misshapen body.  But everywhere you see the dried putty in this photo is where the compo was really sunken in and no longer in good shape.  I had to apply the Durham's in several layers to build it up to the depth I needed, letting each layer dry completely before I added more putty.  This photo is after everything had dried, but hadn't yet been sanded.

The sanding process took a while.  Every time I thought I was done, I would see/feel more areas that had little pits or dents.

Looking better

Done sanding.  I'm pretty happy with it.  I hope to be able to match the body color and repaint the puttied area to match.  I recently received an airbrush and compressor to help me out on my doll restoration projects.  I've been experimenting with it, trying to get the hang of it.

So that's my journey so far.  I plan on getting the head completely glued back together today and reinforced with more of the putty-soaked batting strips.  Then I will start filling in some of the cracks on the head, sand, and see if they can be touched up with a little paint.  If not, I may end up repainting the entire head with my air brush, but that is a last resort as I'd rather keep her as original as possible.  

Life is never dull, especially for doll collectors!