Here's the video I promised of Victoria baby crying! I'm so proud of myself for fixing her.
This is what the cry box (it's actually a cylinder!) looked like after I sawed off the lid. All of the cry boxes I've repaired before this one had a lid that could easily be pried off. But not this one. I ended up resorting to using this little saw to carefully cut it off. It worked!
In case you've never taken one of these boxes apart, this is what the inside component looks like. It's basically another cylinder, heavy, with a hole going up the middle, leading to weird little metal tabs on the other end. These tabs are what make the noise. Be very careful that you do not disturb them, because those tabs can easily break off, and then your cry box will no longer be able to make noise.
These cry boxes initially worked because they had some sort of rubber gasket around the rim, which allowed the inner cylinder to slide down slowly in the outer cannister, forcing the air up through the hole and through the metal tabs, making the sound. Kind of like when you were a kid, and you held a blade of grass tightly between your two thumbs and blew on it...does that make sense? The reason why these cry boxes quit working is because the rubber gaskets disintegrate over time, letting the inner cylinder "clunk" back in forth in the plastic outer cylinder, not allowing enough time for the air to be forced through the hole. So what we have to do to repair this is to create a new gasket.
Here is a closer picture of the inner cylinder with a part of the rubber gasket still around the rim (it's the white strip)
I scoured the internet, looking for ways to repair these cry boxes. I could only find one youtube tutorial, but it was for repairing older cry boxes from the 30's mama dolls, which had different components then these newer cry boxes. By the way, you can go online and order replacement cry boxes for your dolls if you'd rather not repair them, but I think they cost like $20 a piece...no thank you! So this is what I came up with...TAPE! I figured I needed to build up the inside cylinder just enough so that it would slide down slower inside the outer cylinder, and not just "clunk". So I took masking tape and carefully wrapped it around the inner cylinder. This is the kind of tricky part. I can't tell you how many times to wrap it around...it'll just depend on your particular cry box. Each one is different. So wrap it around once or twice, smoothing it down well so there are no wrinkles. My tape was wider than the cylinder, so I had to cut off the unused portion from the bottom once I was finished.
Anyway, wrap the tape around once or twice, and then put it into the plastic cannister and try it. If it falls with a "clunk", it's still too loose and you'll need to add more tape. If you have too much tape, it won't slide at all. It's a fine line, figuring out how much tape is enough. I ended up using masking tape until it was almost perfect, and then I added one, thin strip of Scotch tape. This did the trick. Voila! Now my inner cylinder slid down at just the right speed in the plastic cannister to allow the air to be forced up the hole and through the metal tabs to make the noise.
When I was satisfied that it was working the way I wanted it to, I glued the lid of the cannister back into place with some E6000 glue.
I picked up another Madame Alexander baby doll at Goodwill today with a --you guessed it--broken cry box! I am going to try to do a video tutorial soon, so that I can actually show you. But in the meanwhile, I hope this helps!
