Restoring a Vintage 1930's Composition Doll: A Journey Through Time

A Unique Restoration Project

So, this was a funny story. A client sent me several pictures of a doll they wanted restored. It looked very much like some 1950s dolls I had worked on, so I had them send it in. The project was simple: restore the doll to reflect the era it was from. This included putting the doll back together (restringing), patching some cracks and worn areas, re-wigging, and finding clothing appropriate for the era. I'm always excited about these kinds of projects because they usually result in a grand transformation, which is incredibly satisfying.

When the doll arrived, I quickly realized that, although it resembled many dolls I had worked on, it was actually much older—closer to the 1930s—and was a composition doll, not plastic. Typically, I do not work on dolls from this era, but this one intrigued me. Although she was in pieces upon arrival, when I opened her eyes there was one thing was very apparent, her eyes were in terrible condition. They had a jaundiced, crusty appearance that was quite alarming.

I forgot to take a photo of the eyes, so below is an example of a similar doll from the same era that has the same problem. That yellow gunky you see on her eyes are corroded lenses not dirt or goop that you can remove with cleaners.

It seemed a shame to send her back to her owner looking like this after plans of such a grand restoration. Since the 1930s is not my specialty, I decided to do some research and stumbled upon this video, which was immensely helpful in solving this issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA3vAIve3R0

Understanding the Problem

In the video, the presenter explains that these dolls were made with a plastic lens iris that corrodes over time. Initially, I thought the issue was some sort of goop on the eyes that I was hoping to clean off, but it turned out to be corroded plastic. The presenter demonstrated how to poke at the iris, cracking it and removing all the pieces of the former lens so that a new lens could be inserted. This was definitely something I could do, and at the very least, it would remove the "horror" look from her eyes, which was a step in the right direction. I discussed the idea with my client, and we decided to proceed.

Just like in the video, I carefully poked at the iris until it cracked and removed all the pieces. Behind it was a brown, almost "wooden" cavity. I wasn't sure if the eyes themselves were wooden or if they were composition like the rest of the doll. However, once the old lenses were out, the doll almost appeared to have normal brown eyes from a distance—though obviously, the pupil was missing. Ironically even though I had removed huge pieces from her eyes, this was a vast improvement over the yellow jaundice look of the corroded lenses.

The left eye shows the cavity after the lense was cracked and removed. The right eye is the same except a clear replacement lense is over the cavity to test fit. No iris printout is there so the brown is just the cavity behind it.

Finding the Right Materials

With the lens out, I could measure the cavity to determine the size which was 10mm on this doll. I wasn't sure what would be available. I found a a seller on eBay that sold many sizes of eye chips, sadly not a ready made pair of lenses in a 10mm size, but they did sell a 10mm acrylic lens so I purchased that in hopes that they would fit. I also ordered an 8mm (next size down) just in case the 10mm included a lip and it ended up too big to fit.

When the lenses arrived I tried both and the 10mm was an exact fit, so I saved the 8mm as a spare part. But it was just a clear lens so I needed an iris.

The seller was very helpful and directed me to download DIY irises that I could print on my printer and place behind the clear lens. I found an image available for free from The Haunting Grounds that I used.

There was no indication of size, so I played with the settings on my printer. I found that printing it as a 4 x 6 photo adjusted it to the 10mm size I needed. I experimented with different pupil sizes and discovered that the medium-sized pupils worked best for her look. After printing the iris, I used clear super glue to attach it to the back of the lens, ensuring the printed color iris faced up when applying the glue.

Moving from Eyes to Body

Once the glue dried, I could simply snap the lens back into the eye cavity, giving the doll a brand new eye. This simple yet effective method would transform her appearance significantly. The printout had several pupil sizes, so I had fun making eyes and trying them out to see what I liked best.

The restoration process is not just about fixing physical damage; it's also about reviving the spirit of the doll. Each step taken is a step closer to bringing her back to life, making her look as she did in her prime.

I turned my attention to her body. There were many cracks over the body and some areas where paint had completely rubbed off revealing the composite underneath. She is shiny overall, so there is a protective gloss or seal on her outer paint so the areas of repair were easy to find by their color and the dullness of their paint. The first thing I did was to use a wood patch from Home Depot (also good for patching plastic. It comes in wood grain colors that often look like skin tones, so it's very helpful. It goes on like a paste but mildly wet so you can actually put over a crack, smooth your finger over it so the paste fills in the crack and then wipe the surface so that all you have is the paste inside the crack. This is nice because then you don't have do do any sanding. I did see areas where sanding was needed, so I continued to fill in cracks and sanded down any bumpy areas from the original paint job. This left me with slightly lighter colored areas as you see on the images below left that were now ready to re-paint.

Common areas were fingers/hand, along the areas where legs and arms moved and exterior arm, back of the legs. This makes sense because they are all areas that would wear out faster such as making the doll sit and stand over and over, moving the arms, playing with the hands and then laying down the doll when not in play or use (back of the heels, curved part of the butt, backs of the legs). I purchased a light flesh tone acrylic paint from the craft store and tested it on a small area of the finger. It was too light and looked more like the tone of the areas which I had repaired and sanded but also her paint colored had a more pink overall tone than a straight fleshy neutral. There's no two ways about it, each doll is different so this was just mixing tiny bits of red paint into the fleshy neutral and testing until I found the shade that matched. On the bottom left you can see near the top of the leg that the paint is slightly darker than the rest of her leg. This was an early coat which matched her leg when it went on wet but when it dried it was too dark. So when I mixed the final paint, I did a slightly lighter shade adding back in more fleshy neutral so that when it dried it was a dead on match.

In the right side of the photo, it shows the final paint job. You can see the hand and areas of the leg are now all matching and she has no spots of rubbing. This paint does dry dull so after it's dry and all the touch ups are made it needs a protective seal such as a gloss coat or a gloss spray to make her look as she originally did which was shiny. I applied several coats of paint on areas making sure I had smooth brush strokes and sanding and re-applying as needed to make a smooth finish.

I then did the same process for her face (refer to the close-up shot of her face when discussing the eyes above) because you can see clear discoloration and cracks in her face especially right by her nose. Since I could not remove her eyes in entirety the small chips around her eye sockets remain as is.

This tutorial will be continued as the project progresses, I will share more insights and techniques. Stay tuned for the next update!