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Monday, June 1, 2009

Repairing a Ginger doll's broken walking post

A common problem among Cosmopolitan Ginger dolls from the 1950s is that they are found with broken walking posts. The post that connects their head to the walking mechanism in their hips is made of plastic, which makes it susceptible to breaking. If the post breaks, not only does their head not move back and forth when they "walk," but it only wobbles and can spin all the way around.

Several years ago, I bought a nude Ginger doll that arrived with a cracked walking post. The crack, which I could see through the arm holes, went about halfway through the post, so I knew if I wasn't careful it would break off the rest of the way. I decided to try gluing the walking post in the hopes of saving her.

I actually glued her twice. The first time I used super glue, applied painstakingly with the tip of a toothpick. Once I felt I had enough glue in the crack, I positioned her head to close the crack, held her like that for several minutes, and then very carefully laid her on her back to dry.

The super glue actually held for quite a while, but one day when I was dressing her or styling her hair, I wasn't quite careful enough and the glue failed. This time I didn't have any super glue handy, so I decided to try the glue I use for wig replacement and touch-ups. I think I used a little more glue this time, too. Again, I held her head in position for several minutes before laying her down to dry. So far, the Tacky Glue has held, and I haven't had to reglue her walking post again.

I took a couple of photos to show my repair job. In the first photo, you can see the crack at the top of the curve. If you look closely in the second photo, you can see the clear layer of glue over the outside of the walking post.



A little bit of work, and I was able to save a perfectly good Ginger doll from the trash bin!


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