Counter-top Bridal Mannekin - Ongoing Restoration

I worked on Sylvia most of the day (on and off). In the summer I work on my veranda - and it being a beautiful day - I wanted to be outside. Did a lot of work on the lamp base - pictures later - and on the mannekin. You can see in the first picture how much damage to her hair was done by removing the bridal headdress (which was elmer's glued to her head).

Sylvia's broken neck was elmer's glued together - so I broke the bond and spent a long time scraping loads of glue off the chalkware. There was no reinforcing wire in the neck - so I drilled into the head and the shoulders to insert a 2" drywall screw to reinforce the neck joint. (I used bolt cutters to cut the head off the screw) then drilled into each part about an inch.

I used Bondo to repair the neck joint. I put the Bondo down both my drilled holes - put the screw in - jammed the head and shoulders together - wiping a thin layer over the outside - and stood her up so that could cure.

I patched the broken spot on her left arm with "Hydro-cal" a particularly hard form of plaster of paris - which is (more or less) what the mannequin is made of.

For the right arm - I sawed off about 1/2" of the plaster - to expose the wire inside. I made a faux arm with 5 strands of pipe cleaner to get the right length on the forearm and fingers - and attached the pipe cleaner armature to the wire with a wad of Bondo.

That's where we are at the end of today - more pictures tomorrow of the lamp base...