Ruby's Repair

Ruby Bridges by Karen Oyekanmi

My Ruby Bridges tribute doll, first seen here, had a mishap.  The day after she arrived, when positioning her for display, I noticed her left arm was not in the arm socket; it was hanging inside the sleeve of her dress.  The cement used to hold the arm hook that was attached to the inner string had weakened.  I consulted the artist who offered to repair Ruby for me, but that would have involved mailing the doll to her.   I knew between my husband and me, we should be able to repair her.

In the past, we had used QuikSteel to repair two other porcelain dolls.  So, I knew it should be a simple task of repairing Ruby's arm.  My only problem was that I am inexperienced at stringing.

Ruby's stringing was pulled outside her body and held in that position with a rod fashioned from a jumbo paperclip.

After Ruby was undressed down to her undies, socks, and shoes, using a pair of hemostats my husband was able to pull the existing stringing out of the body through the body armhole.  I quickly created a rod by opening up a jumbo paperclip which was slid underneath the knot in the stringing to hold the string outside the body until the rest of the repair was completed.  Minus the hemostat pulling, that process is illustrated in the photo immediately above.

I went to a local auto supply shop and purchased what I thought was the correct QuikSteel formulation.  Unfortunately, it was a liquid form and not the epoxy putty that I needed.  We went to Walmart to try to find it, but they were sold out.  So I ordered it from Amazon.

I decided I would do this repair from this point on by myself.  After getting the necessary reassurance from the artist that my plan would work and after making one modification at her suggestion, the repair began.

What Was Done

The hook has been set in QuikSteel as described in the next paragraph.

Inside the hole in the arm, I stuffed a few strips of newspaper to fill up some of the space in the cavity.  I inserted and centered the closed end of the hook and packed the QuikSteel putty firmly around the hook, making sure to keep the hook in the center of the armhole.  QuikSteel cures quickly but was allowed to dry fully for 24 hours.

Photo taken from a different angle illustrates the hook, which is set in place using QuikSteel epoxy putty.

The next day, the hook was firmly set inside the QuikSteel as shown above.

The hook was next attached to the stringing.

The open end or exposed end of the hook was attached to the knot of the string at the armhole as illustrated above and from one additional angle next.

Different angle of the hook attached to the stringing

Using the paperclip rod to lift the stringing away from the body, the long ends of the stringing were stuffed back inside the body.

A perfect repair

Next, the paperclip rod was removed and the arm positioned itself into the armhole perfectly as shown above.

She's all better now.

After the repair, Ruby was redressed.  The hang tag that bears a headshot of young Ruby Bridges was placed back on the left wrist.  She recovered nicely.

I shared the process and completed photos with the artist who wrote:

YOU DID A FANTASTIC JOB ❣️
Thank you for the pictures, she looks so happy!
Very sorry you had to go through that...... but you do have the gift👌

I smiled.  I think Ruby did, too.  

:-) 

dbg
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