A ceramic object, such is a pot, plate, vase, figurine,is an object made of made of clay, hardened into a permanent form by baking (firing) at high temperatures in a kiln is considered ceramic. Clay is one of the oldest materials known to humanity and has been used for practical purposes and creative expression since prehistoric times.  As civilizations evolved, ceramic materials, techniques, purposes, and design all became more sophisticated and expressive. “Ceramics may be built by hand, cast in a mold, arranged using a slab method, or thrown onto a pottery wheel” (“History of Porcelain”, 2004). Read more...

But it’s not that easy to restore tears in the dress, sculpt the missing pisses for the body, repaint and reglaze the face, style the hair. There are professional doll restoration experts who have the skill and experience in repairing antique dolls. Most of theses restorers specialize in invisible restoration. However, professional repair is not cheap, because the process involves many steps, such as gluing and bonding the existing pieces, sculpting additional pieces and fragments for a perfect fit, matching and replicating the color and pattern, airbrushing and glazing.

If you are on a budget, you can try restoring the doll yourself. There’s a good article about do-it-yourself doll repair on About.com called Doll Restoration and Conservation: What You Need to Know.

The article highlights several very important points:

1. Don’t do anything that cannot be undone at a later point.
2. Use proper conservation techniques by keeping the doll out of harm’s way –
excessive heat, humidity, dust and dirt.
3. Wash your hands often. Oil from your hands can get absorbed in the doll’s body and dress. Wearing gloves is a good advice, but it’s hard to restore anything with gloves on.
4. Do sketches or take photos of the doll before you take it apart, so you can put the parts back together.
5. If you plan to sell the doll after the restoration, you MUST disclose all the changes you made to the doll. Note that styling the hair or cleaning the clothes does not need to be disclosed.

See our Recent Projects page for photos of the doll repair process.

Let us know if you have any questions. Visit our site: www.luelstudio.com and LIKE us on Facebook:www.facebook.com/chinarepair
Happy doll collecting.

Below are the hyperlinks to all of the articles on Ezinearticles.com

Museum Quality China Repair:
http://ezinearticles.com/?China-Repair:-The-Museum-Quality-Method&id=6127835

Porcelain Plate Restoration:
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Art-of-Porcelain-Restoration&id=1721132

Meissen Figurine Repair:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Meissen-Porcelain-Repair&id=2257030

Doll Collection and Repair:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Collecting-and-Repairing-Dolls&id=3058895

Restoration of Chinese Porcelain:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Chinese-Porcelain-Across-Cultures&id=2466151

China Set Repair:
http://ezinearticles.com/?China-Repair-For-Grandmothers-China-Set&id=1578066

We get a lot of emails regarding home restoration of china and ceramic. Although we don’t recommend that you attempt to glue the broken pieces yourself — it never looks as good as you would expect it to and it creates more work for a professional restorer (and more money for you). However, the times are hard. So if you want to try glue the broken pieces yourself, below are a few pointers.

1. Organize the pieces. See how they fit together. If it’s a simple, clean break you’re okay. But what if you got five, ten or more pieces. If you glue them out of order, the last piece or two will not fit.

2. Do not apply glue with a cotton swab or a piece of paper towel. Use a small brush or a thin wooden applicator. A toothpick will do the trick too.

3. Quickly connect the pieces of the plate or figurine, and hold it in place for a few seconds. Repeat the steps until the entire item is cleanly assembled.

4. Place the glued item in a box or large bowl filled with uncooked rice. That will hold the item balanced until it dries fully.

5. The glued item should be drying for at least sixty to ninety minutes. When you remove it from the positioning bowl, none of the pieces should move. If they do, place the item back in the bowl.

6. The final step is to wipe away excess glue. Use a very sharp knife or razor blade and move along the connection edge. Then take a piece of lightly moist paper towl and slide it along the connection/groove. That will get rid of excess glue.

Professional invisible restoration precludes practical use because aside from gluing and bonding, there are many other steps involved, such as matching and replicating the color and design, airbrushing and glazing. If you only glue an item — a plate or vase — and want to use it for practical purposes, you can. But keep in mind that the glue is toxic, so we strongly recommend using the glued dish or vase for dry food only.

Luel Restoration Studio specializes in professional, invisible repair of china, ceramic, terra cotta, majolica, plaster and glass.
Visit us at www.luelstudio.com

Clay Art Pottery

About Vicki:

Vicki Hardin, an established clay artist, has worked in clay for 30 years producing raku and pit fired pottery, garnering national and regional attention and praise for her work. She has shown throughout the southwest region, extensively in Texas, where she maintains her studio, Clay Art Pottery, home and family. Her pottery is currently on view at Show of Hands Gallery in Philadelphia and at her studio. In 1984 she established Clay Art Pottery at the Chicken Farm Art Center in San Angelo, where she continues to maintain a studio and gallery space. Vicki’s work can be seen there by appointment made directly with the artist.

Last month a dealer of Chinese Porcelain met Luba at a Majolica Convention in Miami, Florida. He had recently purchased several pieces of Tenmoku Porcelain / Tenmoku China, and wanted to Luel Restoraiton Studio to restore a crack in one of the bowls. It was a long hairline crack that ran across the entire bowl. Antique China Repair is one of Luba’s many fortes and she could have restored the bowl beautifully and invisibly. The problem was that the bowl wasn’t Tenmoku and she told the dealer that. We have worked with Temmoku pottery in the past at the studio and have studied its history and design. Tenmoku is a glaze. A long firing process foreces the migrating iron to form surface crystals that look like oil spots. Tenmoku (also spelled Temmoku) is a Japanese name for this type of process and glaze. The Chinese name is Chien Yao. In English it’s referred to as Heaven’s Eye. The dealer’s bowl had painted stains glazed over. It was a beautiful piece but it wasn’t Tenmoku. Ultimately, the dealer decided against restoring the bowl, but he was grateful to Luba for pointing his mistake out to him. He contacted Luel Restoration studio a couple of weeks later and shipped two Staffordshire items for restoration. Below is a sample image of a Tenmoku Pottery.

Luel Restoration Studio – Home
China Repair Specialists