My brother-in-law received a birthday gift from his brother. The gift arrived broken. The gift is a statue of Oliver Hardy of the Laurel and Hardy 1930's comedy duo. The head was separated and a some of the hat's bill was broken off. He asked me if I could fix it. An interesting and novel request, so I accepted.
The first challenge was assessing the damage and determining whether it could be repaired. The head was broken off pretty cleanly and in one spot the two parts of the neck could be refit in their original orientation. The head clearly needed support beyond the plaster making up the statue. The chipped off parts of the hat's brim, many available in an envelope provided by my brother-in-law, could not be pieced together, though one larger chip did have a matching depression.
My assumption is that the statue is a plaster cast. I know little about these things, but the plaster felt very similar to the material in wallboard.
A quick search on the internet implied that the best glue for repairing this type of statuary is two-part epoxy. Having some on hand led to reattaching the head first. To this end a 1" deep hole was drilled in the center of the neck, the body side of the neck. The hole was drilled slightly oversize relative to the planned 3/8" steel rod, located in the scrap box, to allow room for epoxy.
The hole location was transfered to the head side of the break by wrapping a 1" long pencil stub with paper towel and pushing this into the hole. The head, oriented correctly, was pressed against the pencil. This head-side of the repair was then drilled 1" deep. With the rod inserted into both holes the head was centered, but not angled appropriately needing to be angled back by a few degrees. The drill was returned to the hole in the body and leaned back, easily opening the hole. Dust was blown out of the hole and the rod returned to the hole. A few iterations later the head seated well on the body and was oriented correctly. The head was removed and the body side of the break was smeared with epoxy, including putting some in the hole and on the rod. The rod was inserted and the head set in place. A bit of squeeze out was cleaned up with a wet rag. The statue was left to dry.
The first three photos below show the chipped hat and coat collar that require repairs. A first experiment was tried on the chipped side of the hat's bill. Painter's tape was put on the bottom of the bill to support the patch that extends beyond the bill. The missing brim was filled with Gorilla High Performance Wall Repair compound. This dried for a couple of days while we babysat two grandsons for two days. The tape was easily removed leaving a solid repair. This was sanded with 120 and 220 grit sand paper with only one section breaking off. The sanding was done on a downdraft table, minimizing the amount of white dust floating through the shop.
The sanding continued and gave a good match to the shape of the hat's brim. This left a few holes and the broken spot. These were filled with a thin layer of the joint compound. At the same time the back of the bill was taped and a layer of the patch was applied with a popsicle stick.
After drying overnight the tape was removed and sanding completed on the patch with the second coat. The other patched area on the back of the hat's bill was also sanded to rough bill shape.
An artist's impression was noticed on the base and is shown in the photo below. The first name, Esco, is clear, but I can't make out the surname, "PAOD" maybe. Dated 1971!
More sanding on the bill was followed by another coat of plaster. A missing chunk of jacket collar was repaired with the addition of more spackling compound. Finally, the remaining gap between the neck and the shirt collar, not filled by the epoxy, was filled as well.
The hat's brim was finished, followed by sanding the broken coat collar. The rest of the repaired areas around the neck were also sanded. All of this documented in the four photos below.
When sanding the neck-shirt junction a missing bit of collar was discovered. A tape mold was crudely fashioned and filled with spackling compound. This final repair is shown below.
Noticed the pencil mark, used for head alignment, in the photo above and decided it was time to clean Oliver Hardy up a bit. This and another pencil mark were erased. The entire statue was wiped down with a damp cloth, avoiding the new plaster. A lot of grime was removed, but only saw a difference on the black paint. These areas are now closer to black than dark gray.
The tape was removed from the collar repair and the blob of plaster sanded to shape, seen below. Then painting began with first taping the hat band. The black paint was easy to match with the black acrylic paint I have on hand. The rim was painted and a few spots on the hat were touched up.
Matching the jacket was more challenging. Paint was mixed: green, blue, yellow, white, and red in stages until a close approximation was reached. Then the jacket collar was painted. Luckily the jacket is a mix of shades, so the match did not have to be exact.
The repaired collar light brown color was matched, again by mixing various colors, and lightening with white. This repaired collar is a bit darker than its companion and is shown below.
The same collar paint was used to paint the line of plaster around the neck, the line that filled in the broken neck. The paint was wiped with a paper towel after painting, muting and blending the new paint into the old. This paint job shown below. A perfunctory shot of my painter's palette is included.
As a finishing touch the entire statue was sprayed with a clear coat. This was done in the garage and took little time as the paint was already at hand.
