Both Barbie dolls are old, from the mid 90s. The legs were broken off during my childhood. So on the boy doll, the broken off piece is long gone. I'm wondering if there is a material I could use to rebuild the peg that would allow the leg to be reattached and still have movement. I'm leaning towards moldable polyplastic pellets. Will this material stick and hold up for play? Is there possibly a better material I could use?
The smaller girl doll with red hair seems to have all her leg parts, but the legs won't stay on. I've used the hot water method to try to pop them back on. It did not work. What can I use to get them to stay on and still move?
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These dolls are not antiques, nor are they considered old. You can probably contact Mattel and ask for replacement parts.
Since you don't have the missing peg piece--you could try one of two things--these are theory because I have not tried them...but things I have thought of when I went through my doll fixing phase.
I mastered hair fixing, but not legs--so again, these are theory ideas.
Since the peg is gone, if you could find a plastic bead that fits into the leg hole (where the socket should be) and then becomes the socket that the peg fits into--like this video does for the head:
www.youtube.com/
You may get it to affix...but I doubt it would move.
Where I ran into problems is I could never find beads that fit right (but I was working with larger dolls, not Barbie size--you may have better luck--I lost patience with this, but this gal's video seemed to work well for the head repair.
The other thing I considered, was using a very fine bit on a drill and drilling through the doll torso (hips) and wiring the legs together with the beads as a sockets--and gluing the beads into the doll after it was wired to the body.
I would be very nervous using any kind of pellets or melting because plastics give off smells that can be quite toxic. I have respiratory issues so that would be a NO GO for me.
Post back if you find a solution that works!!
Blessings!
It would be a big help if you posted a picture of the actual dolls you are working with as it gives us a better view of what you are trying to do.
You do not say why you are trying to do these repairs and why it is important that the legs still 'move' so without that knowledge it is difficult to really offer advice. If these are for yourself than you may be able to just glue the joints together but if you plan to sell them then you have to try to keep them original but if selling you should state the doll has been repaired and value would be even lower than it is already.
As an example; for anyone thinking of selling Barbie dolls:
Here is a comment made by someone on a doll forum in 2004: Read carefully and remember; this was stated in 2004 and the doll market has definitely not improved.
"16 years ago - unknown contributor.
I collected dolls for 25 years.... when I saw the value's slipping I started selling. I sold the Barbies first then a few years later the hard plastics. Barbie is almost reduced to a toy again. I sold my last holiday barbies for $10 a piece. All collectables are down except for the very rare and mint items. I am stuck with just a few special editions Barbies that I had packed away and forgotten. I paid $160 for them, they are now selling for $20 to $30. If I had all of those dolls now I would probably only get 20% of what I sold them for."
The material that Barbies are made of does not lend well to being 'repaired' especially when the repair is from real damage and not just having a leg 'pulled out'.
Barbies have been continuously falling out of fashion for so many years that it is difficult to even find a Barbie forum - some exist but the remarks are usually from 2014 or earlier and nobody seems to be updating anything that has to do with Barbie dolls.
I do occasionally see vintage Barbie dolls mentioned on the Doll Discussion Board but usually very little is said.
It would be nice if Barbie or Mattel responded to inquires but sadly all you will receive is a type of 'form' letter.
BarbieCollector.com
You may be able to ask your question on one of these sites to see if anyone can help you:
www.tapatalk.com/
community.ebay.com/
This site has more information about how to care for Barbies than any site I've seen. This also has step by step instructions on how to do the 'boiling water' repair which is difficult to do.
www.thesprucecrafts.com/
I believe you may have better luck trying to find dolls with good parts to see if you can just replace them.
www.etsy.com/
www.etsy.com/
They are Dinsey's Prince Eric and Ariel. I don't plan to resale them. They're just for my toddler to play with.
Thanks for your reply.
You may have to just glue the broken piece on Eric but if you follow the boiling instructions exactly you may be able to rejoin Ariel's legs.
Good luck.
Hope she has fun with your dolls - nice memories?
Omg omg thank you soo sooo much I cried because I thought it was broken for good
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