MH Care & Repair: Fixing Broken Legs **UPDATE 2**

Hey! Remember Christmas, when I received the thoughtful gift of an honest-to-goodness Battle Damage Ghoulia with real amputee action?

This fine lady? Yep. Well, my initial attempt at fixing her leg (read all about it here) turned out to be a temporary fix. It held for a few days, but because the break was so close to the joint itself, the leg could not stay on, could not be used, and eventually had to be removed again.

So I went back to the sources I'd used in the original repair, namely, the tutorial on leg modification using CAM parts, and I scheduled a spa day for my ladies with broken legs. Join us, won't you?

FYI, this is a "Skulltimate Roller Maze" Ghoulia with custom haircut and clothes, and "Classroom" shoes.. possibly my all-time favorite Ghoulia shoes in existence. She and "Dance Class" Operetta were two of my first, and still my favorite, ghouls.



This is a Wave 1 ("School's Out") Abbey Bominable with original earrings and choker, wearing Scaris Abbey's dress. She joined us when her owner decided she'd "outgrown" her MH collection, and she came to us with this broken leg. She's also missing most of her sparkle along the cheekbones and the right side of her face.
The front of the thigh had been partially split, which implies the leg broke when it was forced forward out of its peg. There was no damage inside the peg cavity itself aside from minor scratching around the edges.

So, for this repair, all that had to be done was choosing a CAM leg for the repair, snipping off the top portion of the peg, and attaching the peg with super glue.

Abbey has a unique skin tone and texture, so her "new" leg definitely does not match.. but at least it fits her color scheme!

 Here you can easily see the difference between their injuries. Abbey's break, while it damaged the front of her leg, did almost nothing to the back, and resulted in a fully functional (though differently-colored) repair. Ghoulia's repair, however, involved a bit more work, as the initial repair attempt had damaged both sides of her thigh and the interior of the peg housing, and the original break had done some damage to the front of the knee joint.

Since peg breakage is common with these dolls and their super-long, skinny legs, here's a walkthrough on how to repair the damage.

Materials:

~ a CAM leg to use as replacement
~ cutting pliers or snips
~ tweezers
~ super glue or any super-strong adhesive

Step 1: If any part of the peg is still inside the leg, it will need to be removed. Insert the tweezers into the back seam of the thigh, and use them to pry open and brace the leg. Use your pliers (or a second pair of tweezers, if you've got 'em) to pull out the peg. Note: the peg is seated between two "gates" for a firm hold, so removing it does take a bit of effort. Try opening the thigh wider rather than pulling harder. Thanks to quality construction, you don't need to worry too much about breaking the thigh, though you may want to be careful about the length of the scar you're creating.

Step 2: Prep the CAM leg for insertion.

In this comparison, it's plain to see the difference in length between a CAM leg and a standard leg. Fortunately, snipping off the tip of the CAM leg reduces it to an accurate length, and a false "neck" for the leg -- so that it can be braced inside the two plastic "gates" inside the peg cavity -- can be easily created with a pair of pliers.

 Step 3: Insert the new leg.

Typically, super-strength adhesives like Krazy Glue have a very short cure time and a tendency to get on EVERYTHING. So my advice to you is: Be prepared! Remove ALL unnecessary pieces from your workspace. Clear away any little bits that might get blown into the glue or the peg cavity. Keep the glue sealed until you're ready to use it.

Prop the peg cavity open with your tweezers. Coat both the prepared end of the CAM peg and the inside of the peg cavity with a thin layer of adhesive. Then slide the new leg in and keep it positioned so that the adhesive will naturally bond into place. In this shot, Ghoulia's shoes are helping to weigh down her new leg!


 If you've used the back of the thigh seam to open the thigh, you'll likely be left with an ugly scar like this. You can glue and hold it shut after the peg cures into place, or you can repair the spot with epoxy, Milliput, or Sculpey. In my case, I've left the scar bare, but I hope to clean it up soon. In the worst-case scenario, just remember: very few people are going to notice it.

And voila! Two fixed fine ladies.

Some folks might be concerned about the lack of matching skin tones. For my part, I kind of like the way it looks on Abbey, but I admit I'm a bit bothered by my zombie ghoul having one healthy pink limb. I've read about using acrylic paints to correct skin tone but I have not tried it yet. My advice would be, if you know a mismatched doll will bother you, use the light-colored CAM legs so they *can* be painted over, rather than using the Sea Monster or Witch parts, which might lend an unpleasant background color to your paint attempts.

If you have any questions or comments, please leave them here. And if you've got a male doll who needs leg fixing, please check out this post!