I've been soft cleaning for what feels like forever. This is what I get for spending weeks doing a massive batch of casting.
I've finished the head/torsos of all the little toy dolls and now only have the Alice in Wonderland toys to do. The Mad Hatter, March Hare and White Rabbit are relatively easy although their tiny limbs will be a challenge.
However, Humpty Dumpty is just a right royal pain in the arse!
He has spindly little legs and teeny, weeny ineffectual T Rex arms and no matter how carefully I try to fettle the seam lines, holding my breath and barely even touching the fragile soft-fired greenware, inevitably one of his legs will ping off, usually just as I'm on the last nano-millimetre.
If there were a market for one legged Humpties I'd be a shoe-in.
*sigh*
I find myself muttering...... "Please, PLEASE don't break. Don't break. ohpleasedon'tbreak. Just. One. More. Tiny...... *ping* OH BUGGRIT!!!"
It doesn't help that he has a a smug, supercilious smile on his fat, egghead face. He seems to mock me.
"Well, well, well (he has a high, cracked, nasal voice)..... so you couldn't even manage to clean me up for firing without knocking one of my legs off?! That's just great. Fine and dandy. Call yourself a 'dollmaker'? Pshaw and tush."
He has a fine line in sarcasm and can continue in this vein for some time......
The urge to pummel him into his constituent porcelain atoms is almost irresistible, and I can't say that I haven't occasionally succumbed to an uncharacteristically violent (although extremely satisfying) act of retribution.
What can I say? I plead mitigating circumstances. I was driven to it.
I have another 5 of the whiny little buggers to do today and I'm not looking forward to it. They're all lying together in the tray now. Plotting and sniggering. Sniggering and plotting.
I can't say I'm surprised at his nursery rhyme fate. I don't think he fell off that wall.... I'm convinced he was pushed. There was probably a queue of potential pushers. With all the King's horses and all the King's men jostling for position.
And as for putting him back together again. Forget it!
2 comments:
Oh no, that must be a nightmare, how frustrating. I take it there isn't anyway you can mend them ? Hmmmm, cant think of a salvage other than putting the top half in an egg cup :-) x
Frustrating doesn't even come close! I've tried glueing the legs back on after they've been bisque fired but it's never very successful as they're subsequently even more delicate.
Generally I just take both legs off and put him in a toy box or make him into a Humpty jack-in-the-box.
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