Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Accidents happen

One of Jerry's and my favorite artists is Randy Chitto who makes the greatest turtles. Now and then we diversify. Last year we got one of his bear storytellers, "The Warrior's Journey to the Stars." As you'll see, it's a big bear with a small on his lap. The small bear is held in place with a metal pin.

One day recently the piece was being moved and the small bear got bumped and shifted a bit. In moving it pried the toe off the large bear.

Here are the bears and the toe.
The chip from the toe came off in one piece and fit back into place with none of the light colored clay showing. I sent a note to Randy asking what sort of glue he recommends to reassemble the piece. He said that the small bear had been glued on with five-minute epoxy. I figured if that's the glue for the original piece it should be good for the repair. I had that kind of epoxy on hand.

I glued the toe back on.

After that set (I gave it half an hour to set while I held the toe in place much of that time) I glued the small bear back in place. I had the big bear lie on its side so the small bear rested against a bit of epoxy on the large bear's arm and sat with its pin in more epoxy in the big bear's toe.
If you're looking for the repair, you'll see it. But it looks pretty good for all it's been through.

4 comments:

P-Doobie said...

Oh, man. I would have just burst into tears. I'm glad you fixed it; it looks great. I love Randy's work.

Shoe said...

Great work! What happy bears!

RetroMag said...

You're so talented! I'll bet nobody would suspect thety had been injured and repaired. I'm glad you got them fixed.

Poss said...

I'm glad for the nice repair. I am especially glad that my girls were nowhere to be found when the toe fell off.