Repairing a unicorn advice, mostly the horn…

[scenceable]

Hey guys! A while ago I got my aunt to pick up a black male unicorn from kijiji and I got him today. He was quite beat up, which I knew about. Anyway, he had a bunch of chips to the paint all over his body. What I did was touch them up and then go over everything with satin glaze, which looks fine.

His horn was bent and the entire thing is loose. The gold has chipped off all around the bend. So I’m not sure if I should try and get a replacement horn? For now what I did was use pliers to reset the horn and put some glaze over it so the remaining gold doesn’t chip off. I mean he looks nice sitting on the shelf but the horn bugs me a bit. I could releaf the horn but I’m not sure exactly what colour to use. Although I suppose if I releafed the entire thing it wouldn’t be noticeable.

So I guess my question is what to do with the horn? Has anyone fixed something like this? He looks fine on display at the moment so I’m not super concerned but I figured I would ask. He does look much better now than when I got him!

Thanks! 😀

[Hannah]

I recently got a mother unicorn whose horn was bent in shipping, as well as a PYO uni who had the same issue (DARN YOU HORNS!). I bent them both back into place, and neither of them had any gold that chipped off, just the antiquing that’s in the grooves of the horns – and it was completely not noticable!

I haven’t tried repairing the mother uni’s horn any further, but I was thinking about the same things you have – the most likely candidate for me was to either releaf the horn, or find a very similar metallic paint (the super stinky kind that dries quickly and repaint the entire thing with a very thin coat of paint and then glossing it and antiquing it if necessary. I can try this out and let you know how it works!

As far as the looseness of the horn – EVERY mother uni that I’ve gotten has had a loose horn, whether it was bent in the mail or not! I have the feeling this is a common issue for older sculpts like this. I did get one of them removed completely and I am planning on regluing it with epoxy once I get the repairs on the sculpt finished. All I did to remove it was gently wiggling and tugging the horn – I wouldn’t recommend this though because it would have been REALLY easy for me to break the poor uni’s face, the horn was just VERY loose and I was super lucky XD

So.. in short, I have no good advice for you!! >< I will try the repairs on the horn that I mentioned though and I'll get back to you 🙂

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[dragonmedley]

I had a PYO kirin horn bent. Once I straightened it, the gold was cracked, so I painted over it. I was able to dip most of it to make a smooth coat, but of course, since the base was glued, I had to take the paintbrush. If the horn is completely out, you could do something like that.

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[scenceable]

I don’t know anything about doing PYOs or how to antique or anything so forgive me… if I did repaint or releaf the horn, I know normal unicorn horns are gold but the indented part of the spiral is darker. I’m not sure if this is just left pewter and the outside leafed, or if this is added antiquing? My concern with painting or leafing is that the chips of gold already would create dents and ridges. So if I was to releaf it I would probably pop it off and pull the rest of the gold off before leafing.

I’ve never done gold leaf before though, so not sure how it would go.

Thanks for the advice so far guys! 😀

[Carolyn]

Yeah if you wanted a replacement you’d have to wait till they find the molds . I’m wishing them luck . Because I want more PYO unicorns .

[scenceable]

If I asked would they give me a new one? I didn’t know they did that.

[dragonmedley]

If I asked would they give me a new one? I didn’t know they did that.

For a production piece, I’m not sure they would. Yes, the spiral is a type of antique or something; you can ask which color to use, or the might send you some. They do send matching colors, I’m just not sure of the circumstances.

Read my books! Volume 1 and 2 of A Dragon Medley are available now.
http://www.sarahjestin.com/mybooks.htm
I host the feedback lists, which are maintained by drag0nfeathers.
http://www.sarahjestin.com/feedbacklists.htm

[Stephanie]

If I asked would they give me a new one? I didn’t know they did that.

For a production piece, I’m not sure they would. Yes, the spiral is a type of antique or something; you can ask which color to use, or the might send you some. They do send matching colors, I’m just not sure of the circumstances.

Susie was nice enough to send me a replacement mother unicorn horn once. I bought a mother uni on Ebay who didn’t have hers! It couldn’t hurt to ask. 🙂

[Shawna]

Susie has often sent me replacement horns for damaged pieces, I am sure if you ask she would send you one if there are any available.

Kyrin

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