The Lone Ranger takes the fall..........

LR took a header off my shelf.  I had just bought him and paid a lot of $$$$$.  I was devastated; almost as much as he was. 

Together, we began the long journey to put Humpty back together again.

Rebuilding his legs required repeated grafts of pre-mixed spackle, my preferred substance for repairs of this nature.  It dries rock hard and is easy to sand and paint.  The trick is doing it slowly and in layers and it won't harden properly if done all at once.  I repainted every inch of LR except for his face which had suffered no damage.

Lou Costello

Lou suffered from one of the most common injuries; a broken hat brim.  These usually occur when the statue gets tipped over, or in my case, when he's shipped using USPS. Bam, wham, thank you, mam.

The hat was an easy fix; a little glue, a little spackle, sanding and paint.

George Burns

George came to me in mostly good shape.  I think he had his left ear bitten off by a pit bull.

I repaired his ear......

...and then gave him a complete makeover including fresh skin tones and a new set of clothes.

A GREAT Esco story from a reader.

Hello!

No, I'm not writing because I need a statue repaired, THANKFULLY!

I was writing to tell you how impressed, and touched I was seeing the

beautiful work you did on the Louis Armstrong statues on your site.

My love for Louis started as a 9 year old trumpet student and today as a

59 year old it's still strong.

I saw my statue in a shop window on a trip to Chicago in 1980. As a

struggling college student I could barely afford it...I think it was

like 50-60 bucks?

I thought it was kind of cheesy but it was the best I could do...Louis

statues weren't exactly available. Anywhere.

Imagine my surprise a year later when I saw one in of all places, Louis

Armstrong's home! My father, (who turned me on to Louis) and I called on

his widow in Queens. Lucille was gracious enough to let us in and we

spent a few hours with her. There, on the piano was a statue just like

mine! If I remember correctly, the company sent one to her and she had

it on display.

Anyway, just wanted to share my story.

Jack

Louie Louie Armstrong

I came across 2 Satchmo statues in crappy condition.  One Louis had a broken horn and his color was badly distorted by age.  The other Louis had the worst repair and paint job I've ever seen.

I slowly rebuilt this Louie's horn.

I then removed the nose from Hideous Louis and resculpted a new nose for him.

Both guys are now ready to blow.

John Wayne finds his long lost twin

The Duke arrived with his head broken off and a damaged hat.  The Duke's twin was structurally sound but had some paint issues.

I gave the guys a new wardrobe and voila!

Chico Marx

Chico arrived at the Esco Hospital suffering from the partial amputation of his hand no doubt suffered during a face-plant fall.  He also had the tell-tale nose damage.

This was my first effort at rebuilding a hand and produced mixed results.  The rest of Chico cleaned up nicely.