Close window
Teddy's lost voice

Repair Stories

Teddy's lost voice by Mike H.
- and how he got it back.

All photos ©2023- Rushmoor Repair Cafe
Click any image for a larger version

Teddy, who was a job from our recent Sonardyne event, had lost his voice, not a sound or a wheeze, nothing. His voicebox had dried out and completely disintegrated. On prising it apart we found the spring had come unglued, the cloth covering although still reasonably flexible was detached from the cardboard ends. His voice (a brass reed) was bent but the original tuning thread was still in place and sealed so could not be adjusted, so with some tweezers and judicious adjustment we managed to tweak it back into alignment and we had sound, confirmed by drawing air through the vent hole.

Glueing the spring back in (1) was the easy part with a small dab of two part epoxy and a rubber band to keep it in place while it set. Repeat for the other end of the spring, fortunately there were witness marks (rust !) on the cardboard ends to show the correct spring position. The outer cloth cover was carefully glued to the ends so we had a complete growler (2), but unfortunately no growl as the cloth airtight covering was just dust.

1) Gluing the spring.

2) Growler back in one piece.

3) Teddy after surgery.

4) Teddy speaks.

Lots of various liquid sealants (rubber, PVA) were tested on some similar cloth but all were found to be way too stiff. Then another Minions "light bulb" moment, we do seem to have a lot of those !, suggested that some very thin polythene sheet backed with double sided tape might do it - in best Blue Peter sticky back plastic style !. Some very thin plastic from the recycling bin, 2" double sided sticky film and sharp pair of scissors had it covered and Teddy has his voice back. (4)

He's a bit squeaky with the reed being non-adjustable but at least he has a voice. Another thing we found was that Teddy was stuffed with wood wool, a common filler on old stuffed toys, and his previously soundless voice box was full of it. so when he was passed to one of our sewing volunteers to do a bit of open heart surgery some of the wood wool in his chest was replaced with a modern fibre filler. He is back in one piece (3) with a voice (4). Hover over the image and click the play button. [Back to the top]

Close window - Teddy's lost voice.