Help Repairing
Lion Heads!

Reinforcing the Mouth
Many suggestions have been made to reinforce this area of the head including aluminum or plastic sheets, fiberglass, and a mixture of newspaper, whiteglue and flour. The best suggestion so far has been:
  1. Use oat flour sacks. Can be found at an upscale cooking store like Williams and Sonnoma. They use them for no lint towels to dry wine glasses with...
  2. Go to your local craft store, A.C. Moore or rag shop and buy something called Fabric Stiff Stuff. Pour into bowl and either cut the fabric to the shape you want or use in strips. Get it wet in the bowl and then lay it on lion either inside or out.
  3. Use inside if you are patching a hole outside if you are doing beginning reinforcement.
  4. For the bottom of the mouth I use one solid piece. When dry paint with matching color. Also can be found at A.C. Moore or pearl paint.
  5. Once this is dry seal with Decoupage. This is the stuff your kids use in school to seal pictures on wood. It will go on white but when dry it will be clear.
  6. After 24 hours spray with a clear acrylic spray and let dry.

Our team also replaces the string holding the mouth to the rim with some of those 1/4" self-locking plastic tie strips (the ones that the police sometimes use as quick-handcuffs--if you don't know what I'm talking about email me and I'll try to explain better). Pull them tight enough to hold the mouth without it sagging, but not so tight that it prevents the mouth from moving freely and then cut off the excess part of the strap. Be sure to wrap the cut end and the square lock part with electrical tape or duct tape so that it doesn't accidently get tighter and lock the mouth. This will also keep the cut end from hurting the head player--it can be quite sharp!

Ears

Fixing the Frame
Bamboo strips can be salvaged from bamboo window shades available in Chinese botique shops. The traditional method for bending them is to heat them over a small flame (such as a candle or can of sterno) and slowly working it into the shape you want.

Re-Papering a Lion Head
Traditionally lion heads are papered with a thick rice paper ("cho-ji" paper--or "shoji" in Japanese, the same thing they make screens and window coverings out of). This can sometimes be found in Japanese paper stores or hobby & craft stores, but can be very expensive. Regular tissue paper or newspaper and liquid starch papier-mache can work well, but it tends to be thin and not very strong. It can be reinforced by first putting down a layer of gauze.

To make the head water-proof it can be sealed with Decoupage when the paper is dry and then coated with clear acrylic (sray or brush on).

It has also been suggested to use the untearable envelopes that US post offices use for priority mail. These can be picked up for free at your local post office. There are some challenges to this. The "paper" isn't really paper, it's a material known as Tyvek which is a plastic fiber. Since it's plastic it will not absorb water so the traditional way of sticking the paper to the frame will not work. Also watery paint will not hold onto this material. And you'll also get the post office logo all over the head. All this aside, the material is extremely strong (one layer of paper will be enough so the weight is low) and it is water-proof. You can use acrylic paint on it. I haven't tried it myself, but this seems like a great way to go. Read some recent posts to the email list regarding this subject by clicking here.

Making the Shoes/Claws
As far as i know, the claws are made by the lion dance teams themselves. It is not a difficult project as I have managed to make 2 sets of the claws. What I did was to stitch up all the finger tips of a cotton glove filled with cotton wool(or similar material). The glove should look like a very slightly clenched palm. Seal the glove and cover the top surface of the glove with the appropriate cloth. Then, if you want, you can glue strips of sheep skin/rabbit fur on the appropriate areas. Most of the teams I know glue the fur in the groves of the gloves but I glue then on the top of the plam and the individual fingers. Then you can stick it onto the shoe.

For 1 claw you will need 1 glove (cotton weaved glove, commonly found in SE Asia.), some stuffing (any sponge like material used for filling up dolls, pillow etc.), appropriate colour cloth, thread & needle, PVA glue, rubber glue, sheepskin or rabbit fur(optional) and the shoe.

  1. Fill the glove will stuffings until it is slightly "fat" overall.
  2. Depending on whether it is a left or right claw, join the finger tips of the cloth to the each other with the thread. It is difficult to describe here, but the claw should look like a very slightly clench palm.(Try touching all your finger tips together.)
  3. Close up the glove opening with thread.
  4. Cover the glove with the cloth, glueing it with the PVA glue.
  5. If you want, cut sheepskin or rabbit fur into short strips, and glue it on the clove with the PVA glue. The strips can be placed on the top of the glove and in the finger groves or on the fingers.
  6. Glue the glove with rubber glue onto the shoe.

I hope the info is helpful to you.

George Chan

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