Monday, April 20, 2009

Layers of Wood Make an Impression

At the left is the newel post of my latest dollhouse. I turned the ball portion of the post on my miniature, Dremel lathe. Once I had turned the piece, then I used my Dremel tool to rout out the side of the post near the base.

Next, I took a 3/32" piece of walnut and rounded the edges of the wood using the Dremel tool again. Once I made the half-round edge, I ran it through my miniature table saw to cut the molding that protrudes just above and below the flowers on the post. I had to carefully miter these pieces to fit the post. (I cut this wood extra long so I had plenty of wood in case I made any erroneous cuts, and I did make a few bad cuts.)

Last, I took out my trusty jeweler's saw and cut out three very tiny flower appliques from 1/16" walnut. I then used my carving knives, rifler files and emery board to add the detail to the center of the flower and the flower petals. Then I glued the appliques to the post.

The finish started with some clear stain applied to the post to bring out the wood's natural color. I finished it off with several coats of Deft spray varnish, rubbed down with 4 ought steel wool between coats of varnish.

4 comments:

marlies said...

Great and very beautiful, what a work you have done! I have a Dremel, but it is in the closet, never use it. I should try it sometime.
* marlies

Ana Anselmo said...

very clever!!! it seems made in just one piece of wood...

MiniKat said...

Absolutely gorgeous!

JDayMinis said...

What a beautiful newel post, wonderful detail you add to everything.

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