George the Miniguy

How the Doghouses Turned Out

2011-12-06T21:05:00.000-06:00

Thought you might like to see how the dog houses turned out. I was able to snap a few shots of what some of the miniature club members did with their projects. All of the photos below were of various members' houses. Mine? Well, I was busy helping others, and later when I tried to fix something I'd done badly, the little house split in half! Oops.

New Club Project - a Front Porch

2011-12-03T08:57:00.000-06:00

At our most recent meeting of the miniature club, we got to talking about what we might do next. I had an idea of doing a craftsman style house front porch, complete with a porch swing.

I've always liked the craftsman style houses - especially the gently sloping columns on the porch. Those should be interesting to cut out with my table saw!

Above is my PowerPoint "drawing" of what I proposed to club members. Based on the feedback I received, it looks like this could be our next project.

When I drew up the plans, my wife suggested that we make it a welcome sign. So, we will most likely cut out half-inch tall letters to set into the framed box below the house. We will make these so that they can be hung on the wall. I'm hoping they will be no more than about 8" deep.

Doghouse Details and Construction Instructions

2011-01-29T12:12:00.002-06:00

Here are the instructions and dimensions for construction of the doghouse. If you want to use the picture from this blog as a template for cutting out the front of the house, copy it and paste it into a Word document (if you have Word). You can then resize the picture as needed to get it to where the dimensions print out exactly as drawn.

Here are the individual pieces you will need to cut out. The base is 1/8" basswood and the sides and roof are all 1/16" basswood. I have not sided my doghouse yet. I plan to do it with individual pieces of siding that I cut myself. I'll do a blog post for how to do that soon. If you use sheet siding, I recommend the siding that is ¼” rather than the ½” plank widths. You don’t have to side the house, but it looks really cute when it is.

Piece	Dimensions	Quantity
Sides	2” tall x 2 ½” wide	2
Front and back	2 ¼” wide x 3 ¹⁄₈” tall	2
Base	2 ½” x 2 ¹/₈” *	1
Roof piece A	3 ¼” x 1 ¹⁵⁄₁₆” (1.937”)	1
Roof piece B	3” x 1 ⁷⁄₈”	1
Inside supports	¹⁄₈” x ¼” x 1 ⁷⁄₈”	4
Roof beam	³⁄₁₆” x ³⁄₁₆” x 2 ½”	1
Siding – sides	1 ¹⁵⁄₁₆” x 2 ⁵/₈”	2
Siding front & back	2 ¹⁄₈” x (about) 1 ⁷⁄₈”	2
Upright corners	¹⁄₁₆^”x (about) ¹⁄₈^”x2¹⁄₈^{” **}	4
Sign for front	¹⁄₃” x 1 ⁷⁄₁₆”	1
This may need to be sanded slightly narrower. *These pieces will need to be cut at a 45 degree angle on one edge so that they fit snugly against the roof line. The height is approximate and is the longer dimension of the pieces. You might want to cut this a little long and then trim it off as needed.

Assembly instructions:

Cut out all of the pieces, including the doorway of the house.
If you plan to side the house, use double-stick tape or use a slight amount of rubber cement to hold the siding to the face of the doorway piece. Cut the doorway entrance through both pieces. This assures you that your parts will match. Once this piece is cut out, sand the cut for any slight errors you may have made, and then disassemble the two pieces and mark the two sides that will be glued together (in case your cut is not perfectly centered or symmetrical).
Now you can begin to assemble the house. Glue one of the sides to the base. (It’s helpful to have a right-angle jig to clamp the side to so that the pieces are glued at exactly a 90° angle.
Glue the back of the house to the base and side, using the jig again for this.
Glue one of the inside supports into the corner.
Glue the other side to the back and base.
Glue the other inside support into the corner.
Glue the front to the base and sides. Make sure the side you marked to be glued to the siding faces outward!
Glue the remaining two inside supports into the corners in the front.
If you want to stain the inside of the doghouse, do that now, before you add the roof. It will be much easier.
Put a little glue on the inside at the top peak of the house at each end. Glue the roof beam in place. Make sure the roof beam angle aligns with the angles of the front and back of the house. (See drawing for the yellow square and note how it is angled.)
IF YOU DO NOT PLAN TO SIDE THE HOUSE, paint the roof pieces before you glue them onto the house. This will save you a lot of time and frustration of trying to paint the undersides of the roof close to the house.
Start with the slightly narrower roof piece and glue it flush with the edge of the roof beam. Put glue along all of the edges of one side of the roof, place the roof piece against this, then set the house down onto the roof piece, then push the entire piece up against your gluing jig or other fixed object. (This assures you that the roof is perfectly aligned across the top of the roof beam.) Make sure that the same amount of roof is exposed at the front and back of the house.
Now add glue to the rest of the roof edges and glue the other roof piece in place. Use the same technique of placing the house on its roof and press it against the gluing jig to assure that the top edge of your second roof piece is aligned across the top.
Seal and paint your siding and the external upright pieces. Also seal and paint the edge of the doghouse front doorway. I recommend you paint this the same color as the siding.
Seal and paint the under sides and edges of the doghouse roof. If you're going to add siding, you don't need to worry if you get a little paint on the sides of the house. Glue the siding to the house starting with the sides.
Glue the back piece of siding in place. Add the uprights on each side of the back piece.
Glue the front onto the doghouse. Add the uprights.
Now add shingles to your dollhouse. I would recommend buying or cutting shingles that are only 1/2" wide. In full scale, the shingles would be 6 inches wide, and that would look more appropriate on such a small scale building. I also would recommend spacing the shingles so that about a third of an inch of shingle is exposed per each row. The amount of shingle exposure is your decision -- like that of a cook when the recipe says, "season to taste." If you want to use fancy, shaped shingles, that is also your decision!
I plan to put the doghouse onto its own small base which will be about 6 inches square. I'll then paint it to look like dirt and grass, and perhaps I'll add a few weeds, maybe I'll even grind out a "hole" in the base, add a "mound of dirt" and put a bone in the hole.
Dog dishes would also be appropriate, but I'll leave the decorating details to you.
Don't forget to add the sign above the door (if you want to name your pooch). You can seal and paint the edges of the piece of wood and then print the signage (if you don't trust your own penmanship) and then glue that to the sign. (Remember to seal your printed sign with spray-on fixative so that it doesn't fade as badly over time.) Or you can hand paint the name in as detailed or as sloppy a hand as you want.

Remember, many a doghouse has been built by the children of the family; so, you can feel okay about the finished house if there are a few flaws! You might even want to "build in" a few flaws!

Good luck. Have fun with the work, and let me know how your house turns out! I'd love to see pictures!

Our Next Club Project

2011-01-17T09:01:00.000-06:00

Our miniature club will be leading the project for our joint state meeting of miniature clubs. Over the weekend, our small group of our miniature club members got together and decided we'd work on building a doghouse. Above is the basic shell that I worked up yesterday. We plan to add clapboard siding and shingles. We'll also have the participants make old-fashioned rag rugs to put inside the doghouse, and we'll include a base that they can "landscape" outside of the house. If you'd like me to post dimensions and construction details, please let me know. Thanks!

Constructing Miniature Rooms - What's the Best Way?

2010-12-04T15:10:00.000-06:00

What's the best materials to use to build room boxes or dollhouses? I've built two dollhouses from scratch - one with 3/8" birch plywood and one with Gatorfoam. (The photo at left is of a house built with Gatorfoam.) I was happy with both projects. But dollhouses are generally box construction projects. Unless they have turrets or bays, the building is pretty much 90 degree angles - simple to do.

Room boxes, on the other hand, are often more complicated. The design of a room box is like a stage set design. Few of the angles are actually right degrees. This allows the artist to create a variety of angles in the room and a sense of depth in a small space. It also makes construction of them more complex.

There are drawbacks to using both Gatorfoam and plywood. Both comes in large sheets. Cutting large, flat sections of wood or Gatorfoam, on a small hobbyist's table saw can be a challenge. At best, you'll waste more of the expensive building materials than you would like. At worst, you'll not get the walls cut precisely at the angles you need or want, leaving gaps and walls standing at awkward angles. Some of these gaps can be hidden with crown molding or with matte board glued to the ceiling of the room. Baseboards and flooring also help hide any gaps along the floor seams.

I've made several roomboxes now, and for two of them, I utilized old-fashioned, stick-frame building with matte board glued to the surface. The stick-frame uses pieces of wood assembled much like a real building is built. The problem with the stick built frame is that it's a bit flimsy until it's all glued up with the matte board attached. It's too easy to glue it up so and end up with walls not being perfectly square with the ceiling or floor.

The barbershop project our miniature club is working on is a perfect example. I cut out the pieces for everyone. The pieces were all the same size and shapes, planed to within microns of being the same in shape and angles. Yet, the four people assembling them ended up with slight variations in the finished product, and the angles of the corners are all slightly different one from another. Go figure!

The advantage of the stick frame build is it's lightweight, and you can easily run wiring through the walls or along the walls. The disadvantages are the irregularities you can get with assembly.

I have also done some construction with the paper-backed foamcore material. This material usually comes in quarter inch thickness. I have found two problems with it. One is that it tends to warp pretty easily. Add wall-paper to it, and as the paper and glue dry, the foam can become distorted.

I also find it a bit flimsy. It just doesn't seem like a product that will hold up for an extended number of years. If you don't intend on keeping your miniature creation for an extended period of time, then maybe it would be okay for your project. I plan to burden my kids and maybe even my grandchildren with my creations. ;o) So, when I build my pieces, I want them to be durable.

The most stable, light-weight and easy to work with material is the Gatorfoam. An added bonus to it is it's white. So, if you want white ceilings for your room, there's little or no painting that you need to do! The downside of the material is it's expensive, and not widely available. If you're okay with mail ordering, though, then you're probably good to go!

I started building Pam's dollhouse over 30 years ago, and the house is still as structurally sound as it was when I put it together. The ceilings are still white. The foam core has not shrunk. I know this, because no gaps have emerged.

You can't use screws or nails to put Gatorfoam together. I discovered, though, that a little glue and wooden pegs I made from dowels worked quite well. I used a pencil sharpener on the dowel pieces and then I used my X-acto knife to cut gill-like edges along the sides of the pegs. The sharp pencil-like tips made it easy to push the peg into the Gatorfoam, and the gill-like edges helped keep the pegs from pulling back out.

Even though I've built three dollhouses now, I still want to build a computerized, animated, haunted house. When I do, I will most likely use Gatorfoam to build it. And I think if I do another room box, I'll use Gatorfoam for that project, too!

Faux Marble Painting

2010-11-15T22:03:00.000-06:00

One of nature's more astounding creations is metamorphic rock. Specifically, I'm thinking of the crystalline form of limestone that is hardened from heat and pressure into marble. Marble comes in so many different colors and it's crystal consistency varies so much - anything from swirls of color to dense points of color. And in almost every case, it's beautiful! It's also one of the more fun things a miniaturist can create for a dollhouse or roombox.

On the left is the faux marble fireplace I made a few years ago. In today's blog, I'm going to share the techniques for how to paint faux marble.

Step One: Sand your wood until it is smooth. Then paint the wood with a white paint such as gesso, Kilz or Zinsser Bin primer sealer. (I prefer Bin, since it is alcohol based and doesn't raise the grain of the wood like water-based paints can.) Sand the white paint until it is smooth. If any wood shows through, add a second coat of paint and sand it smooth.

Step Two: Decide on the color you want your marble to be. Green? Teal? White or cream? Or some other coloration? I use mostly Ceramcoat hobby paints. It's not that those are my favorite paints, it's just that the hobby store near me carries a wide assortment of colors in that brand.

The teal-colored marble at left was created using the following palette of colors:

Med. Victorian Teal
Cape Cod (blue)
Metalic Gunmetal Gray (Folk Art brand)
Blue Velvet
Dark Burnt Umber

The beige and rose sample at left contains these colors:

Fleshtone
Georgia Clay
Burnt Umber
Sandstone
Heritage Brick (Americana Brand)
Blacksmith Black (Folk Art Antiquing)

This green marble was made with these colors:

Dark Forest Green
Blue Velvet
Mudstone
Burnt Umber

And this one was made with these colors:

Old Parchment
Dark Burnt Umber
Lt Ivory
Burnt Orange (Americana brand)

If I would have had another light brown or taupe color in my drawer, I think I would have added that to this one. (I'm not thoroughly satisfied how this one turned out.

So... now that you know the color schemes, here's what else you'll need:

a very tiny paint brush
a broad, chisel point paint brush (between 1/2 and 1 inch wide)
natural sponge
a cup of water
facial tissues, paper towel or toilet paper
a stiff paint brush

Below, you can see my first step with the green marble. I put some of my green paint onto some wax paper, then I dipped my half-inch brush into the water and then dabbed it into the green paint. I then

unloaded some of the paint onto a piece of newspaper so that the brush was slightly less loaded with the paint. I then swished the brush across the boar. (Sorry for the slightly out of focus shot here.) As you can see, it was fairly intense in color. In fact, too intense for my first layer of paint. So, I immediately dabbed at it with a tissue, and thus the color became less opaque.

The photo below and to the right shows how the color looked after I dabbed at it with the tissue. I continued to make dry brush marks onto the wood. I probably should have been more cautious to make sure that my strokes weren't all

vertical. As you can see here, there was a strong directionality to my strokes. The beauty of real marble is its randomness. So, make sure to be random with your paint strokes!

You can see in the photo at right that there's a second color beginning to appear. That was the dark blue color mixed with a hint of the green.

Next, I squeezed some of the mudstone colored paint onto the newsprint and spread it out so that it wasn't a thick blob. Then I took a small piece of natural sponge and dabbed it into the mudstone paint. Then I gently blotted the grey paint over the green. I did the same with some of the green paint, and I did a small amount of this with some of the blue (watered down).

Notice how I left some of the white

peeking through the colors. If at all possible, you want to make sure that you don't totally cover over all of the white. This adds to the luminescence of your marble slab and makes it look more real.

The next step is to take a dark color such as black or dark umber and create tiny blobs of the darkness on your piece. You can do this with a the stiff paint brush. Get a little paint on the brush and then tap it on a sheet of paper until most of the paint is gone, then tap it onto your painting surface. If you get a large blog anywhere, immediately dab at it with a tissue. If that doesn't soften the color enough, moisten a tissue or a piece of paper towel and dab at the spot with the moistened tissue. Another way to get tiny dots is to take an old paint brush, dab it into the dark paint, and then flick your finger across the bristles so that the bristles flick dots of paint everywhere. (Make sure you're not doing this on your most prized antique dining room table!) It's messy, but it you don't get too much paint on the toothbrush, you can get a very nice, random effect this way.

If you want to tone down the piece, you can add a light wash of one of your dominant colors. Again, try not to paint the entire surface - swish the watered down paint across portions of your marble. Then dab at it with your tissue to keep the tone more subtle.

Finally, you need to create the fissures in the rock. That's where you use a very fine brush and use the black, burnt umber or other dark color and add the most delicate lines you can muster with this brush. These lines need to be random. Some connect. Some go a little ways and then take a sharp angle in another direction. This adds another interesting dimension to the painting.

And there you have it! Let the paint dry. Then cover it over with a couple coats of clear sealer to give the paint a deeper luster. With a modest amount of practice, you'll be able to paint a piece of marble that you can be proud of! Have fun with it, and don't be afraid to play with multiple colors!

Making Solid Furniture Pieces

2010-09-25T09:52:00.001-05:00

There are two basic lines of thought with miniature furniture making. One line of thought is to make the piece virtually the same way as a full-sized piece is made. If the full-sized piece has working drawers, then the miniature has them, too. If the real one has padded cloth seats, then the replica does, too.

The other line of thought is, "If the people who view the piece will not be able to pick up or touch the item, does it really need to be such an exacting replica?" I have created a variety of miniatures and have used both philosophies.

    Right now, I'm building the shoeshine stand and chair for my barbershop. The picture at left is my working drawing that I did in PowerPoint. In real life, it would be a heavy piece; probably constructed out of oak. It reminds me a lot of the minister's chair that was in the church where I grew up.

    I plan to sit my barber doll in this chair, reading a newspaper or a hunting magazine. The main thing is that the seat and back of the chair will mostly be obscured by my little barber. So, do I need to put real padding and leather on the chair? I don't think so. I currently plan to make the black leather parts out of wood. I'll seal it; then paint it. I may even grind in some indentation into the "leather" so that my barber sits more comfortably (that way he won't tip over too easily). I most likely will glue him to the seat anyway!
    I also plan to make the drawer in the bottom fake. It won't be open and doesn't need to open; so, I will glue a piece of wood to the base to represent the drawer front. I'll add some knobs to this (small

brads), and call it good. I did this with the dresser in the maid's room in Sara's dollhouse. It turned out okay. (You can see it in the background on the right side of the picture.)
   The nice thing about making a solid miniature piece is how quickly it goes together. Also, because it is not nearly as delicate, it holds up for a good long while.
    It's a good argument for making any furniture a child might play with in a dollhouse. Skip the fancy working drawers and delicate furniture. Make something the kids can accidentally step on without smashing it! And if they do break it, (a) you, the builder, aren't devastated that all your beautiful work has been wasted and (b) you can make a replacement piece in a heartbeat!
    I'll share the finished piece with you when it's done.

How to Make Routed Moldings Using the Dremel Tool

2010-09-11T11:37:00.002-05:00

Sorry about my absence, friends. It’s been an incredibly busy summer and start of school. Plus, I’ve had a bout of writer’s block! The full-scale projects for my daughters are coming along nicely, though. The deck is nearing completion at my one daughter's house as is the bathroom/walk-in closet at the other daughter's home. So, now I can begin to think small again...

Today I'm going to discuss how to use the Dremel router table. I use my Dremel tool and various router bits to make an endless array of moldings for my miniatures, including baseboards. One of the frustrations that I have encountered when running long, thin pieces of wood across the router is that sometimes I press down too hard or too lightly as the wood goes over and past the router blade. As a result, I can get cupping or little dips or waves in what should be one continuous indentation the length of the wood strip.

Through trial and error, I have developed the following approach to help reduce this problem. Here are the steps I take to get better routing performance:

Step 1: Take a piece of wood that is at least 1/8" thicker than the piece of wood you plan to route. It doesn't need to be particularly wide. As you can see by my example, it can be a little over an inch wide and about four to six inches in length. I prefer to cut this piece of wood at a slight angle, as shown in the picture at left. This will become your "hold-down" piece that will help you keep a more even pressure on the routed board as it goes past the router bit.

Step 2: After you have cut your hold-down piece, lower your blade until it is at the same height or slightly lower than the thickness of the piece of wood that you will be routing (see picture at right). If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you'll notice that the blade is as much as 1/32" lower than the top edge of the wood strip that I will route. For this step, always make sure the blade does not extend above the piece of stripwood.

Step 3: Take your hold-down board and make a number of passes across your table saw blade so that you slowly nibble away the wood. You can see in the example at left, as the saw blade cuts through the bottom portion of the hold-down piece, it creates a shoulder on the hold-down board. Continue to cut your hold-down piece until the stripwood almost is the depth of the cuts. When you put the hold-down board on top of the stripwood, you should be able to see about 1/64" of the stripwood still protruding above the hold-down. (See picture below for example.)

Step 4: Install the router bit in your Dremel tool and adjust the height to the approximate height you want to route. (Tip: I always cut extra pieces of wood so that I can run some test cuts past the Dremel bit to make sure I have set the bit at the right height and that the adjustable guide fence is in the right position.) I often set the blade and the fence ever so slightly less than what I ultimately will rout the wood. If I'm removing a lot of wood from the stripwood, I will cut perhaps half of the amount of wood that I plan to remove with the first pass across the router.

I do the rough cuts, running the wood past the bit a couple of times, then I sand the wood to remove burrs that pop up. See example photo below of wood with burrs on it. NOTE: If you attempt to rout too much of the wood at one time, the burrs can become large splinters, and no amount of sanding will correct for the gouge made in the wood from that large splintered spot. Take your time - make multiple passes, cutting a little at a time, and you'll be much happier with the final product!

Step 5: Take the hold-down piece of wood and set it over the piece of stripwood. Then push the stripwood against the adjustable fence and press down on top of the hold-down wood. The picture below shows how I start a piece of wood. Once the stripwood begins to engage the router bit cutting blades, I slide the hold-down to where it is centered over the cutting blade. Try to maintain consistent amount of pressure on the hold-down wood throughout the entire pass of the stripwood. When I get toward the end of the piece of wood, I often take a piece of scrap that is the same size as my stripwood and push the stripwood on through the router and past the hold-down area so that I cut the entire length of stripwood.

Step 6: Once you have run the stripwood past the router bit, adjust to the final height and depth, gently sand the stripwood with a fine sandpaper, and then do your final pass on the router. When making this final pass, you should cut only a minute amount of wood. This final pass should actually help sharpen the edges and lines of your routed wood. Also, because it is removing so little wood, there is less likelihood of your getting burrs on the edge of the wood.

As you can see above, here is an example of wood routed with a ball-shaped cutter. The piece of stripwood was not perfectly flat between the 4 3/4" and 5" mark. As a result, the cut is slightly (and I mean slightly!) less deep than the rest of the piece of wood. To help prevent this from happening, always make sure you start with a piece of wood that has a consistent width and depth to it. Sand it or run it through your table saw as needed to make sure you have a good piece of stripwood to work with. Remember, whatever your router bit shape is, the shape you cut into the wood will be the opposite. A ball-shaped cutter produces a rounded indentation in the wood (as illustrated above). A cup-shaped cutter will round off the edge of your wood.

Happy routing!

Filling Blemishes or Flaws in Your Wood

2010-08-14T10:50:00.000-05:00

Sorry for not posting for so long. Every weekend since July 4, I have been out of town working on my daughters' home improvement projects! The deck is coming along - no more broken windows so far! And I actually fixed a crooked door frame unit on my other daughter's remodeling project; so I feel pretty happy with that accomplishment.

I just learned a new trick from Woodworker's Journal that may help you if you're working on a painted wood project where there is a wood knot or a flaw in your wood. (When you put paint over those types of blemishes, they almost always show through.) Here's the trick for filling and hiding that flaw:

Sprinkle baking soda on to the flawed area. Then take a putty knife and smooth the baking soda across the flawed area. You'll see the low points fill with the white baking soda.
Push the excess baking soda aside, leaving the white residue on your wood.
Next, take some cyanoacrylate (CA) glue, and drip it onto the areas that show up as white on your piece of wood. It will darken the wood, but since you're going to paint over it, don't worry about that. Let the glue cure and harden.
Take some fine sandpaper and smooth the area to your satisfaction. Wipe off the sanding residue. You're now ready to paint, and the blemish from the wood knot won't show through!

I'm sure you probably figured this out already, but if you intend to do a natural wood look, with stain and varnish, this is NOT a viable solution!

Free Online Design Software

2010-07-19T22:34:00.000-05:00

Tonight, I began to experiment with some new, three-dimensional software from Google called Sketch-Up. It's available FREE from Google. Working with this software is reminiscent of the first time I started to do something in PowerPoint.

I felt lost and a bit overwhelmed, but excited at the same time. It's just amazing what you can draw using this software - if you know what you're doing. You can "put a hole" through a solid object in no time at all. Create a square, click on the pull out icon, and suddenly you have a pillar or a box - whichever you need!

I hope to become proficient at using it, because it allows the user to see every angle, every side of a project - even the bottom of the object! What an interesting tool for drawing up dollhouse plans or for designing mini furniture! I hope I will someday say I feel as competent in using it as I do with using PowerPoint! That only comes with practice and experience, though. So, back to the (online) drawing board! See ya later!

The Deck - Part Deux (Or Is it Doh!?)

2010-07-09T19:53:00.001-05:00

I was hoping you all would get a laugh out of my goofy demolition story. The saga of the deck just continues. Here is part two of "the project."

So, my daughter and I went to City hall and applied for the building permit. The chief inspector was there. He shook our hands. Took a very long look at each of us, and repeated our names a couple of times - as if preparing himself to be able to recognize our obituaries in the newspaper after we dug the postholes. He almost had a look on his face of "You poor fools. You have no idea what's in store for you!" But he kept his comment to himself.

Once I picked up the auger, I realized that in spite of her can do/never say die attitude, there was no way my tiny little daughter and I were going to be able to handle that auger. So, I prepped the holes - dug all six of them about 18 inches to 2 feet deep. All my son-in-law and I had to do was to plop the auger in the hole and dig down another 18 to 24 inches. Piece of cake! Right?!?

...or not. We got the auger started and it dug like crazy. It pulled itself into the earth like there was no tomorrow. Then we tried to lift it out. Uh, I said LIFT. Um, no go. I said, LIFT!!! Nothing happened. The auger had dug itself into the earth, and it seemed like there was little or no chance of our freeing it from its self-dug grave. But the devilish thing cost me $90 to rent, and I knew I had to get it back to the rental store. So, my son-in-law got out a tiny plastic trowel, and we took turns reaching into the hole and digging out what seemed like tiny spoonfuls of dirt. We eventually got down to the auger blade, and once we did, it was somewhat easier to pull it out of the hole. When we got it fully extracted, with its extension still on it, I realized that the handlebars were nearly up to my armpits.

By this point, both my son-in-law and I were tired, but we rested up and got ready to take a stab at digging posthole #2. Then the digger wouldn't start. We pulled. We adjusted the choke. We pulled and pulled again. Nada! Zip. Not even a burp out of the stupid machine. By this point, my arms were already aching and my son-in-laws back was, too. We agreed we'll try a smaller machine and dig down from there to the official 42" frost level. So, tomorrow is another day. Maybe we'll get this deck built. Miniatures are looking better and better every moment as we go further into the holes!!!
:o)
Geo.

Why I Like Working in Miniature So Much

2010-07-09T09:20:00.000-05:00

Fair warning... this is not your usual blog from me...

I am reminded today WHY I like working in miniature so much. I'm about to build a deck with my daughter at her house.

Yesterday, I tore down the old back porch from her house. The wood was quite weathered, and many of the screws were hard to remove. I finally took my power saw and started cutting. What I couldn't tear apart with the saw, a sledge hammer managed the rest. I was down to the last upright post, which was hanging on by a few strands of wood. So, I took my sledge hammer and gave it a whack! That did it! The 8 foot tall 4x4 careened over to its side -- right into my daughter's 3' x7' plate glass window! They tell me it will cost a little over $400 to fix it....

Next, I called the rental supply to line up a power post-hole digger (an auger). The guy at the rental place said, "It works best with these power augers for the two people running it to be the same size." (I'm 6'4". My daughter is 5'2".) "Otherwise," he said, "the shorter person really takes the brunt of the lifting and running of the digger." My daughter is all of about 110 lbs. I'm a string-bean, too. The auger weighs 80 lbs. This could be a very interesting day.

So, here's my list of why I like building miniatures as opposed to full-size stuff...as if I really need to tell you, dear readers!

No building permits required.
No heavy lifting (unless you have to move a dollhouse...)
No power drills to maintain and charge.
No blisters.
No heavy-duty sweating.
No mud on your shoes after building a mini deck.
No sunburn or mosquito bites (unless you really want to work on your mini on your patio or deck).
The framing boards on a dollhouse deck weigh less than an ounce for each 12' length.
No back-ache (unless I bend over my minis at my workbench for extended hours at a time).
I would also include "no building inspectors", but I have to admit that if I build a mini, I usually want to show it off to others, and every time I do that, there are the critics and critical eyed people who give me their two cents worth about what is right or not right with my project!

More Details on Making Your Cabriole Legs

2010-06-29T16:03:00.000-05:00

The old saying is that a picture is worth a thousand words. So, in still pictures, here are the steps for creating the cabriole leg. I promise, this is the last that I'll write on this, unless someone presses me for more details!

Step one: Cut your wood to a length that is slightly longer than the cabriole leg. (See photo at lef.) As you can see, there is a little white space above and below the table leg drawing.

Step two: Cut the leg blanks. I placed the piece of wood on its side against the saw blade and then pushed the fence up against the block of wood. This way, I know I'll be cutting a block of wood that is as wide as it is deep. The length, of course, will be as long as the table leg blank.

You can see from this angle how I cut the blanks for the leg pieces. The cabriole leg I designed here is less that 3/4" wide. So I am able to cut all four table legs from a single piece of 1 x 4 wood.

Step 3: Cut out the paper drawing of the cabriole leg. Fold the paper along the dotted line (see previous blog for photos of the cabriole leg drawings). Use any kind of craft glue or double-stick tape to apply the drawing to the sides of the table leg blank.

In this photograph you can see that I glued the paper tightly to the blank. I did not leave any gaps between the fold and the wood. (If there are any gaps, the cutting process will not be accurate.)

Step 4: Begin cutting the leg. In this illustration, you can see how I use a lighted, artist's magnifying glass with my table jigsaw. This makes it much easier for me to look at the piece and see exactly where I'm cutting.

I began to saw the cabriole leg by cutting through the bottom of the blank, and continued up along one side of the leg. I make sure to stay on the outside edge of the black line.

When I got to the top of the leg, I continued to cut a little above the leg, then made a gentle curve over to the other side of the leg, and then cut down along the back side of the cabriole leg. I continued to cut all the way along that side until I cut through the bottom edge of the blank.

As you can see, when I finished this cut, the "leg" is loose within the blank. It could actually fall out, and it could wiggle as I cut the other side.

Step 5: Put clear tape around the blank piece to prevent the leg from moving. This will help you to make a more accurate cut as turn the leg a quarter turn and make the same series of cuts on side two of the blank.

As you get to the end of the cut, be sure to hold down the piece of wood so that the wood doesn't rattle as you make the final cutting strokes on the piece. (Note my finger at the top of the table leg in the photo at left - the saw blade is at the bottom of this picture.)

Step 6: If you have a table saw, I recommend cutting the bottom and top of the leg using this saw so that you get a precise, right-angle cut. If you don't have a table saw, take a try square, mark all the way across the piece of wood and slice the bottom and top edges of your table leg.

Step 7: Remove the waste from your table leg. You will have nine pieces of wood. Only one - the one in middle - is useable. The rest become scrapwood, unfortunately.

At this point, you will have a roughly cut table leg. You'll need to sand it and perhaps carve it. I usually round the edge of the outside curved portion of the leg. I also use my Dremel tool to round the underside (back) of the leg. I try to leave the sides of the leg fairly "sharp." I will sand them to remove the raw cut marks, but generally, I prefer not to round their edges as much as the front and back. Find some examples of real cabriole legs and study them to see how the woodworker finished those pieces. That will give you a better sense of how to finish the cabriole legs.

I hope this has been helpful for you. Have fun with your cutting!

Written Instructions for Making a Cabriole Leg

2010-06-21T21:20:00.000-05:00

I did not realize how much my international readers might rely on the Google translation capability to read this blog. Nor did I realize the disadvantage they might experience when I posted my video about how to make cabriole legs. So, today's blog will be written instructions for how to create cabriole legs for your miniatures.

You can cut cabriole legs with a table bench jigsaw, a band saw or a hand coping saw. I would not try to cut them using a hand-held power jigsaw, because the pieces of wood you will work with are so small, it would be very difficult to control the cutting process. The table jigsaw can handle up to about an inch thick piece of wood (at the most). A band saw might handle a slightly thicker piece of wood; however, the overall width and depth of cabriole legs rarely exceeds one inch in a miniature.

I have made cabriole legs out of pine, bass, cherry and walnut wood. I have not tried other exotic woods. I would not recommend using especially hard woods - they might look great when finished, but cutting exceptionally hard woods may take its toll on your saw blade or your patience!

The first step in the process is to draw the shape of your cabriole leg or find one on the Internet or in a book featuring furniture with cabriole legs. For your convenience, I've posted a picture with this blog showing a table leg (2.7" tall - or about 32" tall) and a chair leg (1.3" or about 16" tall) that you can use.

The next step is to print out a paper copy of the leg design. Your paper copy must have both the left and right view of the leg in a perfectly vertical position. (My pictures above provides this.) Try to make sure that you leave a little white space - approximately 1/8" or more between the widest point of both legs (which the illustration above also has). Draw a vertical line between the two legs. You will fold your paper copy along this vertical line. (The above picture has a line centered between the two halves of the cabriole legs.)

Cut your pieces of wood so that they are the same width and depth. Next, make sure the length (height) of this piece of wood is about 1/2" longer than the cabriole leg. The wood grain should be in the long direction of the piece of wood.

Use double-stick tape to secure the paper copy of the leg to your wood. I buy this kind of tape at my local business office supply store. You can sometimes get it in large rolls that are about 3/4" wide or in smaller rolls that are about 1/2" wide. Either width works just fine.

Put the tape on the back side of the paper. For the ease of fastening the paper to your piece of wood, don't put any tape along the edge where you have folded the paper. Make sure your tape extends slightly beyond the leg image on all sides. Once you've added the tape to the paper, then carefully fasten the picture to your piece of wood. The fold should touch one angle of the wood blank all the way down so that there is no gap anywhere between the paper and the wood.

You are now ready to cut the first side of the leg. Start at the top or the bottom of the long portion of wood to begin your cut. Be consistent in how you cut the piece - make your blade cut precisely through the lines or precisely on the outside edge of the line. Try not to go back and forth between cutting on the line or outside of the line - cutting that way will result in a disappointing cabriole leg. Cut all the way past the the bottom of the leg by about 1/8 to 1/4", then curve around and cut the other side of the leg. Cut all the way back up to the top of the piece of wood and out the end near where you started your cut. You will now have two pieces of wood. Feel free to take the piece out and look at it, then insert it back where you took it out. Take some clear tape and wrap it around the pieces to hold the loose piece of wood in place within the block of wood.

Now turn the piece of wood to the side that has not been cut and repeat this process. When finished making the second cut, tape the piece back together once more. Now that you have the blank cut out, you can cut the top and bottom of the leg. If you have a table saw, I would recommend using that saw to cut a precise, right angle across the top and the bottom of the cabriole leg. That way, you'll be certain that you have a precise, 90 degree cut on the leg. If you don't have a table saw, then I'd recommend cutting the leg with a hobbyist's miter saw. If you prefer to make the cut with your table saw, take a try square, mark a line across the top and the bottom of the leg, and cut very carefully so that you end up with a squared off top and bottom.

You are then ready to peel away the tape you have placed around the pieces of the leg. You will have nine different pieces of varying shapes. Only one - the one in the center of the pieces - will be the cabriole leg. All the other pieces, though interesting, are scrap.

Sand the extended edge of the cabriole leg to round it and shape it to your preferences. Repeat the process until you have the number of cabriole legs you need for your piece of furniture. Good luck! Send me pictures if you have a completed piece. I'd love to see what you make!

The Vending Machine Is Finished

2010-06-12T08:21:00.000-05:00

You saw the interim steps for the Coca-Cola vending machine, and here is the finished item. I used computer-printed decals to create the grill on the side of the machine and for producing the signage on the sides and top of the machine. The hardest parts of this project were to get a smooth finish on the paint and to get a good match between the red of the decal and the vending machine. I couldn't print the white "ice cold" text onto a clear decal; so I had to print on a decal material with a base color of white and print the red ink on top of it. The silver bottle opener was part of a decorative, silver bead that I cut in half and ground the back away so that it would lie at an angle when glued to the side of the cooler.

The Pack Rat in Me Wins - Again!

2010-05-31T21:27:00.000-05:00

For those of you who have seen my blog post showing my tiny workshop, it's cluttered with all sorts of pieces of wood that I have not tossed. Even though they're not very big, and some people might think they're useless, I keep thinking, "That's a good piece of [insert kind of wood here]. I could probably use that sometime..." It's the pack rat in me that drives me to keep it!

For those of you reading this blog who don't live in North America, the pack rat is a real live rodent that is notorious for collecting "stuff." They especially like shiny objects. People who never throw "stuff" away are also called pack rats.

Well, today, I couldn't find my calipers (still can't) and so I cleaned up my workshop. I had a small box filled with little pieces of wood - 1" x 1" x 3/4" - very small pieces. I finally decided today, "OK, I'm not going to need those blocks of wood anymore. Time to pitch those!" A half hour later, I was out in my garage digging them back out of the trash can. (Fortunately, I hadn't tossed anything else into the can this week!)

Those tiny blocks of wood are perfect for holding my pieces of wood up off the table so that the painted edges don't stick to the workbench. I put a couple of pieces of double-stick tape on the blocks and set my wood on top of it. Voila! The perfect tool for painting. So, now I have to figure out where to store these little pieces of wood... I'll give a couple of them to each of the mini club members so they can do the same thing when they paint their Coke vending machines!

How to Paint Your Miniature

2010-05-30T22:02:00.000-05:00

Actually, I need to provide a disclaimer here...this may not be the best "how to" you've ever read!

At left is the start of a mid-20th Century Coca-Cola vending machine model I'm making for the barbershop. I had carefully cut out my wood and glued it together to the precise measurements, sanded it to make the nice rounded corners, and sprayed it with several coats of BIN primer. I used wet-dry 600 sandpaper, dampened it, and smoothed each layer of the primer. After the second coat, I began to sand it with two levels of grit - the 600 to remove any big junk and then 1500 wet/dry to smooth it even further. (I dipped the paper into a bowl of water and sanded in a circular motion, taking care NOT to scrub too hard along the edges.) And my model was beginning to look pretty good!

I realized that when I started to hand paint the red latex paint , I needed some way to hold the miniature, since I needed to paint ALL of the sides, and if I held it any places where I'd already painted, I be leaving huge fingerprints in my paint. So, I drilled a small hole in the bottom, and inserted a long screw into it, which serves as a "handle" for me to use so that I can paint. The handle worked great for drying, too. I took a pair of vice grips and snapped them down on the screw, and had a very sturdy way of holding the vending machine right where I needed it. So far, so good!

Then I started adding layers of the red, latex paint that I had specially mixed for me at the hardware store. I got four coats on the piece, and things were looking pretty good. Maybe I hurried it too much, and didn't wait long enough for the paint to dry. Maybe I pressed too hard with my sandpaper. Maybe I needed to change the water to remove any impurities from previous coats I'd sanded. I'm not sure what caused the sanding to go wrong. At any rate, as I was carefully sanding with my 1500 wet/dry sandpaper, large chunks of the red paint peeled away all the way back down to the primer coat! YIKES! (Actually, I said something a little stronger than that...) So, tomorrow, I will start over - maybe with a different kind of paint...

If you want to know what it's supposed to look like when it's done, here's a link to a picture of it on the Web: http://www.4americanrecreation.com/images/ice-coke-machine.jpg. I will show you a picture of the vending machine once it's done.

Stained Glass for the Barbershop Door

2010-05-19T19:17:00.001-05:00

Here's my front door for the barbershop. I know it's not perfect - my lines are a little wavy - especially with the bottom part of the glass. I got in a hurry and didn't push the leading material just a little southward on the right-hand side. I may end up having to redo that part.

That's the fun part about using this stained glass material on glass. You can scrape it off and do it again. Or, you can create various stained glass windows using a template and do the "glass" on a piece of special plastic. If you like what you've created, you can trim it to size and insert it into your window.

I tried doing it the old-fashioned way - placing my leading on the glass and then adding the color stains. The advantage of doing it that way is that I know my colors will truly bleed to the edges of the window frame. Had I done it on the plastic sheet and THEN cut it out for the window, there's the chance that a tiny sliver of light would show around the edge, and that would not be realistic looking, either.

For those of you who are curious about what I used and where I got the stained glass "stuff", I purchased it at the Michaels store here in town. I'm sure you can purchase it online, too. I bought a kit, since I knew I didn't need a lot of the staining gel. It's interesting stuff to use. The "leading" is available either in a tube or in sheets that you can cut. I chose the sheets, since I was certain that I could not pour out a line that was about 1/32" wide. One of the leading sheets comes pre-marked at 1/16" widths. For miniatures, though, that would be far too wide! Even 1/32" is a bit bulky, but that's about the best I could do with trimming this stuff on my first go-round. When you add the colors, they look quite opaque. It's deceptive, because you think, "Oh dear! This won't look good!" Then it dries into much brighter, slightly translucent, jewel tones. Now I'm wondering why I never did more of this with my dollhouses! It was a lot of fun and easy to do.

If you're wondering, the I left the center of the window as plain glass. They make an etched glass material that I could have used, but I want the "Open" sign to be hanging in the glass from the back side. It's a little more realistic to have that be clear glass for the barbershop, too, I think.

And if you're wondering what the brand is, it's Gallery Glass by Plaid. ;o)

Some Things You Should NOT Buy in Advance

2010-05-18T21:12:00.000-05:00

I finally had a project I wanted to do that would use my glass staining kit. I purchased it a while ago. Um, maybe it was more than a while... In fact, I think I bought the kit about 20 years ago... ulp!

It was really cool, though, with nice little bottles in a variety of colors and "liquid" lead that I could add to a needle-pointed dispenser and create stained glass windows. When I dug these items out of a drawer over the weekend, , the cute little bottles of stained glass colors were almost completely dried up. I had discovered the "lead" tube had dried up several years ago and had tossed it previously. Sigh. I know it's the cheapskate in me, but I just HATE to waste money on tools and/or products that I never use!

So, take a lesson from my experience - if it's a chemical, wait until you NEED it. Then buy it! ...even if that stain, paint or other chemical product looks really cool at the time you're in the store, you can probably buy it later on-line. I bought the stained glass kit when we went crazy at a miniature store years ago, and in retrospect, it obviously was not money well spent.

I also discovered that the manufacturer of the glass stains is no longer in business. Fortunately, though, another company has stepped into that void, and there IS a product for making stained glass windows. I'll share my finished window with you in my next post. I'm tickled with how it is turning out! It's going to look great in the front door of the barbershop!

Kitchen Table - Another Quick Furniture Project

2010-05-04T23:33:00.000-05:00

Here's another quick furniture project for you to try. This would make a good, sturdy kitchen table for a child's play dollhouse. It would also be in scale for a more refined miniature collector's dollhouse - especially if you were to add some toll painting or paint it and age it a little.

The only tricky part is cutting out the seven degree angle on the spacers. One way to do this is to take a scrap piece of plywood and draw a line horizontally across the piece of plywood. (Use a piece of scrap about 4" long by about 3" wide.) Try to center it about 1.5" in from the edges.

Next, draw a seven degree line at least 1.5" long - with 1" protruding above the horizontal line and the other half protruding below the line. Draw this intersecting line close to the right edge of the plywood if you are a right-handed person. Draw the line to close to the left-hand side if you are a lefty. Now, glue a small board along the edge of the horizontal line just up to where the seven degree mark intersects with the line. You have created a sort of miter guide for yourself. If you've left enough wood on the bottom edge of this "guide", you can clamp it to your workbench or tabletop so that you have greater control as you hold the pieces in place and saw them.

You can now cut your spacers to a 2" x 1/2" dimension. (Use 1/8" thick wood for the spacers, please.) Set the first spacer down so that the bottom touches where the two lines intersect. Use a razor or modeling saw. (X-acto makes pretty good ones). Line up the razor saw blade with the intersecting line and carefully cut the angle into the first spacer. Turn the spacer over sideways (not top to bottom) and repeat this cut so that you end up with a trapezoid like you see in the picture above. Repeat these steps to make the next three spacers.

The table legs are relatively easy to cut - especially if you have a small table saw. If not, you may be able to get some pre-cut wood at your local hobby store that is 1/4" x 1/4" dimensions. If so, then you only need to cut the leg pieces to 2.5" lengths. The table top is 3/32" wood, and should be a simple circle 4" in diameter.

Place a piece of wax paper on your desk or table top and glue one spacer to two of the legs. Repeat this procedure with one more spacer and the other two legs. Allow the spacer and the table legs to sit flat against the wax paper. If you have some clamps, you may use them to gently pull the pieces together for maximum adhesion. Allow these two sets of legs to dry overnight so that they are good and solid.

Day two, put one of the assembled leg pieces on its head so that the spacer is touching the wax paper and the legs protrude up. Add glue to one end of the remaining two angled spacers. Place them in position just like the already glued spacers are arranged. You will want the spacers to the inside of the square you are forming with the table legs protruding slightly from each corner.

If you wish, you can build a small gluing jig for yourself to help hold the pieces in alignment. Start with a piece of wood 2" square glued to a piece of heavy cardboard or plywood. Then glue some of the left-over quarter-inch wood pieces so that they form a square 1/4" wider all the way around this 2" square. The inside dimensions of this second "square" will be 2.5". To provide support for the table legs, you can take some cardboard and fold it into a box that is 3" square by 2.5" tall. If glued correctly, the table legs should just touch the corners at the top of this little "box."

Allow the table legs and spacers to dry for a day or two. Once it's good and solid, take the assembly and carefully place it face down on a piece of 100 grit sandpaper. Use a circular motion to remove the corners of the table legs that will be protruding above the spacers. Check frequently to make sure you're not sanding one side more than the others. A good trick here is to hold the piece, and make four or five circular sweeps on the sandpaper, then turn the piece 1/4 turn, and sand again. Repeat this process, making sure you do the same number of sanding strokes on each side and using the same amount of pressure when you sand.

Once you've flattened the tops of the table legs, you can then glue the table top to the legs and spacers. Draw a faint X on the bottom side of the table with a pencil, making four equal quadrants of the table top. Se the table top face down and then glue the leg assembly to the top. Make sure each table leg touches one of the lines you have drawn. When all of the leg corners are touching one of the lines, you know your table top is perfectly centered on the table legs.

After the table has dried, you can sand the legs the same way you did them at the top, gently working them across the sandpaper to flatten them. Be very gentle with your sanding at this point - one leg too short can cause a tippy table! You can now finish your table with stain and varnish, paint it to match your kitchen decor, or antique it however you wish!

Hope this works for you. Let me know if you encounter any problems!

Does It Look "Real?"

2010-05-02T10:55:00.002-05:00

Take one dollhouse, a couple photos of a city park area, some photo editing software, and voila! You have a somewhat convincing picture of a Victorian house on a lovely estate.

In a slide show where this image will be on the screen for about two to three seconds at the most, I'm hopeful that the viewers won't notice the various edits I made in putting this together.

For instance, the flowering crab trees are a copy and paste of the same tree, flipped and enhanced a little. (The front one on the right is doubled up, in fact.) I cloned the windows on the right-hand side of the house. They were narrowed versions of the windows in the bay window that I copied and pasted. If the overall photo doesn't come across as convincing, well, I at least had fun playing with the software and learning how to use it!

For those of you who are curious about what software I used, it was Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006. It was considerably less expensive than some of the fancy professional editing software packages that I've seen. I occasionally use it to clean up the color in some of my dollhouse photos that I use in this blog.

Which Is More Important: Looking Real? Or Being Fun?

2010-04-30T17:22:00.000-05:00

I'm working on a slide show at the moment that is intended to capture the "realness" of miniatures. The photo at left is one of the pictures for that show.

Just this week, I was delighted to see that my daughter has framed and hung her collection of photos that she made of some of our dollhouse rooms. She has dedicated a wall outside of one of the bedrooms to this collection.

She shot this series of photos for a class she was taking at the time at the local community college. Her classmates were curious about how she had been given access to an old Victorian house. Once she admitted that the photos were of scale rooms, several said that something seemed just a bit odd about the rooms, but they couldn't put their finger on why they seemed "different."

I love the challenge of doing my utmost best to make scale miniatures. When something small looks absolutely real, there's something very charming about it. I feel like Gulliver in the land of Lilliputian's.

There is a faction of miniaturists, though, who would turn up their noses at anything that isn't absolutely perfect. For the collectors of fine miniatures, I can understand their thinking. Our hobby has a bigger base, though, than just the high-end collectors. Much of its origins was as playthings for smaller hands and bodies, and children played with these things for the sheer job of it. I hope we never forget that our hobby should be first and foremost all about having fun.

Even though it's probably my least favorite dollhouse of the three that I have made, the one at right is the one that truly got lots of play from my daughter. Even though she's a grown woman, she occasionally will stop and make some decorating changes, or she rearranges a few things to suit her tastes at the moment.

There's a fourth dollhouse that I made and never show on this blog. It was very small - only two rooms to it. I made it for a TV commercial that I did years ago. The girls played with it and to a great degree destroyed most of the fancy stuff I had done on it. Again, it was a well-loved piece that the girls thoroughly enjoyed playing with. After I finished the one above and it began to get all of the loving attention from my daughter, I got rid of the little, beat-up house. It had grown dusty out in the garage and it was covered with cobwebs. It was a disposable toy house. I hope the ones I'm building now will not end up in a trash heap - at least not for an extended number of years after I'm gone.

So, to answer my own question at the beginning of this blog - what's most important to me? My answer is simple: Enjoying this hobby and sharing it with others! And if what I make looks real, all the better!

Easy to Build Furniture

2010-04-18T20:41:00.000-05:00

It's been too long since I posted anything on my blog. I've been up to my eyeballs with work, and haven't had any time to write! So sorry. I'm still crazed with work, but I just HAD to put something out on my blog. I value your readership - all 150 of you!

I got to thinking that some of you might appreciate some ideas for some simple furniture pieces that shouldn't be too hard to produce. At the left is just such a project.

I encourage you to click on the image and take a screen print of the drawing. Paste it into a Word document and then print it out. You may have to adjust the size of the picture. I marked the width of the back of the chair; so you should have an idea of how much to blow up or reduce the chair on your own computer. I made this storage chair for our Christmas gift exchange in our miniature club many years ago. It has no fancy joinery, and the only tricky thing is to make sure you drill so that you can insert pins into the chair seat.

Here are the instructions:
1. Cut out all of the parts from 3/32/" thick cherry or bass wood. Sand the pieces smooth.
2. Trial fit the parts to make sure they fit properly.
3. Glue the back to the base piece.
4. Glue the sides onto the base and back. (If you intend to stain the piece, be careful to wipe away any excess glue right away with a damp cloth.)
5. Glue the spacers onto INSIDE of the sides. Make sure there's at least a quarter inch of clearance between the back of the spacers and the back of the chair.
6. Trial fit the front onto the chair. Sand any excess wood at the base or sides that protrude from the bottom or from the sides. Then glue it into place.
7. Use some sandpaper or emery board to round the front and back top edge of the seat.
8. Set the seat into place. Put a business card between the chair seat and the chair back so that there's a small gap. Now drill a pin-sized hole on each side of the chair where it's marked with an X in the diagram. (If you don't trust the diagram, you can set the seat in, then take a try square and line it up with the protruding seat to have a sense of where to place the pin.
9. Once you have drilled your hole into the chair sides and the seat, snip about 1/4" of the sharp end of a straight pin and gently push it into the hold you have drilled. If the pin is too long, you can pull it out slightly, snip a little off and push it in again. You want the pin to be flush with the surface of the chair sides.
10. Stain and varnish the chair or you may have fun tole painting it!

Hope this works well for you. If not, you know where to reach me! Enjoy!

Tools for Making Holes

2010-03-25T19:14:00.001-05:00

As a miniaturist, you will often have a need to put a hole into something - a board, a wall, furniture, or a piece of matte board - there are thousands of reasons for needing to add holes. There are many ways of getting those holes punched, too. I have a leather punch and a paper punch, but I rarely use them for my miniature making. The ones you see above, plus one low tech and one high speed tool, are the hole-makers of my hobby.

Sometimes, the simplest tool for making a tiny hole is a push pin or a T-pin. You can usually puncture a piece of matte board or make a starter hole for where you want to drill with either of these "tools." They're also less painful to work with than plain straight pins, which can make your fingers sore if you press hard on their ends.

Of course, having a cordless electric drill is almost mandatory for any home owner. It's also a valuable tool for miniaturists who want to build dollhouses or room boxes. I use screws to assemble my room boxes. I think the screws hold the wood together better than nails, and there's less likelihood of my nailing crookedly and breaking part of the wood out from the side of the box. You can use even delicate, 1/16" drill bits in a cordless drill. Once you begin to get much smaller than that, it's time to move on to the pin vises. The tinier the drill bit gets, the easier it is to break. The sheer weight of the cordless drill and the leverage that it can easily apply to a bit is just too much for a tiny, 1/32" drill!

I show four pin vises in the above picture. The two on the left are swivel top drills. The two on the right are "fixed" tops. The prettiest one is probably the one with the wooden handle. It's also the least handy for me. Here's why. The swivel top allows you to apply downward pressure on your drill bit by pressing on the top of the drill. Since the drill swivels, you can hold it in place on the swivel and turn the drill with your other hand. Or, you can hold the swivel portion of the drill by your pinky finger and still turn the drill with your index finger and thumb. You have considerably more control over the work when you do this. The fixed top drills are, well, awkward. I suppose one can argue that the wooden handled drill above gives greater leverage than the other smaller drills, but the key to using a drill is to let the drill bit do the work for you - not your hand pressure!

By the way, the plastic egg-looking item in the top, right-hand corner of the big picture is a set of miniature drill bits that I purchased years ago. I've broken or lost at least half of them. When you get down to micro-sized drill bits, they are delicate. If you get them a little ways into the wood and then carelessly allow the drill to move at a slight angle instead of straight on at the hole you're drilling, well, you probably will have added a snapped off piece of drill-bit to your project!

I really like the longer swivel-top pin vise above (and at left), because it comes with four different collets built into the shaft. For those of you who have not used a pin vise, the collet is a piece of metal with a hole in the center and slits on the sides. It expands slightly to allow you to push a drill bit down into the hole. Once you screw the top of the drill back over the collet, this tightens the collet snugly around the drill bit. Dremel tools and pin vises both use collets. You can see the extra collet in the back half of the drill at left. The collet you see has two different hole diameters to accommodate different bit sizes. I can turn remove this collet and replace it in the drill end of the pin vise to hold the drills.

The "low tech" tool I referred to at the beginning of this article is pretty rudimentary, but it works well for cutting holes! It's the X-acto or hobby knife! You can press the sharp point against a piece of wood or matte board and with a few turns of the blade, you have cut a conically shaped hole into the piece. And sometimes that is exactly what you need or want!

The one rule to remember with the Xacto knife is that it is extremely efficient at cutting. It can make a hole in you as fast or faster than it does in the wood or paper! Dropped from a workbench onto your foot, you can impale yourself. Always make sure you set it down on a flat surface away from the edge of the table and beyond where you might bump it with your hands while working on a project. Better yet, when you're done using it. Put it back in your tool box!

I can't finish this blog posting without noting the high speed tool that I use regularly in my miniature making. My Dremel tool is a constant companion at my workbench. It drills, it grinds, and it shapes. Wow! What a great tool!

So, there you have it - a variety of tools that can accomplish one simple task - making holes in your miniature things!

Making Your Own Baseboards

2010-03-21T13:32:00.002-05:00

The walls in my barbershop room box were just too tall, leaving the edge of the wallpaper exposed at the bottom. I had to decide on adding some wainscoting or to make my baseboard a little taller than the commercially manufactured baseboard that I have. So, decided to make my own baseboard. I also made some of my own baseboards for Sara's dollhouse using this same method. I'm going to show (and describe) what I did to make this baseboard molding.

Let's start with the finished product (below). Please note the picture is missing one final detail that will be part of the baseboard - quarter round wood at the bottom of the baseboard. I will glue that in place when the room box is fully assembled and I'm ready to glue the wall permanently into the box. The baseboard I made is approximately one inch tall - taller than the baseboard you would normally buy at a miniature store. It's made from 3/32" basswood.

Safety reminder: If you want to do anything like this, please always remember to wear safety glasses or goggles to protect your eyes!

Here's what I did to make it:

I cut the 3/32" basswood into the 1" wide strips. Then I sanded the edge I ripped with my table saw.
Next, I set up my Dremel tool in the router base (see photo at right). You may also notice the plastic protector at the very top of my router. When I'm routing pieces like this, I flip this out of my way.
See the photo below for the round-over router bit I used. The bit barely peeks out from the edge of the fence so that it cuts a curve into the top of my board. I also allow the bottom edge of the blade to protrude about 1/32 to 3/64" above the router table. This can add another tiny line at the top of the rounded over piece of wood. The photo below is an extreme close-up showing you the Dremel bit I use for this process.
Once the fence and cutting bit are both set for the correct depth of cut, I'm then ready to begin to route the wood.
I usually find a piece of scrap wood at this point that is several inches long and not quite as tall as the piece of wood I'm cutting. I use the scrap wood to hold my piece of basswood against the fence of the router, and I use either my finger or another piece of scrap wood to hold the basswood down so that it touches (and remains firmly touching) the route table surface. (See photo below, which is an overhead view of how I hold the pieces of wood against the router table fence.) Once I have this "jig" in place, I begin feeding the basswood strip through the router. I don't hurry it. If the sound of the router begins to change significantly, I know I'm pushing too fast, and I slow it down.
Sometimes I will start with the fence set a little closer to the router bit so that the first pass through the Dremel router is a "rough" cut. I then move the fence back a tiny amount, exposing a hair more of the bit and run all of my pieces through the router again for the finish cut. Whether I move the fence or not, I always run my "boards" through the router a second time to smooth the cut and clean up any rough spots that might still be on the board.
For some reason, I often get an uneven cut on the first or last half inch of this piece I'm routing. So, if you're following this tutorial to make your own molding or baseboard, always be prepared for some wastage. I usually route at least one if not two extra pieces just to make sure I have plenty of stock to work with. (Nothing is more frustrating than coming up inches short and then having to start all over to recreate another piece of the same stock!)
Moldings and trim boards are all about lines and shadows. I created a line in my baseboard just below the curved portion of the board by cutting a 1/32" depth table saw cut. I used my thinnest saw blade that I currently have for my table saw to cut this line. This blind cut adds to the overall shape and personality of the baseboard piece. It has no other serious value or purpose. However, if you wish, you can always flip your baseboard over and reverse the wood 180 degrees to put a groove into the back of your baseboard for a wiring run. Some commercially manufactured baseboards have a gap cut specifically to hide the tiny electrical wires. See photo below for the approximate set-up of the table saw.
I always sand the cut that I put into the side of the baseboard to slightly round the edges of the cut. (An emery board held at an angle and sanded very gently on both of the sharp edges of the cut works well for this.)
Next, stain or paint your baseboard, and you're ready for installation!

Did It Work?

2010-03-08T18:11:00.000-06:00

I just logged into my blog today and tried to show the video I did about making Cabriole legs to one of my co-workers. (http://tallminiguy.blogspot.com/2009/04/video-how-to-make-cabriolet-leg.html)
To my surprise, it would not play on the computer we used,. I noticed that there were no comments about that post, which got me to wondering if it didn't work for other folks who tried to view it. So, my question to you, dear readers, is this: did it work for you? If not, please post a comment to let me know so that I can figure out what I need to do next time I decide to post a video to this blog. Thanks!
Geo.

Mark That Board

2010-03-06T22:40:00.000-06:00

As I furiously cut and sanded pieces of wood for the front window of the barbershop room box today, I began to realize that I could easily confuse myself with where the pieces would go.

Whenever I'm working on a project where it's critical that I know exactly where each piece needs to go, but need to stain or paint those pieces before I put things together, I take a pencil and mark the pieces on the back side or in places where I'll eventually glue things together. No one will thus ever see these notes to myself, and this way, I stay organized. I also sometimes will take a few minutes to write a step-by-step process for myself so that I don't forget to do something and then regret it later. (I've made that mistake before - I'll glue something together only to realize I needed to add some other component first.) Having a simple step-by-step to refer to saves those moments of blue language and frustrating times of tearing out finished work.

By the way, I almost always trial fit my wooden pieces when I'm assembling things. Sometimes, it's hard to hold the multiple pieces together with my fingers and/or even with clamps. That's when I use a minute amount of positioning wax - the stuff you put under things such as vases and flower arrangement to keep them from tipping over in your dollhouse. As long as I use a tiny amount, it doesn't affects the ability of the boards to eventually hold together when I use glue on them. Happy modeling!

Hey! Take a Look at Page 56...

2010-02-23T18:34:00.000-06:00

I just received my copy of the March/April issue of Dollhouse Miniatures. I'm delighted to report that they included my second article with more information about how to matte miniature photos. It's three whole pages with the step-by-step instructions for how to matte photos using various shapes other than a plain square. I hope you may have access to the magazine.

Just the other evening, I read on one of the miniature store's web sites an essay from the shop owner's hubby. He is adamant that items printed on most computer printers will fade and fade badly, and the degradation will occur rapidly. I think he's overstating the case to promote sale of the shop's wallpapers. (Except for doing up some simple, striped wallpaper, I'd rather use commercially produced miniature wallpaper than try to make my own, anyway!)

So, the reasonable thing to remember is that if you do print out anything from your computer and plan to use it in your miniatures, be sure to spray it with fixativ to help reduce the degradation of the image due to ultraviolet light. And if you can put a museum-quality glass in the front of your room box, that will further help to reduce impact of UV light.

Illustrated above is my great grandmother, Lucy Hainline Bundy. The photo was taken in 1915.

More Tools You Must Have

2010-02-22T21:44:00.001-06:00

Ask any woodworker what he or she thinks they could always use more of, and they'll say, "Clamps." Nothing is more frustrating than to be working on a project and to run out of the size or kind of clamp you need!

Regardless of how many power tools you may have, you still need clamps. All of the clamps I show at the left are the ones I most often use; although this is not the extent of my clamp collection. I have LOTS of all of these and in varying sizes. (Clothes pins excepted - I know of only one size for them!)

As humble as they may be, clothes pins make a wonderful mini clamp. I used them just last night to hold down some matte board I was gluing to the framework of a roombox wall. I used both the spring clamp (shown above) and the clothes pins, and realized the clothes pins did a better job. The spring clamps gripped too hard and actually put a dent in the matte board. The clothes pins gave enough pressure to hold the object firmly, but not too firmly to cause any damage to the items being glued.

I also like the adjustable bar clamp shown at the top of the page. I can release the tension of the screws and move the sliding clamp up until it touches the project. Then I tighten that part. Next, I turn the top screw until the gap between the parts closes. Once I see no gap, I stop tightening.

Karin F. asked me to write something about corner clamps. I have one, Karin. Appropriately, it's buried in the corner of my workshop. I should just toss it out, because I never use it. When the miniature club began to work on building our room boxes, I made a corner gluing jig for each club member. I've made a few slight alterations to that concept and at the right, you can see how I took a couple of small pieces of MDF board and glued them up into a precise right angle. I put some screws in from the bottom side to help hold these pieces in place so that they don't break loose from the base. With this kind of set-up, you now have "walls" against which you can clamp your boards, and a base against which you can set a third piece of wood and hold them all together. Depending on how big a project you're doing, something as small as what I have shown here (about 8" x 4") is all the bigger you'd generally need.

I do have a metal gluing jig with very aggressive magnets and precisely bent corners. I have used that on many occasions to glue up square corners. (With miniatures, you just don't need very heavy equipment.) It worked very effectively for me.

I also found another very helpful "gluing jig" which was not intended for that purpose at all! The item I'm referring to is a ruler used for safe matte cutting. It's marked item #2 in my blog about rulers:
http://tallminiguy.blogspot.com/2009/07/measures-for-success.html. This ruler has a vertical bar down the middle of it, that projects upward at a 90 degree angle and stands up about an inch above the ruler body.

I used it tonight to glue up some additional wood onto some crown molding I had purchased. I felt the commercial crown molding was too small - barely over a half-inch tall, meaning my crown molding would be about 6" tall at the most. With a 12' ceiling, a 6" crown molding (in scale) seemed skimpy. So, I clamped this ruler lengthwise on my workbench using a C-clamp to stretch over to the back side of the ruler, leaving the front edge "open" so that I could push against that to glue up my crown molding. It worked like a charm, and now my crown molding is about 10" in depth (in scale). Much better!

More Must Have Hand Tools

2010-02-18T21:21:00.000-06:00

The tools at right don't look very impressive, but when I'm working on miniatures, they are a "MUST" have item. When I run out of the emery board fingernail files, I feel lost! I use them all the time for cleaning up edges quick sand jobs and shaping any carving work I've done.

The three needle files at right represent a bevy of metal files that I have and use. (I got a bunch of them in a rummage sale; and rarely use all of them.)You can "get by" with having and using four needle files:
   - a square-shaped file
   - a round shaped file
   - a flat file (with no cutting edges on the sides)
   - and a D-shaped file.
The black "thing" shown is another fingernail file. I use it "sometimes."

The other "tool" you need in this category is a solid clipboard with a nice, flat board, a file folder full of various grades of sandpaper, and a tack rag. The clipboard holds your sandpaper in place, and then you can pull your wood pieces across it to sand. If you have a rubber finger piece that filing clerks sometimes use to push papers, that can help with adding friction to the piece of wood you want to sand. When I sand a flat side of the wood and the other side won't show, I use the tack rag to wipe any dust off that side of the piece. This sometimes makes my fingers slightly tacky,too, which helps with sanding the board. If not, I sometimes lick my fingers and press down on the wood with my damp fingers to push the board back and forth across the sandpaper. It gives just enough friction that I can move the board across the sandpaper. You don't have to press very hard - just enough to make contact. Let the sanding material do the work.

When I'm sanding edges of a miniature board or lengthwise on a thin edge of a longer piece, I count the number of times I push or pull the wood across the sandpaper. I then flip the board around 180 degrees and sand it again for an equal number of strokes. That way, I don't end up with a trapezoid or badly deformed piece of wood. ;-)

Here are the sandpaper grits I use in my workshop:
100, 120, 150, 180, 220, 320, 400, 600, 1500
If the wood you're working with is already quite smooth, you can probably skip the 100 and 120 grits and start at 150. I usually do between 20 and 40 strokes with each grade of the paper. Recently, I read through a woodworkers' how-to site and they claimed that when finishing wood projects, a craftsman only needs to go to 220 grit. I can definitely feel a difference on my pieces when I don't go to the finest grade of paper. But then, we're talking MINIATURES here and not some rough piece of furniture!

After I've sprayed Deft on my natural wood pieces, and it has dried thoroughly, I usually have some 0000 (that's four zeroes) steel wool on hand that I gently wipe across the piece. Never do the steel wool with much vigor - it can cut right back down to the bare wood and destroy a nicely stained and varnished piece!

Back to the Basics

2010-02-15T18:10:00.000-06:00

Norma's comment made me think about some of you who have NO room for a workshop. Your "workshop" is a desk in the corner of your bedroom or it's the kitchen table. As I tried to say in my response to Norma in my previous blog, it is possible to make some very intricate and beautiful pieces of furniture even if you don't have space for a table saw, lathe or other large tools. If you want to do some great stuff, and want (or have) to keep your workshop tools to a minimum, here is my list of tools I'd put into that box:

Try Square - Illustrated at the left is a miniature Try Square. I use it a lot. I wouldn't hesitate for a moment to buy a full-size, foot-long try square from the hardware store. The first three tools I purchased for doing any sort of woodworking were a hammer, a saw and a try square. I constantly use my try square for projects large and small. It's great for helping you to square up walls in a dollhouse or room box or for setting and marking an exact depth. (You can see the square on the left is set for about a 3/8" depth on the left side of the square.) The full-size try-square also has a built-in 45 degree angle on it, which also comes in handy .

Before I bought my miter saw, I used the methodology illustrated at left to cut some of my wood. I would place a 1 x 4 board on my kitchen counter top. Then I would lay my thinner cherry or bass wood on top of that. I next set the the try square on top of both pieces of wood, and pushed the square up against the flat side of both boards so that they were completely flush with the handle of the try square. That way, I had a perfect 90 degree angle set on the board. I then would take a C clamp and clamp the ruler part down onto the wood so that nothing moved. Next, I set my X-acto saw against the ruler blade and cut ever so carefully. I built my Victorian bookcase using this method; so I know it works, and it makes an extremely accurate 90 degree cut. Also, I use this method of cutting where I need both sides of my board to be cut smoothly. Table saws can sometimes break the wood on the downward side of the piece of wood you cut, leaving a somewhat jagged edge. With a fine-tooth X-acto saw blade, and this cutting method, I guarantee you will NOT have a jagged edge!

If budget (and space) allow, I would recommend getting a miter saw like the one on the left. MicroMark lists it at $29.95. It's worth the price. As you can see from the marks in its base, I've cut many pieces of wood and many different angles! FYI... this little saw is hard to hold still and cut. To eliminate that problem, I put it on a board and then put cleats in front, behind, and on the sides to hold it in place. I then C-clamp the board to my work counter (or kitchen counter) so that it doesn't wiggle around as I saw. This is another very valuable tool that I have used a lot.

The other cutting device that I fervently believe in using is my jeweler's saw. I have yet to see a jigsaw that I feel gives me as delicate and accurate a cut as what I can do with a hand-held jeweler's saw. The piece of wood shown in the photo at right is what they call a "bird beak." I clamp this down onto my counter top, and I set the wood I plan to cut near the center of the V notch. The bird beak provides support to both sides of the wood as I cut. Depending on the delicateness of your cut, you may need to make the V even narrow. This tool is available from www.widgetsupply.com for $19.97. They also list a cheaper one for $6.97. I wouldn't buy the cheaper one. Depth of cut is too shallow.

Tomorrow I'll talk about drills and files.

My New Lathe

2010-02-14T10:30:00.000-06:00

Since I showed you the turnings I made on my new lathe, I thought you might want to see the new lathe. It's about four times larger than my little Dremel lathe, and far more sophisticated with its variable speed control. When I turn it on, I barely can hear it running. It's a lovely machine, and I think I will have some good times ahead working with it. I also purchased a duplicator to use on it. So, when it comes time to creating multiple table legs or spindles for a staircase, I'll be ready to spin! My thanks to Karin Corbin (http://karincorbin.blogspot.com/) for her recommendation of this lathe.

On Paper It Looked Easy!

2010-02-11T22:52:00.000-06:00

The shop drawings I created made it look so easy! Using art from my Victorian scale cabinetmaker book and some of my own ideas, I sketched up the design for this walnut project. I still think it's do-able. It just may take more thinking and manipulating than I had expected. But that's what makes a project fun and exciting. It's also one of those items that when it's done, people will look at it and say, "How did you do that?" Well, at least I HOPE that's what they say. At the left are the spindles I made on my new lathe. The one on the left was the first item I made on this lathe. I felt I could do better. So I tried again. I like #2 a lot better, and it's a little truer to my original drawing. Both of these spindles are a little less than 2" tall. I'll share some more about this project with you soon. I promise!

Safe Table Saw Cutting

2010-02-09T14:19:00.000-06:00

I saw a table saw recently that I would love to have. Unfortunately, they don't make it in a miniature size or price. The full-size version would take up nearly half of the floor space in my tiny little workshop, and the price is prohibitive for my hobby purposes - about $3,000.

I like the saw because it's so safe to use. Within milliseconds of its saw blade touching human skin, an electronic sensor slams on a brake and flings the saw blade down into the case of the saw. At best, someone using that system would end up with a mild nick on their finger, although when demonstrated with a hot-dog, the saw didn't even puncture its casing!

Since it's unlikely that anyone will ever build such a table saw for miniaturists, we need to be as careful as possible in using the smaller, table-top saws. I can assure you that if you're using a table top saw and you run your finger into the blade, you may need a doctor's assistance to stitch up the injured finger. These small saws might look tiny and innocent, but they can and will cut fingers!

So, now that I've given you my safety lecture... here's a safety tip! If you are using the miter attachment to your saw and you want to cross-cut multiple pieces of wood the exact same length, you should NOT set your saw fence to the width you want to cut the wood. Woodworking experts say that having three of the four edges of your board touching barriers (the blade, the miter and the fence), the wood can jam and cause the saw to kick the wood back at you.

The solution is to set a piece of wood between the fence and the wood you wish to cut. As shown in the picture above, you can set the spacer so that it is flush against the fence. Next, move the fence until your sample blank touches the saw blade. (You can see a sample blank in the above picture - just above my thumb.) Lock the fence in place and remove the sample length of wood. Now you're ready to saw.

Place the wood you plan to cut against the miter and then slide it over until it touches the piece of spacer wood. That will be your "fixed" length. Hold the wood firmly against the miter, and then remove the spacer. You can then easily saw the board without it getting jammed between the blade and the fence. (See photo at left, and notice how the board I'm cutting doesn't touch the fence.)

Happy (and safe) cutting to you!

It's Curtains! Part Deux

2010-02-06T15:28:00.000-06:00

I think I can comfortably say that the curtains in the master bedroom are now "done."

The drapery set in the middle was a bit of a challenge, because the other two drapes projected outward into the space where the middle one hangs. Had I made the middle one the same size and shape as the two on the sides, the corners where they meet would have fought each other, and thus NONE of the drapes would fit.

I ended up using my protractor, computer scanner, and some PowerPoint software to create a revised template for the middle piece. The top of the middle piece is not a long rectangle like the other two. Instead, it is a trapezoid. Figuring out all the angles was a bit of a challenge. Then, too, I had to make the pleats narrower than the ones on the sides. All told, it was a bit of a designing challenge. But everything has worked out for the best. Now I only have to install the baseboards in the room, and add a variety of homey touches to make it feel more like a real room, and the master bedroom will be done! Yeah!

It's Curtains, I Tell Ya!

2010-02-02T21:26:00.000-06:00

I think I watched one too many gangster movies when I was a boy. One of the lines gangsters (and a few police detectives) used in those old time shows was, "It's curtains for you, kid!" The implication was that the individual's time on this earth was nearly coming to an end.

Well, as I begin to finish off the rooms with curtains, it also means I'm nearing the end of this dollhouse project. So, thus explains the above headline.

Here is a picture of the curtains in progress for the parlor in Sara's dollhouse. For those of you who are familiar with that project, it's a Victorian house with a two-story bay window on the left side of the house. The angles of the two corners of the bay are approximately 60 degrees.

Above the windows in this room is crown molding that comes down almost to the tops of the window trim. I considered for a while whether or not I should "hang" my drapes from curtain rods in this tight space. I decided that doing so would not gain me much of anything. So, I cut out a piece of half-inch plywood. (You can see it on the top, right-hand side of the photo.) The plywood projects out about 3/8" from the wall - about the same distance that the drapes would have been held away from the wall had I used a curtain rod to hold them. To secure the drapes to the wood, I used an aggressive fabric glue (FABRI-TAC), which dries very quickly. It's also acid free, which is important to me. (I want my creations to last for a generation or two yet to come.)

I found a one-inch wide ribbon that I think makes an attractive valance for the top. On my computer screen this valance comes off looking more green than gold. In real life, it appears more gold than green. Who knows what it looks like on YOUR computer monitor!

In the photo at left, you can barely see a little bit of the pleating device I used to make my curtains. It was built by Anker Rasmussen back in the 70's and is solid brass. I like using it, because after I push the cloth down into the gap between the brass pipes, I can inserts pins into a styrofoam backing to hold it in place. I can then spray the curtains with fabric stiffener to "lock in" the pleats.

Once I had the pleats, then I took grosgraine ribbon and trimmed off one edge and pulled the long threads from the ribbon to create a delicate fringe. I next glued that fringe in place along the bottom of the curtain.

I added tiebacks after I had formed the pleats and I had removed the fabric from the metal frame. I used another kind of ribbon to create the tiebacks for the curtains on the sides. (It's a delicate, diaphanous ribbon.) I pinned the curtains to the styrofoam block and then gently worked the curtains back to a point where I liked the shape and then glued the tieback into place. Next, I glued the curtains to the plywood form mentioned (and shown) above.

Below is a photo of the drapes trial-placed in the parlor. I haven't put them in permanently yet, because there's still some work I need to do with the drape on the right. It's not hanging quite right, and I'm going to have to do some work on it. So, it's still not quite curtains for this dollhouse project, but we're getting to the point where I think I can see the end not too far down the road!

Uh-Oh! Problems...

2010-01-30T10:02:00.000-06:00

I thought it was going to be so easy. All I had to do was to run my board through the table saw, turn it over and cut the other side. Then I planned to take a saw and cut out the piece of remaining wood between the two cuts. I saw it done on a video I watched recently for how to cut thin pieces of wood from a piece of wood too tall for the saw blade.

The video had included the idea for using a simple jig (a piece of wood fixed up to hold my board) that would help me cut thin pieces of wood. A quick glance at the photo on the left appears to be okay, but it wasn't.

What happened was that my jig wasn't square. I ended up with a piece of wood that got progressively thinner as I pushed the board through the saw.

So... next step? I'm going to review my video again. Then I'm going to repair or build a new jig. Then try it again. Fortunately, I have a good quantity of walnut wood that I can make some mistakes and still not be out of wood. It just means that part of the original block of wood I showed in my blog back before Christmas will not be part of this project...

Here's another side view of the same piece of wood... I tried a second time on the other face of the board, and doggone if it didn't come out the same way. I thought maybe I had just held the wood incorrectly as I used the jig. Apparently, not so!

I know this is going much more slowly than one would think it should take. That's partly because I've been working on curtains for Sara's house, too. My next two posts will include updates on what's going on with those.

Work on the Walnut Project Has Begun

2010-01-12T21:18:00.001-06:00

I know I was accused of being a tease when I posted pictures of blank wood. It's been about a month since I posted that picture. I didn't mean to keep you waiting this long. I just didn't have much to show you. I still don't, really.

This is one of those projects that will take me several months to do. Considering all the other projects I have going right now - both large and small. The intensity of my work has been heightened lately, too. It could be a very L-O-N-G time before I have something in a finished form to show you. But at least, it's started.

By the way, the turning on the lower right was the first thing I've actually turned on my new lathe. Yeah. I know. I need to practice. That turning may not end up being my finished product... The two pieces to the left of the turning are parts of the wood that came off of the unit on the far left. I just love making cabriole legs! It's kind of like a chocolate covered caramel - there's something extra special on the inside!

Finishing Miniature Furniture

2010-01-01T13:08:00.001-06:00

Debbie S. posted a nice comment and a question about finishing materials for staining and varnishing minis. She had a House of Miniatures finishing kit, which included a stain, glaze and varnish. I used the House of Miniatures finishing materials on my Victorian bookcase. (See my March 12 blog for photos of the bookcase.)

When I purchased the finishing kit, the varnish had already gone bad; so I only used the stain. I wasn't sure how to finish it, though, until I attended a miniature show in Chicago. One of the professional furniture builders there recommended I use Deft semi-gloss. He noted that it dries quickly and goes on thin enough that it doesn't overwhelm the delicate work piece. I've used Deft ever since on all of my minis.
As far as stains go, I've used a variety of them. However, I don't use and don't recommend using water-based stains. The water-based stains raise the grain of the wood. Oil-based stains don't. Miniaturists don't need to be afraid of using commercial, oil-based wood stains.

Sherwin Williams used to sell small cans of stain that were about a half-pint volume. For miniatures use, they were perfect, since I didn't need very much of it. Now, however, I can only get their stains in quart containers. As long as you seal the can thoroughly, you can make one of those quart sized containers last a l-o-n-g time! (The stain doesn't dry out nor does it get a skin on the top of it like paint and varnish do.) If you have some friends in the hobby, you could by a quart of the stain, stir it up thoroughly, pour it out into a bunch of baby food jars, and share it with them!

The main thing to remember when using these stains is that you will need to stir the can (or jar) thoroughly each time you use it, because the dark pigments often settle to the bottom of the can. Also, if you're working with a wood grain that doesn't take the stain evenly (like pine wood), it's advisable to get a can of clear stain and apply that first to reduce the stain's uptake into the grain. This is especially important for end grain parts of the wood. They can become extremely dark, because they absorb too much of the stain - far more than the top and sides of a piece of wood.

Many of the paint stores will have displays showing the various colors of stain they have available. The display will often show how their stains look on various kinds of wood including pine, birch and sometimes oak. You'll get a sense from that display which color may come closest to meeting your needs. The commercially available stains may not offer a deep or dark enough color for your preferences. For example, I have not found a stain that matches the dark reddish furniture stain that Bespaq miniatures come in.

If you want to match the Bespaq stain, you may want to go to a paint store where the clerk is willing to work with you on customizing the stain. I found a nice, locally-owned paint store nearby that has worked with me on some of my paints and stains. A mom and pop store may be more willing to help you than some of the big paint or DIY stores.The paint store can add extra pigment to the stain, which will make it more opaque, but it will also darken it to a color you may prefer. Keep in mind that the darkened stain won't show as much of the actual wood grain as a lighter stain will.

Take a raw sample piece of the wood you used for making your mini when you go to the paint store; and start by experimenting with a dab of the various stain colors they already have. (Most paint stores will allow you to test a tiny amount of the stain at no charge.) If you're staining a kit, most of the dollhouse kits use bass wood. You can find that kind of wood in most hobby stores in the U.S. (I have no idea about other countries - sorry for my ignorance.) You can also mix and match stains, putting on one coat of a color and then adding another after the first one has dried.
If you want to have the wood grain show through and you're using a wood such as Walnut, then you don't even need to use a colored stain on the piece. You can use a clear, oil-based stain on it. This will darken your wood slightly with just that application alone. Let it dry a day or so before you apply any finish.

Before you do any staining, though, make sure you have sanded your piece to a smooth finish. (Start with 120 grit paper, then use 150 grit and then finish off your work with 220 grit.) I sometimes keep on advancing to finer grits. 3M makes an open coat paper (it's yellow in color) that comes in 320 and 400 grits. If I really want to smooth my wood, I'll go to that level of sanding.

When I build a furniture kit or make something from scratch, I usually sand the individual piece of wood first. I'll set the sandpaper down on a smooth, hard surface. A good, Masonite or plastic clip board with a smooth surface is ideal for this. The clip holds the paper in place and the smooth, flat surface under the sandpaper won't distort your sanding. I hold the wood piece by its middle and move it over the sand paper in the direction of the wood grain. After about 10 to 20 strokes, I reverse the direction of the piece in my hand and sand the same number of times on that same side of the piece of wood. That way, if my hand is accidentally applying more pressure on one end than the other, I even out the amount of material removed from both ends.

Once you're done with the sanding, make sure to wipe the piece down thoroughly with a tack cloth. Then you're ready to stain. I have applied my stains with a facial tissue; but some tissues can leave stained pieces of paper dust on the surface. If you have an old T-shirt or other cotton fabric you don't mind destroying, cut a small piece of that fabric and use it to wipe on the stain. With minis, a little goes a long way, remember!

Once the stain has dried, wipe the piece with a clean cloth to knock off any colored tissue dust (or regular dust). Next, spray it with Deft. Try to find a room that doesn't have a lot of sawdust in the air or thoroughly vacuum up your workshop before you begin to spray. No matter how clean your room, you'll still likely get some dust in the finish. I usually do a couple of coats with the Deft.

In between sprays, I gently wipe down the surfaces with 0000 steel wool. This removes most of the dust imperfections. You'll be able to feel any imperfections on the flat surfaces of the piece. I wipe it down with a tack rag after I've used the steel wool. Rub GENTLY with the steel wool - especially along any edges of the wood. It can cut clear down to your bare wood very quickly. If you want to add some luster to the piece and help protect the finish, you can also add some furniture paste wax to the piece. Be sure to thoroughly rub out the wax, though, after you've applied it to your mini.

Captured in Ink

2009-12-22T22:02:00.001-06:00

I wrote an article this fall about how to matte your digital photos using Microsoft PowerPoint or Word. I'm delighted to report that the January/February issue of Dollhouse Miniatures has a four-page spread of the article, starting on page 28.

For some reson, the pictures on page 31 are slightly out of focus. That may because the matted pictures you see on that page were in a PowerPoint slide. The magazine's artist pulled them out of the slide, added some shadows behind them and overlapped the images. It makes a nice collage, but the pictures lose a little in clarity.

If you're curious about the photos in the collage on page 31 of the article, I took all but one of the pictures myself. Starting at the top left and going clockwise they are: Prospect Park in Brooklyn, NY; the Bundy family circa 1900 (this is the only one of the grouping that I did NOT take!); a view on Mount Lemon near Tucson, AZ; the Maroon Bells near Aspen, CO; my girls a few years ago; and downtown Chicago on a foggy night.

I've written a follow-up article, which is coming out in the next issue of the News with more information about how to do the matting with ovals and shapes. I hope you find the instructions clear and easy to follow. Since you're already a computer user and reading this blog, you may find it easier to do the matting than some of the other DH readers.

Let Your Imaginations Take Flight

2009-12-06T10:07:00.001-06:00

Want to guess what this block of walnut wood is going to become? (Hint: It won't become just a pile of sawdust or ashes in my fireplace!)

Having enough of the "right" tools makes miniature-making a lot of fun. If I succeed in using some of my tools skillfully, this block of wood will evolve into something quite interesting.

I wish I could say I am so skillful that I won't have to use any more than this 4" by 9" piece of wood. I might have to go back and cut another 4" piece to finish the job. We'll see...

It will take several months for me to get this done, since I've been extremely busy lately. I'll post a few photos along the way and see if anyone can guess what it's going to become. If you've been following my blog over the past months, you may be able to guess at least what part of this wood will be transformed into.

More on Table Saw Safety

2009-11-28T09:22:00.000-06:00

Following Evelien's comment to my previous blog, the two of us had an off-line email conversation about what might cause saw blade kickback. I ended up contacting Micromark to see what suggestions they might have about how to prevent this.

They recommended using a featherboard to hold the wood against the blade and fence. Of course, they sell such an item. However, it's a great add-on tool for the table saw, and one which I've written about before. I'd recommend it to anyone who needs to cut a number of pieces of wood that are the same width. It's a bit of a pain to have to keep resetting it each time you rip a board, but if safety is your number issue, then it's worth the time.

The folks at Micromark also shared a link to an excellent article, and I thought I'd share that same link with each of you: http://www.waterfront-woods.com/Articles/Tablesaw/tablesaw.htm

So, here's to safe and happy ripping on your miniature (or full-size) table saw.

By the way, for those of you who want a full-size, table saw that is extremely safe, I saw one demonstrated last week. It was invented by a lawyer. The number one tool for causing injuries in workshops is table saws - probably because it's one of the most common saws found in workshops. Anyway, the blade in this saw carries a slight electrical charge. As soon as human flesh comes into contact with the blade, it shorts out the saw, the blade instantly stops and snaps down below the table top. The demonstrator placed a hot-dog on top of the board he was cutting. As soon as the wiener touched the blade - BANG! And the casing of the hot-dog wasn't even cut! Now, the saw isn't cheap. Even a contractor version of this saw costs about $1700. But if fear of getting hurt on a table saw has kept you away from getting one, well, there is now a VERY safe one out there!

Table Saws Are a Valuable Tool

2009-11-22T22:37:00.000-06:00

When I think about the number of times I use my table saw in woodworking, I realize it's the tool I use the most. In fact, in my tiny workshop, I have a table saw sitting on a table saw! The smaller one gets the lion's share of use; but occasionally, I am forced to turn to the larger contractor's table saw that takes up the largest amount of space of any tools in my workshop.

Whenever I have needed to cut crown moldings, I have always turned to my table saw to do the cuts. When I need to make a compound cut -- where the saw blade is at an angle and the miter gauge is also at an angle -- the table saw is a great tool.

For those of you who know the story about the shingles on Sara's dollhouse, I cut all 1200 of the shingles on my Dremel table saw. I also have made many of my floors by cutting regular pine, walnut or cherry wood boards into thin pieces, which I then glued together to create the floors that are now in the house. A good orbital sander helps me smooth the rough surface down to a velvety finish very quickly. For furniture making, such as the Victorian bed? Much of that was also done on the table saw.

I realized a couple years ago just how much sawdust my table saws crank out. We had a plumber come in to fix a clogged kitchen drain. The pipe comes down alongside the wall of my workshop. As he got to work in the room, the plumber said, "Wow. This room must never get used. Look at all the dust in here." I didn't bother to set him straight. Since that time, though, I've begun to be far more conscientious about using my shop vacuum to suck sawdust from the table saw! (I've also started running an air purifier just outside the door to help pull more of the finest particulate from the air.)

I have cut so much wood over the years that I totally wore out my little Dremel table saw. I went through multiple belts. Then Dremel stopped making the saw, and I had to buy my belts from a vacuum cleaner store in town. The motor finally gave up the ghost, and that's when I decided it was time to get a new saw. I've liked the Micromark saw. It's a direct drive system unlike the belt-driven blade with the Dremel. With the Dremel, if I was cutting a lot of wood, I inevitably had to stop and put the belt back on the drive after awhile, because it would slip off.

The Dremel customer service rep told me that they discontinued making the saw because they had encountered too many lawsuits. People thought of the Dremel table saw as a toy. I can tell you in no uncertain terms: neither the Dremel nor the Micromark saws were or are a toy! I treat them with the same respect as I do the larger table saw. Here are some of the rules I follow:

I have my saw attached to a heavy MDF board which extends several inches in every direction from the saw. I use those extended sides to always clamp the saw in a stationery position when I make a cut. (The last thing I want is for a "live" saw to start sliding away from me while I'm in the middle of a cut - YIKES!)
I use push sticks to move boards through and past the blade. (That's what the big, ugly piece of plywood is that's sitting on the saw in the picture above.)
I turn off and disconnect the saw if I plan to change the blade.
I always make sure that only the length of a blade tooth extends above the surface of the wood I'm cutting.
I stand to the side of what I'm cutting so that if there is ever any kickback, the items don't get thrown into my face.
I always wear safety glasses when I use the saw.
I roll up my sleeves so that no clothing can catch on the saw blade.
I have the saw plugged into a power block up on my workbench. It's always turned off when I leave the workshop. It's also up and away from little hands - should my nephews ever wander in and accidentally push the start button.

On a couple of occasions I have had a piece of wood bind up on the blade. The wood flew out of my hands and smacked the door of my workshop with a loud thud. Had I been standing in its line of trajectory, I would have had a nasty bruise or cut from the board smacking me in the face.

So, would I recommend getting a miniature table saw? If you plan to make any scratch-built pieces of furniture or dollhouses, my answer in a heartbeat would be "Absolutely!"

The Dremel Rotary Tool - A Great Addition to the Workbench

2009-11-12T22:09:00.000-06:00

If my Dremel tool were to quit working for me tonight, I'd very likely go buy a new one tomorrow! It's just that handy a tool. It hangs from a hook in my workshop, and I frequently leave it plugged in, ready for me to change out the bit and use it for grinding or cutting.

The Dremel is a wonderful carving tool. I have many different bits for it. I use it to grind and rough out shapes on things I'm carving. Other bits work well for sanding and polishing. I also have various cutting bits I use to put tiny rounded edges on boards, or to cut delicate little indentations in a piece of wood.

When I made the clock for the Scrooge roombox, I put a bit into the Dremel that could etch glass. Then I locked the Dremel into a bench-top vice that held the tool at a 45 degree angle. Then I took the glass I wanted to etch and carefully brought the glass under the bit and gently touched it to the bit to do the etching. The tool is just too big and heavy for me to do extra fine hand movements with it, but locked down, I can do very exacting and delicate work.

The hole in the ceiling of the Scrooge room was another Dremel tool project. I attached a hand-held router attachment to it to adjust its depth of cut, then routed out the area where the plaster had "fallen" from the ceiling. I used a chisel to sharpen some of the edges of where I cut, and then pieced in tiny boards to make it look like the plaster had fallen from the lath.

I use my Dremel with its router table a lot. In fact, that's how I made the mop board in the maid's room, the bathroom, and the little girl's bedroom in Sara's dollhouse. (See photo at left.) I had a round-over bit that gave the wood a nice curved top. Then I took a slitting saw blade and ran my boards past that blade a couple of times, allowing the blade to cut only slightly into the board. (I used purchased quarter-round to finish out the detail of the board.)

In addition to all of these uses, I have found the Dremel tool useful for doing a variety of projects around the house. It's not just for miniature work!

Dremel Tool, Jigsaw or Table Saw - Which to Get First?

2009-11-10T21:40:00.001-06:00

I have three power tools on my workbench that I use constantly:

A workbench jigsaw
A small table saw
A rotary tool

I have depended on these tools so much over the years, I would have a difficult time deciding which one is my favorite. Each has its own unique value to me. If you were to ask me which tool a beginning miniaturist should purchase first for their workshop, I'd be hard-pressed to choose. So, the answer I would have to give is, "It depends on what you want to do."

If you're thinking about buying a power tool for your miniature work and can't afford to buy a LOT of tools all at once, I'd like to describe the strengths and weaknesses of these three tools in various applications. I'll do this in several blogs over the course of a few days here.

I have purchased my collection of power tools over many years, and I have used and had to replace each of the three major tools listed above at least once. Except for the rotary tool, I chose a different brand the second time around. In one case, I chose a different brand because of the tool's features. In the other case, I was forced to buy a different brand because the manufacturer no longer made the item. I'll talk more about that when I get to them.

The Jigsaw
The variable speed jigsaw is a terrific tool for making cabriole legs and for cutting fancy fretworked screens. It's good for making rough shapes that don't require precisely cut straight lines or for cutting sizeable, rounded over or irregularly shaped pieces of wood. I also use it to rough out the basic shape of an object that I plan to carve.

When I want to do really delicate fretwork, though, I don't use the jigsaw. I turn to my hand-held jeweler's saw instead. When I'm cutting a delicate piece of wood that is 1/16" or thinner, the relentless motion of the jigsaw makes cutting such fine wood very challenging. It only takes one upstroke from the table saw blade binding on the piece to rip out an entire, delicate leaf that I've just cut. You can't feel the saw blade start to bind with the jigsaw like you can with a hand saw. On the other hand, the jigsaw makes short work of cutting larger or multiple pieces such as roof brackets.

My first tabletop jigsaw used blades that had pins in the top and bottom of the blades. It was manufactured by Dremel, and it was a pretty good machine. It incorporated a sanding disk on the side of the machine, which was handy, too. The blades changed quickly. There was a lot to like.

There were other things about it that I didn't like, though. It vibrated a lot. After cutting a number of pieces of wood on that vibrating table top, I could feel the effect in my arms and hands. My fingers and wrists began to feel numb as a result of that vibration. I also didn't like the limited choices of blades. Also, the pin-fastening system of the blades required my drilling nearly a 1/8" hole in a piece of wood if I wanted to do inside fretwork cuts. On intricate fretwork, that's a sizeable hole! Also, it was a single speed machine. I couldn't slow it down for working on extremely delicate pieces.

One of the tool catalogs offered a fence for rip cutting wood with a Dremel jigsaw. The idea was that you could set the fence and "rip" boards lengthwise using the jigsaw. I purchased the fence and was very disappointed. It never worked very well for me. I have found that if I want to do a straight cut in a piece of wood - whether a cross cut or rip cut - I can do it faster with a table saw, and the resulting piece of cut wood has far fewer imperfections to the cut.

Speaking of cutting, the jigsaw can cut your finger, but it's far less likely to do severe damage to a digit than the table saw. (To be honest, I've never cut myself on either type of saw, and hope I never do!)Rule number one with any saw is to never put your fingers anywhere close to the blade. Use a push stick instead. Rule number two: Never try to touch any moving saw blade - even if it's just idling to a stop. A co-worker nicked my leg with a chain saw one time when it was idling to a stop. It put a gash in my leg that required about six stitches. Rule three: unplug the saw when you change the blade.

When I had some money saved up, the Dremel jigsaw table was the first tool I replaced. I purchased a Sears Craftsman jigsaw table. It had a slightly larger tabletop than the Dremel. It's variable speed, and can be slowed to a gentle cutting motion for working on really tight pieces. It also had a blower on the hold down clamp that helps to blow some of the sawdust away from the cutting line.

The saw itself weighs nearly twice what the old Dremel saw weighed; vibration is now barely palpable when I run this saw. Last, and most importantly, it has a set-screw system for holding down the blades. I can use very delicate saw blades on this machine as well as more coarse ones for rough-cutting wood. And I can adjust the tension level on my blades.

When I shopped for the new saw, there were table jigsaws with built in lights to illuminate the work. I already had a combination magnifier/lamp set up on my workbench that allows me to put the light very close to the work and peer down at what I'm jigsawing through the magnifier. Whenever I'm cutting out anything that requires precision, I always use that lamp magnifier.

There were even larger and heavier jigsaws that had their own stands to hold them. (I'm sure they have even less vibration to them.) I had two limitations to consider in my selection - workshop size and tool cost. The jigsaw needed to sit on my workbench. I could not afford to give up floor space to a saw on a separate stand. Likewise, I didn't want a monster saw sitting on my workbench, taking up a large amount of space there. And with two kids approaching college age, I didn't want to fork out the extra dollars for the higher end saw.

You may have noticed in the photo that there's a piece of plywood siding on the face of my jigsaw tabletop. I didn't like the size of the hole where the blade comes through the table. I cut a much smaller hole in my wood for the blade to pass through, which allows me to cut moderately delicate pieces of wood without its breaking.

So there you have it. A jigsaw is great for cutting out various shapes of wood and for doing some fretwork cuts. If the wood is quite delicate, the jigsaw is generally too rough a tool for cutting it. Thursday evening I'll talk about the table saw.

A Hundred Thank You's!

2009-11-09T21:43:00.000-06:00

Today was a milestone for this blog. One hundred individuals are officially now following my blog. I am so pleased that each of you have found something about this blog that interests you. The technology we now have at our fingertips is so amazing! Here I sit in my cozy little study in Iowa communicating with people all over the globe in Spain, the Netherlands, Russia, Turkey, Canada, Argentina, Finland, Australia, France, Portugal and even Tucson, AZ!

If I've left out your country, please post a comment and add your nation to this list! I usually go to each of your sites if you have blogs, and look to see what you're posting and to see what coutries you're from. I love your energy, curiosity, humor, and creativity. I look forward to opening my emails each day to see if there are new comments from any of you, and I enjoy scrolling down to see what you have posted on your sites. Whether I can read the language or not, your pictures usually tell a story. And there's a thread of continuity throughout them all - miniatures are a fabulous hobby!

Blessings to you all, and THANK YOU!

Tomorrow I'll begin a series of blogs about some of my power tools.

George

Curtains for the Bedroom

2009-10-27T21:51:00.001-05:00

Okay, all you fabric arts specialists. This one's for you. At a miniature show last summer, I picked up a D'Anne Ruff Miniatures swag and tails kit. I met D'Anne at the Minneapolis NAME convention many years ago, and took her curtain-making class. She's just a really nice person and very talented with fabrics.

I did not purchase enough of the fabric to do both the bed and the curtains, and as a result, I had to find a different fabric for my curtains. I selected a beige, cotton cloth with a very tiny, subtle print to it. So, I'm happy with the fabric. Made up into a swag, I think it looks pretty nice.

I also found some bridal lace that made a good, lacy under curtain. After I pleated the lace, I glued white netting to the back of it using Weldbond glue. This will help stabilize the pleats, and keeps the lace portion self-contained, which then allowed me to glue that into the cornice of these curtains.

On my first attempt at the cornice, I misunderstood d'Anne's instructions and made four cuts that I now regret. You can see how the curtain on the left (below) is slightly different at the top from the curtain on the right. (There's an extra angle in the pleats at the top.)

Here's my quandary. It takes me the better part of a day to make just one set of these curtains. If I glue the improperly cut curtain into the window that faces outward, unless someone takes a hand mirror and holds it in the room to check to see how the drapes fit, they'll never see this flaw. I'm already facing a serious challenge with making the cornice for the center window. It will have to be narrower than the other two on the sides and it will have additional angles in the top so that the sides can touch the other two sets of curtains. I plan to glue all three together and then glue them all into the window.

So... knowing what I've now told you about the flaw and the work ahead... would you use the first set of curtains as I'm showing them here and not worry about it, or would you go back and redo that first cornice so the top is the same as the one on the right?

Here's how the bedroom looks with the curtains and bed. I think it's beginning to look like a very feminine little room. Once we begin to add the extra little touches, it should really begin to look quite homey.

So... what's your take? Redo or live with what I have? The front of the dollhouse is glassed in; so no one can stick their head in to peek at that curtain....

Using Spacers in Brick Laying

2009-10-21T21:32:00.002-05:00

Lisa asked a good question about the spacer I referred to in my article about creating a faux brick wall. Sometimes, the simplest tools can be very useful. I measured the width of the mortar lines on the bricks of my own house and found that the mortar was .4” wide. Divide that by 12, and you get a fraction of .03”. I have some, unused business cards from a previous job. I found that gluing three of them together comes very close to .03”.

I trimmed the cards lengthwise so that they were about ¾” tall by 3.5” long. This made the spacer high enough that I could grasp the spacer firmly, but not so high that it made the work awkward, and wide enough that I could glue several bricks in place before I needed to move the card over to lay more bricks. I also made a second spacer about ¾” by about one inch. I inserted that between the bricks so that I had consistent vertical and horizontal spacing throughout the project. I made two of those shorter spacers.

Each time I glued a new brick into place, I pushed it up solidly against both the horizontal and vertical spacers. The reason why I made a second, small spacer was that I needed to have the glue become fairly tacky before I pulled out my first spacer. By the time I had glued in a second brick, the glue on the first brick had usually become tacky enough that I could pull out the first spacer and move on to lay a third brick. And on it went.

I found only two disadvantages in using these paper spacers. One problem is that the glue occasionally seeped out from the edge of a brick and adhered to my spacer. (I had to replace one of my spacers after doing about half of the bricks.) The other problem is that the spacer somewhat obstructs previous rows of bricks laid. Once during the process of doing my wall, I had laid about four or five bricks before I noticed that I had not staggered the first brick of the row using a half brick. (My spacer had obstructed my view of the row just below it.) I ended up having to tear out the row and start over. Aargh!

I hope this helps to explain what I did, Lisa! Thanks for asking!

Protecting Your Wallpaper

2009-10-10T10:16:00.001-05:00

I considered taking Alicia's dollhouse to the state fair this summer. In preparation to do that, I took everything out of the house. Much to my amazement (and despair) I discovered how badly the wallpaper in the parlor had faded!

Some of the newer, Victorian wallpaper that I purchased has very tiny type on one of the edges recommending that the user spray the paper with fixative before applying the paper. Several years ago, I participated in a Web conversation where someone ranted about NOT using anything that a person printed on their computer printer, because it faded too quickly. Well, I installed the above paper about 18 years ago, and look at how it's faded. (Alicia had a couch in front of the area where it is darker.)

When I got into the discussion about not using computer printables, I contacted HP to find out what they predicted would be the longevity of their printed inks. The tech who spoke with me said it's hard to tell. He said use acid free paper for starters. Then he said, once it's dry, spray it with fixative. Their research had indicated that this would help reduce ultraviolet light degradation.

I also have used museum quality glass in areas of my dollhouses and room boxes where I can put real glass, because most museum glass also offers some protection against the damage of sunlight, too.

So, long blog short - spray your wallpaper with fixative before you put up any paper. You can get the fixative at most any art supply store.

One Way to Make Miniature Bricks

2009-10-04T22:01:00.000-05:00

I have used a variety of ways to create miniature bricks in projects over the years. I have found one approach, though, that I like more than others. The end result can be quite realistic. I'm going to share directions with you for how to do it.

The picture on the left is the wall outside of the barbershop we're making in miniature club. It's my finished piece, and I made a mistake with it in the finishing process, but fortunately, it didn't ruin my wall. I'll tell you what I did and how I fixed it toward the end of this blog.

So, let's get started, shall we? I used white, acid free matte board to make the bricks. Whenever I use cardboard or paper in my buildings, I strive to make sure I'm using acid free paper. Card board, card stock or paper that isn't acid free tends to yellow and degrade over time.

I would like to think that a hundred years from now others will look at my miniatures and enjoy them as much as my friends and family do today. By using acid free papers, I come closer to assuring myself that they will.

Step 1: If you are using framed walls (like the ones you see in the above picture) rather than solid plywood or a foam core product , you must cut out two pieces of matte board. One piece has to be the exact the dimensions and angles of the wall(s) you plan to cover with bricks. The second piece should be about an inch wider and taller than the first. The larger piece will become your bricks.

There are two reasons I say make it larger. First, by doing this, you will make more bricks than you need to cover the wall. The last thing you want is to run short on bricks near the end of your brick laying. The second other reason is so that you have more to choose from. After I cut out my bricks, I didn't like how some of them looked. By over-producing them, you can be choosy.

Step 2: If you wish, you may paint the first piece of matte board to look like mortar. You can skip putting mortar in between the bricks, then, if you do this. (I prefer to fill the gaps between the bricks with mortar.) One of our club members chose to skip mortaring her bricks, and with the wall painted behind her bricks, I have to admit it looked pretty good.

If you choose to let the paint be your mortar, don't paint all of the surface with a solid color. If you study a brick wall, you'll notice that portions of the mortar whiten with age. Other parts actually get darker with dirt and oils splashed up on them.

Choose a light gray color of paint. Rather than painting in long strokes, take a sponge paint brush, get some paint on it, and then dab the matte board with the paint. You'll see little flecks of white appear that didn't get painted. Don't try to paint over them. Once that coat dries, take a darker color such as Payne's Grey and mix that with your original gray paint. dry brush over the first coat with this same dabbing technique. Be sure to make the color gradation get darker as you get nearer to the ground level.

Step 3: Now you can begin to paint your bricks. Before you begin, take time to look at various brick walls. You'll notice that the bricks are rarely a solid color. There are many colors - rusts, hints of ocher, browns, reds, yellows, touches of black, and, yes, even white! You can use the sponge paint brush again to create the bricks. If you're using the latex hobby paints that come in small bottles (2 oz./60ml), you can squeeze some out onto wax paper, dab your sponge into it and then tap around on the paper with the paint. Don't try to paint with strokes.

Linda from our miniature club painted my bricks for me while I helped others with their room boxes. As you can see from this picture of the resulting bricks, she created a variety of color and shades with her painting.

The colors we used for the bricks were Brown Iron Oxide, Georgia Clay, Heritage Brick, Burnt Orange and a very dry brush application of lamp black dabbed on with a paint brush (not the sponge brush). You can see from the picture how mottled the bricks looked.

Step 4: Once the paint has dried, you can then cut out the bricks. Cut the matte board in long, 7/32" wide strips. I use a rotary cutter for cutting the matte board. It's much easier to cut the matte with this tool than an X-acto knife. Take your time in setting up the cuts for these strips. Don't just measure once - measure at each end at least twice to make sure your rule is set for a consistent cut. (Using a ruler with a cork backing on it, will prevent it from slipping on the paper once it's it place.)

If you have a tool such as "the chopper" where you can set up a stop, you can cut your bricks very quickly and consistently. It's very important that you cut the bricks a consistent length! Other-
wise, you'll end up with a very odd looking brick wall. Also, remember to cut some half-bricks for the end of a row.

Step 5: Buy a felt tip art marker with a gray or dark gray color (I got one at Michael's). You'll need to color all four sides of each and every one of the bricks that you plan to use. This hides the solid white edges of your bricks. When they are laid down on the already painted matte board, they look quite real. (See photo below.)

Step 6:At this point, you are now ready to begin laying bricks. Start with your bottom row of bricks and glue them in place with a good craft glue. I created a spacer that was about 1/2" thick in scale (3/64" or .041") I made sure to space the bricks by that thickness as I glued each in place. Remember to start each alternate row with a half brick so that the bricks are correctly aligned.

Continue laying bricks until you have completed the wall. At this point, you could stop. (As you can see from the photo, it looked pretty good at that point.) Or you can add grout.

Step 7: Before you add any grout, you must first spray the bricks with a matte fixative. This makes your bricks somewhat water proof so that they don't absorb the paint from the "grout." The fixative dries quickly; so don't hesitate to put a couple coats on the bricks.

Step 8: To add grout, pick up a small container of spackling compound - the stuff you sometimes use to repair small dents or holes in drywall. Take about a tablespoon full of the compound, and mix in some gray latex paint. (I added color to this compound until I was satisfied with the color.)

Then using a putty knife, scrape it across the bricks. Fill in small squares at a time - approximately 3" x 3" squares. As you see that you have filled all of the lines between the bricks, use a damp paper towel to wash away any excess of the grout that is still on the face of the bricks. (You only want it in the grout lines areas.)

To add some realism to your grout color, you can start with a lighter shade of grout and dab it into various places, then add some color to the grout to make it darker and dab in more in various places until it's all filled in.

Another way to add realism is to use dry powders model railroad enthusiasts use to give their models that perfect dirty and aged look. This is where I erred with my project. I used too much of it. You can wash it off, but in the places where I had white on my bricks, the aging dust obliterated all of the white. It also made my grout look a little like it was becoming brick colored, too. So, I went back over the grout with a small round file to scrape away some of the stained grout, thus restoring some of the grout to its original color.

And that, my friendly reader, is how I make my bricks. I think that if I need to have my bricks form real corners such as on a chimney, I will make those bricks the length of one full brick and a half brick. I'll then cut away most of the matte board behind the brick surface where the brick touches the corner. That way, I'll be able to fold the brick and there will be no line where I have joined two pieces of matte board together. That will be an exercise in patience, but anyone who takes on a project of "bricking" a wall in miniature is in for a test of their patience anyway!

So Much to Say...

2009-08-29T13:33:00.001-05:00

To all of you who made such nice comments about my southwestern roombox, Thank You! The artist in me loves to receive compliments. (Actually, most people do!) Your comments and compliments make the long hours of miniaturing and my blog-writing even more fulfilling.

This past week, the total number of subscribers of my two blog sites (which are virtually the same, by the way), surpassed 90 members! I've not thanked each of you as you've become followers. Please know that as I see your names added, I deeply appreciate your choosing to follow my blog. I am so excited to have followers in so many different parts of the world, too. The Internet is truly a remarkable invention!

So, again, THANK YOU for following this blog and for your kind remarks. I'm so pleased that you've chosen to be a part of my mini world!

It's Official!

2009-08-24T22:55:00.002-05:00

I walked through the Iowa State Fair last night with a big smile on my face. As I carried my roombox away from the display building, a blue ribbon hung from my entry. It didn't win best of show. (A woman from West Des Moines won that with her dollhouse that she'd been working on for the last 20 years.) Nevertheless, I was a very happy guy.

Out of a possible 100 points, the judge gave my entry a 100. The judge commented that he/she liked the case I built for the roombox. The case includes stained glass panels on each side of the box, which are lit with rope lighting inside the box.

The rope lighting is fastened just below the top of the mountains in the background, which creates a strong source of light just behind the mountains. It helps create the sense that the sun has just set. Winding the excess parts of the rope light around to the sides helped me do two things. First, it allowed me to create some light to come out through the stained glass panels on the sides. Secondly, I was able to bring it back across the top of the stained glass to add a little more light for the orange stained glass.

I made the mountains using 1/8" thick basswood. After I cut out the mountain shapes, I used some of my small files to add some shapes and details to the hills. The weeds in the foreground are sisal rope that I took apart. I'd take a tiny hank of the sisal, bend it in half, twist it and add a little glue to hold it together. Then I drilled holes into the floor board of the box and glued the "weeds" into place. There are a few lonely saguaro cacti out in the background, too, which I cut from wood, sanded and painted.

The judge also liked the floor in the room, saying "The way you created the tile floor is wonderful." I made the tiles using digital photographs and PowerPoint software. On one of our trips to Tucson, I purchased a floor tile and a baseboard tile. When I got home, I created a grey background that looked like grout, then inserted the picture of the tile, sized it to scale and then copied, pasted and adjusted the placement of the tiles until I had a complete floor. I also used PowerPoint to create the entry floor tiles, too, which are plain terracotta tiles.

The camera has no lens in it. I took a digital picture of the roombox, then reduced it to the size of the screen in the camera, and printed it upside down and backwards (because that's how it would look in a real camera). A tiny light helps the camera picture show up a little more. The wire to the light runs up through one of the camera tripod legs. I made the camera from scratch, using some parts from a hobby store that were intended for remote control airplanes.

The fireplace is made of wood. I used a compass, and drew a half-circle on a piece of 3/4" pine wood. Then I set my Sears jigsaw table at a slight angle and cut out the semicircle. This made the bottom edge of the semicircle slightly narrower than the top edge. I next set the narrow edge of that semicircle on top of the board and traced the shape. Then I cut out another piece.

I repeated this step until the piece was very small. Next, I cut out the fireplace itself, using the jigsaw once again. Then I glued all the pieces together. There were places where I hadn't cut perfectly. So, I used my Dremel tool and sanding drums on the tool to smooth out those imperfections. The mantle is a piece of walnut that I inserted at one of the layers of the fireplace. It was the easiest way to mount it to such an odd-shaped object. The final touch was to paint the wood, smear some drywall compound in various places on the walls and the chimney, then paint again. I used charcoal pencils to blacken the fireplace to a level that satisfied me.

I made the box as a lamp. You can't see it from this photograph, but there's a stem area atop the box where the light fixture comes out. To hide the brass stem, I inserted a couple of four-inch round pieces of wood, and then affixed pieces of saguaro cactus ribs to it. (I noticed in some of the places in Tucson, people have created shutters using these cactus ribs in their shutters.) I intended to do that on the sides of the box, but realized it was too difficult to make with the glass insets.

I hope to publish an article one of these days about how I matted the pictures for the room. For a little more information about other techniques I used in creating this room, I had a post about this room on February 6, if you'd like to read more about it.

When Things Start Coming Together - Wow!

2009-08-22T09:33:00.002-05:00

Our miniature club met last Saturday, and worked a good share of the day on our barbershop room boxes.

I love creating a sense of depth in a box that is less than a foot deep and narrower than 18 inches wide. So, I spent quite a bit of time getting just the right picture to show a street scene out the front window of the barbershop.

The picture at left is from downtown Salida, Colorado - my home town. The sky is from a picture I took in Tucson one very moody evening.

I had hoped that it would look like very early morning or end of the work day for the scene, because it is lit by a 7 watt night light bulb. The picture above is not my roombox but rather another of our club members - Jane. Jane is the farthest along in our project.

I couldn't resist including a picture here of Linda as she worked on the brick wall of her box. (It's the wall just outside the doorway of the roombox.) Linda did such a beautiful job with this wall. She really is quite the artist.

I was so excited when Jane put her floor in, added her front door, temporarily mounted the matte board on the frame and then set her picture frame in front of it all! It was a goose bump moment for me as I saw how it is coming together. The box is beginning to turn out EXACTLY how I had hoped it might. And here's how it looks at this point. I can hardly wait until we begin to put in the tin-type ceiling and wallpaper!

Life Sometimes Gets in the Way!

2009-08-14T18:40:00.002-05:00

Sometimes, life gets in the way of important things, like having fun, working on miniatures or writing on my blog. July-August has been tough at our household. My wife caught her foot as she was climbing out of the minivan, fell and smashed her humerus near the shoulder. Fortunately, it's not her dominant hand, because she's been in a restraint/sling device ever since. She reported to school for her first day back yesterday; so I've been helping her get her classroom ready.

Then at work, we began moving from year-long temporary facilities (due to the Cedar River flood last summer) back into our regular office building. Then my secretary resigned to take a different position in the agency. Nothing personal, just a career move for her. But then my boss told me we couldn't replace her due to funding concerns.

Okay. I know I was a bit stressed out, because at that point, my back went out. Big time. I could barely walk, and I was out of commission for a week. So, my plans for entering Sara's dollhouse in the Iowa State Fair went down the tubes. I was able to get the southwestern roombox entered in the fair, though. It didn't require any heavy lifting, and thus I was able to get it there.

I'll let you know soon how it fared. (If you'll pardon the pun!)

Measures for Success

2009-07-16T07:01:00.015-05:00

"Measure twice, cut once."
Old carpenter's rule

This blog installment isn't pretty. In fact, I won't show you any pictures of miniatures I've made in today's blog. (I hope you won't be too disappointed.) As I said in one of my earliest posts, I want to share how-to information in this blog, too. So, today I'm talking about rulers, and I don't mean kings, queens or presidents!

I have LOTS of rulers, and I use almost all of them regularly. It's amazing how many different ones are "out there" and how each fulfills a unique need in my woodworking and miniatures. Below is an assortment of them I gathered up from my work room and toolkits. I thought that if you're trying to figure out what tools you might need for this hobby, then this could be useful to you (or if you're experienced, you may feel it's worth sharing with someone who is new to the hobby).

The largest ruler (#1 above) probably gets the least amount of my use. However, when I was preparing to cut out large pieces of plywood to build Sara's dollhouse, this ruler, which serves as a four foot wide T-square, was a very useful tool. I also use it occasionally when I need to cut a wide piece of matte board.

The smaller T-square, #12 on the right of the picture, hangs at the ready in my workshop. I use it for drawing and for cutting dollhouse wallpaper or fabric in exactly square dimensions. The easiest way to use this T-Square for cutting is to lay one edge of the fabric or the wallpaper along the straight side of a cutting mat. Set the T-square down on top of the fabric or paper with the plastic T placed against the edge of the mat.

Your ruler is now perfectly set at a right angle to make a cut. All you have to do is move the T-square to whatever width you need, and slice along the ruler. (Hint: Being a right-handed person, I press down with the fingers on my left hand about midway down the length of the ruler to hold it firmly in place and slice on the right side of the T-square with my roller cutter or Xacto knife.)

The "ruler" marked #2 above is a matte cutting guide, which also has a ruler along its edge. This is an especially safe tool for guiding your knife cuts on matte board, which requires either multiple strokes with your Xacto knife or heavy pressure on the knife.

When cutting matte board, it's easy for the knife to slip up over the edge of a thin ruler, putting your fingers in great jeopardy of getting cut. This special ruler has a center ridge that sticks up almost an inch and goes down the entire length of the ruler. I can use this ridge to pick up and adjust it by purhins or pulling on that ridge. Once the ruler is exactly where I need it, I can put my hands behind the ridge, and they are safely protected from the knife blade slipping over the edge of the ruler and toward my very tender pinkies.

The carpenter's ruler (#3), is a terrific tool for measuring inside distances within dollhouse or roombox rooms. It has a brass slide-out piece that can give you an exact measurement of the room's length. I like it even better than a standard tape measure (#5) for doing inside room measurements. That's because once you've slid out the brass extender to measure a room, it holds the measurement. (It does require a little math, though, since the brass insert measurement has to be added to the length of the yellow fold-out part of the ruler to get the complete measurement length.

Tape measures (#5) are designed to accommodate for inside and outside measuring by incorporating a little play in the steel tip. So, when I remove it from doing an inside measurement, and then try to place it onto a piece of trim molding and do an outside measurement, I can get myself quite confused. The carpenter ruler eliminates that problem. That's why I always use the carpenter ruler now for measuring my dollhouse rooms.

The problem with a carpenter rule, though, is its big. It folds up to a length of just under eight inches. When you're trying to measure doorways or windows, it can get awkward trying to fit this tool into tight spaces to get an accurate measure. That's where the mechanic's ruler (#10) comes into play!

I use the little mechanics' ruler a LOT. It has a scale on one side that goes down to 64ths of an inch and 32nds of an inch on the other. PLUS on the back, the ruler has a list of digital equivalents to the ten thousandths of an inch starting at 1/64 and going up to 63/64. It has a pocket clip affixed to it so you can clip it to a shirt pocket. That "clip" also can be turned so that you can measure inside dimensions of a window. I consider this a must-have ruler for an active miniaturist!

The two rulers marked #6 are both clear plastic, centering rulers. One of our club members introduced me to this kind of ruler. It has a zero in the middle, and then counts out inch by inch in both directions to the ends of the ruler, and it also starts with zero on opposite ends and goes to 12 inches. Set the ruler down on something and in short order, you can find the center of an object. When you need to find the center of a piece of fabric or a center point on a railing, this tool works great!

I use the white, triangle-shaped ruler (#7) for doing scale drawings. With its soft plastic body, it is NOT a tool to use for any knife cutting. It has a wide range of scales, dividing the inches into six different scales. It's useful for helping me to "draw" room plans on my computer, because it has a 1/10 scale on one of its sides. Since PowerPoint allows me to "move" and size objects using decimals of an inch, this ruler is a good tool. It also has a 1:6 scale, which can be used for 1/12 scale work, if you're imaginative. This one is NOT a critical ruler to use/have, though.

I use a caliper when I need some precise accuracy. I like it especially for setting up a cutting width on my miniature table saw. A caliper can measure both inside dimensions as well as outside dimensions. My wife gave me the digital caliper, and I must say, it's SO much easier to use than a vernier caliper! The jaws of the caliper can be set to slide a little stiffly; thus, like the carpenter's ruler, once you've tightened the caliper down on the wood you're measuring, you can slide it off of the object and this ruler stays open to the exact width you need.

The ruler at left is sometimes called a try square (it's number 9 in the top photo). Depending on the manufacturer, I've also found references to it as being called a tri-square, a combination square or an adjustable square. The one pictured here is a small, 4" long "adjustable double square." It costs about $10 from MicroMark. The ruler itself slides in the black metal handle, which allows me to make accurate measurements of depth. It's also machined so that it is precisely a 90 degree right angle.

You can buy a miniature square, or you can buy a full-scale, combination square for just a little more money - around $15. They are one foot long, and handy as all get out for little OR bigger projects around the home. You can buy this kind of adjustable square at virtually any hardware store that sells tools. If you're just starting out, and don't have any tools, buy a combination square ruler. The hardware store version even includes a level in the handle so you can adjust pictures on your walls!

I hope the photo below helps you see another key way I have used this square. I found that most of the miniature miter boxes are designed for cutting pieces of small, wood trim. So, when I was building my fancy Victorian bookcase, and wanted a precisely cut piece of cherry wood I couldn't pop a four-inch wide piece of wood into my miterbox and cut off a length of the wood.

When I built the bookcase, I also didn't have a good quality, miniaturists table saw. So, I put a piece of plywood down on my work space, set the cherry wood on top of that, and then pushed the black part of the square against both the plywood and the cherry wood. This lined up the edge of both the plywood and the cherry wood with the fat base of the ruler. I then carefully tightened a C-clamp down onto the ruler blade of the square. With the clamp holding everything perfectly square, I was able to set a razor saw flush against the ruler edge. This process produced all of the larger square pieces of that bookshelf, and it turned out wonderfully! So, if you're serious about making dollhouses and miniature wood projects, get thee to a hardware store if you don't have a combination square!

Wooden Wainscoting Adds Warmth to a Room

2009-07-08T20:44:00.010-05:00

There's nothing quite as lovely as rich, wood paneling in a room - especially if it's a Victorian drawing room.

I wish I had taken pictures of this project in the stages of its development so you could have seen how it went together. I've admired several other blogs where the reader can see the project evolve with details step-by-step photos, but unfortunately, I did this work before I began the blog. Next time, I'll do a better job of documenting!

There are many ways a crafts person can make a paneled room, and it doesn't have to be as fancy as this one. I chose to use picture frame wood (PFE-5) from Northeastern Scale Lumber to create more personality to the panels.

Northeastern also makes raised panels that you can purchase. The raised panels, of course, could also be used with the picture frame wood that I used, and it would have been an even more involved "look" to the wall. I have some of their panels in one of my stashes of "someday" stuff that I've purchased, but I decided I was happy with this slightly simpler look.

The first step is to measure the wall to determine how wide the overall wainscoting will be on the wall. Next, determine how wide the wood dividers will be between each panel. I chose to make my vertical dividers a half-inch wide. Ultimately, in the finished form, the columns appear to be 3/8" wide. That's because the PFE-5 molding is 5/32" wide, and part of the molding is cut away so that it can overlap the wood it attaches to. As a result, part of it projected over the half-inch dividers. Knowing this, I could then calculate how wide each of my panels needed to be to fill the space. (This is also why I didn't use the Northeastern raised panels - the spaces I was working with were too variable, and I didn't want to fuss with ripping the raised panels to make them fit.)

I used basswood sheets that I bought at a hobby shop to make the wood panels. I purchased some 1/32" thick basswood in 4" sheets. This became my vertical wood that you see in each panel. Next, I cut 1/16" basswood for the various pieces of wood that were the vertical and horizontal dividers.

The most critical part of building the paneling is to make sure the pieces you cut for the dividers are exactly the same length. It's very difficult to hide any gaps in this kind of woodwork, and they show up dramatically if one piece is shorter than the rest. (Voice of experience here...)

The picture at right illustrates how I used my vernier caliper to measure the inside dimensions of each panel. Using the caliper, I was able to make minor adjustments to my upright pieces so that they were evenly spaced. The caliper is not a terribly expensive tool, and it has come in handy any number of times. An alternative tool to use would be a compass. The point of using either is that you can lock them into a set width, and then you can use the tools to compare the different panels to make sure all of the spaces are the same.

Cutting the PFE-5 molding was challenging, because you can't just measure the inside space of each panel and then cut the molding to that width. It has to be wider than that, since the edges project out a little more.

I started out cutting my pieces just a little too wide, and then slowly sanded and trimmed until the piece fit into the space without having to be forced in. I used the hand shear that I featured a couple months ago (purchased from MicroMark) to cut the mitered angles on the molding.

Before I glued the pieces into place, I stained them. That way, there was no concern that if I accidentally had any glue work out onto the finished wood I didn't have to worry that it wouldn't take the stain. I dipped a corner of a tissue into the stain and then each time I cut a mitered corner, I'd touch the stain-dampened tissue to the raw end of the miter. (It just takes a gentle dab to get the stain to absorb into the ends of the raw wood.)

Notice how the horizontal pieces of wood stretch across the entire wall? This adds stability to the panel. Unlike a full-scale wall made of wood, the miniature wall doesn't have to have floating panels, such as what you'd find in a real wainscoting piece. I cut the vertical back pieces in widths so that the places where the wood is pieced together, it's covered by a vertical divider.

Once the wall section was complete, I wiped it down with a tack rag and then sprayed it with Deft. I let that dry, then rubbed it out with 0000 steel wool, used the tack rag again and sprayed it again with Deft. I put three coats of Deft on it, rubbing it out each time with the steel wool. Then I let that sit for a couple of days to harden. Finally, I applied a thin amount of furniture wax and then used a soft brush to remove any excess wax and to shine up the wax. Finally, I glued the wall into place.

The Power of Accessories

2009-06-25T08:32:00.001-05:00

For those of you who have followed my blog, you may remember my post lamenting that the Victorian bed didn't quite look right in the master bedroom. Janice Lee Smith suggested I make a throw and toss it on the bed. She added that by fastening my cloth to aluminum foil, I might have greater control over how it drapes. I tried her suggestion and it turned out well! (See photo below.)

My wife and I agreed that perhaps the flooring wasn't making the bed "pop." So, when we attended the Quad Cities miniature club show, we found an oriental carpet to put under the bed. The two additions - a throw and a rug - made quite a difference in the look for the room, don't you think?

I'm now working on curtains for the bay window. I'm using a cornice kit created by d.Anne Ruff. I'll put some soft lace curtains under the cornice. Again, it will be mostly white on white with the curtains, but we'll be sure to include some colorful pictures on the walls. And I probably will add a colorful throw pillow or two beside the two white pillows on the bed. Then, my daughters (who love interior design) will add the final touches to the room and we'll call it done.

I've been tagged! Now I'm picking six...

2009-06-21T15:14:00.006-05:00

It's Father's Day here in America. (Is it celebrated in other countries, too?) So, I've taken lots of time to explore and make some selections. As I mentioned in my previous blog, I was tagged by LinsMinis who is in Durham, England. (I’m constantly amazed by the Internet – I follow blogs from people in a variety of European countries, down under" and various sites across the USA. How small our world truly has become because of this invention!) Lin is a very talented miniaturist, who also has some commercial sites and sells on eBay as well. Please do check out her blog. Her miniature food is exquisite!

I know the rule of the pick six is to tag six people whose sites I find interesting, and then list six things I like. I can’t just go post comments on six sites and leave it at that. I want YOU to know about their sites, too! So, here are the six I picked (in no special order of importance). I hope you may enjoy these sites as much as I have.

http://josje-bouwt.blogspot.com/ Josje Veenebos’ blog was recently picked by someone else for the “pick six” honor; so I don’t expect her to do a whole new group of six blogs to feature on her blog. I have just enjoyed seeing the pictures of her work. I was looking at the picture of her kitchen one night, and my son-in-law said, “You mean, that’s a miniature kitchen!?” It’s just exquisite. http://tinyurl.com/l76z24

http://dollhouse-tutorials.blogspot.com/ New England Miniatures in Kennebunk, Maine. It’s a small, family-run miniature business. Grazhina has several blogs – some feature the miniature houses and rooms she has made and then there’s this blog, which is right down my alley! It’s filled with all sorts of links to “how to” articles! Perfect for those of us who wonder, “How did they DO that?!”

http://libertybiberty.blogspot.com/ is from New Zealand, and she has done some remarkable things with her dollhouse in spite of not having any power tools for mini making! She does all this while still caring for her daughter who is preschool age. Way to go! She belongs to a miniature club, too. http://tinyurl.com/lmnwl3

http://caseymini.blogspot.com/ I thoroughly enjoy Casey’s Minis blog. Her sense of humor is delightful with her little characters Tessie and Zar helping her with her blog postings and her miniature work. Here’s a link to see her character Tessie taking a break between gluings: http://tinyurl.com/mddsqk

http://creatingdollhouseminiatures.blogspot.com Minimaker Anderson comes up with some amazing videos to share with us. Frequently, these feature “how to” information. This is one of the first sites I started following, and I have not regretted it since. If you haven’t linked to her blog, you’re missing some excellent videos. Please click on over to take a look at her site.

http://myrtlewood.blogspot.com/ Texas Belle is doing some wonderful things with her dollhouse. I’m so impressed by the rooms she has completed, and she says she doesn’t have a lot of miniature experience. Please DO check out her site. Here’s a picture of the wall she has created for her library. It’s very nice! http://tinyurl.com/l6ar7j

The other part of the pick six is that I’m supposed to share six things that make me happy.

Here are six for me:

Finishing a miniature and thinking, “Wow! I really like how that turned out!”
Cold, sunny winter days with lots of snow on the ground. I can stand in my workshop and look out at the blue sky and the white snow and feel comfy cozy in my little world. (And I also know I don't have to go out and mow the grass!)
Finding new tools that really fit my needs. I love it when I have a new tool to play with.
Discovering new ideas – especially “how to” ideas that I can add to my skills
Having a good laugh – it’s good for the soul and clears the cobwebs.
Having a supportive and loving wife (which I do), who doesn’t mind my spending inordinate amounts of time on my minis and/or on the computer!

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Details! Details! It's the icing on the cake!

2009-06-02T21:14:00.008-05:00

Adding windows to the top floor of Sara's dollhouse was one of the toughest things to do with this house. As I developed my drawings for the house, there were so many details I wanted to incorporate into these windows. In addition to the paint scheme, layers, angles, and carving, the windows were to be my only access to the attic rooms; so I knew I had to make them removable.

I later had to modify my plan about access to the rooms when Sara found a canopy bed she wanted for the little girl's room. I could not fit it in through the window opening; so I had to retrofit part of the back wall so that we could open it to insert the bed. Like I said in my previous post, the best laid plans of mice and men... and daddies... oft go astray!

The small circles and arch over the window were some of the trickiest pieces for me to make. They really challenged my carving and painting skills. In fact, there's still a little bit of detail to paint there, and I haven't worked up the courage/energy/patience to do it, since I know I'll probably go back and forth several times between white and red paints trying to fix slight imperfections of brush strokes. It's the details like this, though, that really give Victorian houses their personality. I love that wedding cake frilliness of Victorian houses! It's just that it's hard to replicate it in miniature at times...

I've been "tagged,"by another blogger; so in my next post, I'll address that.

Best Laid Plans...

2009-05-29T22:27:00.003-05:00

When I began to build this dollhouse, I fully intended to have a full-scale door beneath the stairs. In fact, I even had cut a doorway into the back wall of the plywood. As I got to working on the stairs, though, I soon realized that it wouldn't work. I had to give up and install the miniature door for a storage area beneath these stairs.

The stairs are solid cherry wood. The landing is approximately 3" deep; so I was able to cut one piece of wood for that step. The lower steps, however, progressively project out about 5/6" with each step. The easiest way to bump out the cherry wood steps was to stack up pine wood pieces behind the cherry. So, as you look at the stairs on the right, there's no fancy construction work holding up that flight of stairs. It's solid wood from the front step all the way to the back wall and up to the landing.

For those of you with a discerning eye, you'll know why the maid for this house has her bag packed and a letter of resignation on her dresser. Dusty stairs was bad enough, but then to have a broken dinner plate in the dining room? Unforgiveable! ;o)

How I Made the Belt on Sara's House

2009-05-27T21:31:00.008-05:00

This is the last post I'll make about the belt at the top of Sara's dollhouse. I promise! I just had to tell a little more about how I made it. Please do click on the photo to see it close up. The circles were wooden toy wheels that I bought at a Michaels store.

The wheels were approximately 1/8" thick and had a hole in the center that was just the right size for a 1/8" piece of doweling to fit snugly into. I drilled a 1/8" hole into a piece of 1 x 2 board and then set my table saw so that the fence was about 3/4" depth from the blade. The width of the blade is about 1/16", and so running the 1 x 2 past the blade, the saw would slice off the back half of a wheel (as long as the wheel was pushed flat against the 1 x 2).

I allowed a length of the dowel to protrude through the front of the wheel, because I held onto that piece of doweling to control the cut wheel. If I had not done this, my saw would have flung the wheels at me and all around my workshop! In fact, a couple of times, the doweling broke, in the cutting process, and that's EXACTLY what happened. (Flying saucers anyone?)

Painting Was a Challenge!
Painting these circles was a challenge. I had to do that free-hand. I used the 1/8" dowel once again to hold them while I painted, which made the task a little easier. The golden center of each circle is a brass tack that has a rounded head. I cut the nails down to a short length and glued one into the hole of each circle.

I cut the green pieces out of basswood, cutting out first the outline, then drilled a hole and carefully cut out the centers. Then I went through a dozen emery boards, which I wore out sanding the top edges of these pieces until they were rounded.

I've already told you about the brackets. I ended up making several more than the 24 that I put on the house. Sometimes they'd break on me when I tried to peel them apart from the double-stick tape. Other times, I just didn't do a good job of cutting out the fancy insides and had to start over again. People always say, "You must be a really patient guy." The truth of the matter is that I'm more of a perfectionist than I am patient, which means I often end up having to redo things because I got in too much of a hurry!

Opening Sara's Dollhouse

2009-05-23T18:04:00.013-05:00

So... here's the house with all its fancy details. The brackets and fancy belt under the eaves really give the house its personality. But they also created endless headaches for me when I began to figure out how the house would open to allow access to the rooms!

The brackets on this house took considerable work. I took two pieces of 1/16" cherry wood and temporarily held them together with double-stick tape (available from most office stores). I made a template of the design, which I traced on the pair, and then used my jeweler's saw to cut them out. I then laid the brackets on a third piece of 1/16" cherry wood and traced the exact shape of that bracket (since there is almost always some permutations when cutting pieces like this). Then I cut out two more pieces of wood that were slightly smaller than the rest of the bracket. I then painted the pieces BEFORE I glued them together. (I tried making one bracket, glued it all up and then paint it. OH MY! That was just too hard to do!) This was the only way I was able to keep the white and red paints from being badly applied!

At left and below are how the brackets (and the house) are fastened. Here's the first step in how to "open" the house: remove the bracket on the top right. (I made it removable by using a toothpick as my "doweling" to hold it in place. To get this centered just right, I first drilled a needle-sized hole, then cut a straight pin so that only about 1/16" of it stuck out from the end of the hole. That allowed me to put the bracket in exactly its rightful place, and then press in a little. I then removed the pin, found the hole it made in the wall of the house, and drilled a hole large enough to accommodate the toothpick in both the bracket and in the house.

The next step for getting into the house is to remove the whole belt from the right front side of the house. I made it removable, because if I glued the belt to the top of the plywood base, it scraped the under side of the eaves and the downspouts when I opened the case. It was just easier to make this piece removable.

Next, we remove another bracket, which is also doweled into place with a toothpick.

Then, the steps and railing from the front porch have to slide out of the way. The steps, by the way, are made from Corian (yes, the counter material). A friend who makes pens out of the material turned each of the posts for me.

I can now open the house by moving a very tiny pin closure I inserted behind the clapboard siding. It's just a piece of florist wire that I bent like a paperclip so that one point projects into a hole in the house and the other end sticks out as my handle. I did my best to make it inconspicuous.

I remove the bracket and steps whenever I need to open the middle section of the house. The only thing holding the middle section closed is a brass clasp I fashioned. It is held in place by a single screw and slides over another screw to fasten. The left hand side of the house opens much the same way as the right. Obviously, I don't intend to open the house very often once it's completed!

The Challenges of Building a Front-Opening Dollhouse

2009-05-20T18:26:00.007-05:00

Here is Sara's dollhouse nearing completion. I still have a punch list of "things to do" to complete it, but it's really quite presentable now and becoming more so on a nearly daily basis.

I designed this house using a variety of reference photographs I have taken of Victorian homes. I thought Victorian houses were ugly when I was a boy, but a contest in Sioux City, Iowa put on by the city's history museum gave me a new appreciation for Victorian tower houses. (The museum had over 20 paintings all done by a former Sioux City woman. Each painting featured a different Victorian house in the city. The contest challenged people to find all of the houses that were scattered all across the city. We found all but one of them!) Today, at least half of those houses are gone; so I'm very glad we took the time to see them and appreciate them.

I designed this house with the intention of offering the viewer enough architectural details to give them a real sense of the house's architecture. However, I also wanted the viewer to enjoy seeing the rooms with all of their details. Since I chose to maintain the integrity of the roof because of its architectural interest, that made making the third floor rooms more open impossible. In some ways I regret that, but I also like the unity of the roof line the way it is.

I didn't make any cutouts on the sides, so the viewer can see the bay window on the dining room side and the detail on the left-hand side of the house. I especially wanted to have the front door and stained glass window with its tiny balcony in plain view for the visitor. The brackets near the roof line also were a must to convey the fussiness of this painted lady Victorian.

All of those details made the front opening of this house quite a challenge! I'll share more details with you in my next blog about what all I did to make the house so it can be opened. I have to remove or shift several little pieces before I can open any one of the three different doors on the front.

Please do click on the photograph so you can see the house close-up!

Working with Greenleaf Kits

2009-05-17T09:54:00.006-05:00

Greenleaf puts out affordable dollhouse kits with attractive designs. This is Alicia's dollhouse. When she wanted me to build her a dollhouse, I started to think about designing one based on some of the Victorian tower houses we had enjoyed seeing in Sioux City.

Alicia felt it might take too long if I designed my own and built it. (She wanted it done quickly.) In retrospect, she may have been right, considering that it took me over four years to build Pam's dollhouse, and I've been "working" on Sara's house now for about 14 years!

So, Alicia lobbied her daddy to go with a kit. She liked the Greenleaf McKinley, and she begged me to buy it and complete it. I gave up my dream of doing my own design and used the McKinley.

It turned out okay, but I wasn't crazy about working with the kit. I don't like the thin walls, which made it difficult to create realistic doorways between rooms, and I really disliked the porous, grainy plywood the kits are made of. I also didn't like the windows that came with it, and I found that due to the tall, narrow design of the windows, I was unable to substitute better quality ones from Houseworks, which I would have preferred to have used. All that said, Greenlieaf makes attractive houses, and this one turned out pretty nicely in spite of its drawbacks.

I made a few mistakes along the way in building it. I chose a roofing material that went on quickly, since it came in long rolls and was easy to glue on, but in retrospect, I feel it was too thick. The copper tower roof was a bear to do. I spent many hours measuring, cutting, and bending the copper foil to make it fit just right. It was also difficult to find a glue that worked well in holding it onto the roof. Last, but not least, I sliced my fingers several times working on it.

The biggest mistake I made, and it's a design flaw of this dollhouse, was not enclosing it so that the rooms don't get dusty. The house has become terribly dusty, and it needs to have some sort of plexiglas cover or doors on the front to eliminate or reduce the amount of dust settling in the rooms.

All in all, I have to say this was a girl's play dollhouse - not a Thorne Room replica. Alicia thoroughly enjoyed her play with it - decorating it and redecorating it for various seasons. To this day, when she's home, she comes in and makes seasonal changes. So, though it's not a museum piece, it's definitely a well-loved dollhouse.

Making Your Own Shingles

2009-05-14T18:40:00.005-05:00

After seeing some real, miniature slate shingles at a dollhouse store in Denver, Colorado years ago, I set about saving my pocket change so that I could buy enough to do Sara's dollhouse. As time went on, I realized, there was no way I was going to get that money saved up any time soon since it was going to cost in the hundreds of dollars to do all the roof of this house!

If you read Dollhouse Miniatures magazine regularly, you may have seen the article I wrote about how I substituted real slate with wooden, faux slate shingles. The various gradations of color you see in the slate in this picture is real. After making these delicate little shingles, I sealed them with alcohol-based B-I-N undercoating. Next, I mixed red and green paint using colors as close to the colors of the house as I could get. I scumbled that paint onto the shingles. I was very sloppy in doing this - on purpose. It made the shingles somewhat wavy and revealed "layers" in some places, which made it look all the more real. Next, I took the red and green paint and mixed it together, added some lamp black to it, and thinned the paint just a little. I then painted over the shingles with that. The result? These lovely, various-hued shingles.

Creating with the Computer

2009-05-11T22:18:00.004-05:00

Here's the bathroom for Sara's dollhouse. I haven't mounted the mirror over the sink yet. I wanted you to see the floor, which I created using PowerPoint.

I created this small, black and white tile pattern using PowerPoint software. It took a while, but it was less time-consuming than trying to create little tiles and place them piece by piece.

Once I got the pattern laid out the way I wanted, I printed it out on photo (glossy) paper to give it maximum gloss. After that, I sprayed it with several coats of glossy workable fixative to further give it a shine and to protect the ink from ultraviolet light.

The last part was the hardest - I had to piece together the floor, since the space was larger than the 7.5 x 10" image I got from the PowerPoint slide. If you study the picture very carefully, you might see where the two pieces connect.

Wonderful Clock Face

2009-05-05T21:15:00.006-05:00

I was saddened a few years ago when I read that Suzanne Russo had quit her business, which was a specialty supply business offering various brasses, including escutcheon plates and clock faces. Fortunately, I had purchased this clock face, the clock hands and the brass finial on the top from her before she closed.

This clock hangs on the wall of the Scrooge room box. To be honest, as I look at this, I'm not exactly sure HOW I succeeded in making the half-round, mitered top to this clock! The carvings, of course, were created mostly through the use of my jeweler's saw. I also had some pieces of brass, which I cut out and polished extensively to create the pendulum.

The whole clock face and pendulum are covered over by a very thin piece of glass - about the thickness of a microscope slide cover. I bought the glass from a dealer at a miniature show years ago, and have never seen any more like it again nor have I seen the dealer! And, again, I honestly don't remember how I succeeded in cutting that rounded glass without shattering the whole sheet! Just lucky, I guess!

If you're wondering, yes, there's a "tag" hanging from the top of the clock. Throughout the Scrooge room, I have various items of value with the names of people who owed money to Scrooge and he's "holding" their items until the come forth with the money. This clock belonged to Owen Moore at 101 Queens St in London. He owes Scrooge 35 pounds. ;o)

Cabriole Leg Example in My Dollhouse

2009-05-01T16:46:00.004-05:00

The bed stand at the left is one of my scratch- built pieces of furniture. It's solid cherry wood, and I used the same methodology for producing the cabriole legs as what I illustrated in my previous blog.

Once I cut out the wood, I used a rounded head on my Dremel motor tool to carve out the indented areas toward the top of each leg.

In reality, they're not terribly hard to make. The most "work" involved with them is finishing them off once you've cut them out of the block of wood, since that involves quite a bit of sanding time.

Video: How to Make a Cabriole Leg

2009-04-25T13:57:00.009-05:00

I'm just learning how to use the new Flip camera to do Web-posted videos. It's pretty cool!

Here, in video form, are the steps to making a cabriole leg. Whether you're building a table or a chair, the steps are pretty much the same. The video is about 7 minutes long. (Sorry it's so long, and filled with so many ums and ahs!) I cut down the video as much as I could, and in the process, when the software condensed the video even more for Web production, it cut off some of my words. Oops! Obviously I have still more to learn...

My Fancy Victorian Bed Is Finished... or Is It?

2009-04-24T17:45:00.004-05:00

At last, I've nearly finished the Victorian bed I've been building for Sara's dollhouse. I knew I wanted a fancy Victorian bed; so I went on to the Internet and "shopped" for full-size, Victorian bedroom furniture. I found many examples, and downloaded several retailers' pictures of antique beds. Next, I began to work with those pictures to develop my own set of shop drawings.

What you see at the right is my "interpretation" of many design elements I pulled from those examples. I liked the idea of the tall pyramid tops to the posts. I considered doing pineapples, and then decided that I didn't want to take the hours and hours it would take to carve four pineapples for each bed post, although it would have been a cool touch.

The bed is made of cherry wood. I didn't have any good burled wood to use for the insets; so I used painting techniques to create the faux burl. As you may recall from a previous post, I stitched the coverlet and pillows for the bed. The "mattress" is balsa wood cut and shaped to the size of a mattress. Using the off-white silk for the coverlet prevents any color clashes with the carpet and walls, but it's a bit bland.

I welcome ideas and suggestions for how to add a touch of color to the bed now that it's almost done - a colorful nightie laid out on the bed? A dog and cat sleeping together on the bed? Perhaps add some delicate ribbons and some bows to the bed coverlet? What's your idea? I'd love to hear!

The Walls Go Up!

2009-04-23T16:50:00.003-05:00

It's not much to look at yet, but this is the start of a new roombox. In an earlier blog, I showed a picture of a PowerPoint slide where I had drawn out the floor plan.

Since this was my idea to make an old-fashioned barbershop, I'm leading our miniature club in this project. I hope it turns out well!

As you can see, we glued a framework very much like what you'd see in a real building, except for one thing - these boards would be 4 x 4's if they were in full dimension. I discovered when I built my last roombox using this methodology that gluing up a scale 2 x 4 wall was flimsy. When 2 x 4 frames are built in real life, builders use big honking nails to hold the pieces together. But in miniature, I used only glue. End result? My walls weren't very solid - they fell apart on me a couple of times when I moved the frame around. This time, I've used a heavier base wood (3/8" x 3/4") and 3/8" x 3/8" timbers for the uprights. As a result, the walls are far more sturdy.

I will change the photo in the back wall. I didn't like the angle, and there were too many cars in the photo. I took a different photograph from First Street in Salida, Colorado, did some photo shop work to remove two cars, and now have a wonderful set of Victorian store fronts with no cars!

We'll add acid free matte board to the front of the framework above to create the walls for this old fashioned barbershop. Next month we'll be adding the revised "view" out the front window, walls with wallpaper, a wall of bricks outside the shop door along the back, and maybe even the tin ceiling and if time allows. It will be a busy day of building!

Layers of Wood Make an Impression

2009-04-20T19:00:00.004-05:00

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.

Whimsy in a Box

2009-04-18T17:47:00.006-05:00

This jack-in-the-box is in the baby's room of Pam's dollhouse.

I made this piece a number of years ago. The teddy bear in the box is made of Fimo. The box itself is cherry wood that I cut on my old Dremel table saw (which I wore out completely over the years).

The B on the front of the box and the raised wood on the edges surrounding the B help to give it an old-fashioned building block appearance. (I used my jeweler's saw to cut out the B on the front.)

I used watercolor paint to paint the toy horse on the side of the cube. There's a picture on the top, too, although, where it sits in the dollhouse, no one ever sees it. I added wood stain over the top of the watercolor painting, which gave the piece a somewhat aged appearance.

I mounted the bear on a toothpick and then inserted the toothpick onto a ballpoint pen spring. So, if anyone ever picks up the toy, the bear wobbles inside just like it would in a real jack-in-the-box. However, I didn't make it so that the bear pops up out of the box. The lid is permanently ajar.

(By the way, if you click on the photo, I think you can get a much closer/larger view of the box. This Web site works that way on my PC, at least.)

Building Exact Replicas

2009-04-13T22:26:00.012-05:00

This is a replica of the secretary desk my grandmother purchased from a second-hand store in Kansas City back in the 1920's. It's solid cherry wood, and it's cut out exactly to the dimensions and details of the old desk.

In fact, the flip-down writing desk has some ink stains on the original where someone dripped ink down the side of a bottle of ink - probably when they were filling a fountain pen. I duplicated that ink stain as well using a brush and some india ink. I didn't stuff the little drawer full of pens, however. (Whenever I needed a pen or pencil, I went to that top, right-hand drawer to get one.) Going to that extreme with the realism was just too much work for no visible reward!

I couldn't have made this replica without the use of the scale I described in my first blog. For those of you who didn't read that one, I've taken some pictures to show how this works. You can see in the first picture I'm measuring a tiny drawer from another full-size object.
Next, I take that measurement over to the 1" to 1' conversion scale and set the ruler down onto the scale.

Finally, I turn the ruler sideways on the conversion scale (see photo below) and then measure up to the mark I made on the scale. I now have a precise measurement of the drawer in 1/12th inch scale.

I created the conversion scale using PowerPoint and printed it out on a legal size piece of paper. If you'd like me to send you that file, please post a comment and let me know. I'm happy to share it. Thanks!

Waiting for a Home...

2009-04-10T18:01:00.007-05:00

I saw this fireplace in a home decorating magazine and it looked so tasty, I just had to try to build it! Our club had recently learned how to make faux marble; so I used those techniques to paint the wood.

The hardest part of making this fireplace was to do the turnings on each side of the firebox. They still aren't quite perfect, but I'm not going to go back and do it again at this point.

On either side of the round inset near the top, there's a leaf pattern carved into the "marble." I used my jeweler's saw and simply cut out the effect and then when I painted it, I allowed the paint to settle down into the hole cut by the saw. That was probably the easiest part of making the whole piece!

Soon, very soon, this fireplace surround will find a home in front of a pretty, painted yellow wall with a window beside it and a view of the Collegiate Peaks in the distance. But I first need to finish the dollhouse and the barbershop!

Tiny and Very Messy Workshop

2009-04-08T22:37:00.007-05:00

Okay, I have visual proof that it's time for me to slow down, and spend a complete weekend cleaning up and reorganizing my workshop. There isn't a single surface that isn't currently cluttered! For those of you who have followed this blog for a while, here are two different views of my tiny workshop. It would make a very small bedroom, if I cleaned everything out of the room.

The top photo shows the cabinet I built to sit on top of my workbench. The bottom two drawers have small paint bottles in them. The area overhead holds all my miniature wood and various types of moldings. I used cardboard tubes from wrapping paper to create small, long containers to hold the various pieces of molding.

In the lower photo, you can see the start of a new room box sitting on my workbench with a picture frame on top of it. Michaels had a sale on them; so I bought one I liked for the antique barbershop I'm building.

S-c-r-o-o-g-e!!

2009-04-06T20:30:00.021-05:00

I thought you all might enjoy seeing a complete view of one of the roomboxes I've built. This is the Scrooge! roombox I built a number of years ago. It won a blue ribbon and best of show at the Iowa State Fair. I did my best to incorporate everything Dickens described in Ebenezer Scrooge's bedroom, including the barely burning coals in his fireplace.

I also let my imagination spin free with adding details I think would have been a part of Scrooge's room, such as cracks in the walls, a broken window with a rag stuffed in it, a broken chair leg propped up with books and a board, a hole in the ceiling and items with IOU tags attached to them throughout the room.

This project started with my building the fancy bed and wondering, "Now, what do I do with this?" The bed had a fancy coverlet on it. Once I realized it had to be Ebenezer's bed, I took the coverlet off, created a sagging mattress and stained the sheets with tea bags. I left the bed unmade. That's how I imagined Scrooge would live. He never would have taken the time to fuss with making a bed - a useless expenditure of energy!

I drew the image of Marley's ghost, then had it photographically etched into a piece of glass that now fills the doorway. The ghost "glows" because I placed a light that shines down on the edge of the glass. I also drew the fireplace tiles and stitched the fireplace screen. I carved Scrooge from a 2x4 piece of pine, and created all of the furniture in the room. (My Web browser allows me to click on the top image and view it in much greater detail. I encourage you to try that, since the quality and details are so much better when it's larger!)

Knot That Easy

2009-04-05T22:29:00.008-05:00

"What," you say, "are these pictures!?!?" Well, it's the bedspread for the master bedroom. I thought I'd share the project with you in stages. I'm hopeful the entire piece turns out well in the long run! Because the room is already quite colorful, I chose off-white for the bedspread so that it doesn't conflict with the other colors.

I'm not the most precise person with hand sewing; so, I used graph paper to guide my work in inserting French knots into the top of the bedspread. Then, I transferred this grid to a thin layer of wood. I drilled holes into the wood, and then laid a couple layers of felt under this cloth. By drawing the fabric down tight in between the holes through the wood, I was able to create the above quilted appearance. (Once I had completed the bedspread, the wood backing looked very similar to the graph paper in terms of seeing long stitches stretching between the tufts/French knots.)

Next step is to add lace to the sides and to glue things down so that the bedspread conforms to the mattress (a block of balsa wood). I already have the headboard and foot board assembled.

Making It Look Real

2009-04-03T17:58:00.003-05:00

This is the attic of Pam's dollhouse. It was made out of Gatorfoam; so the wood beams you see in the attic were not part of the construction of the house. I added them to create a "real" look to the attic.

Most wood in attics isn't smooth and nicely finished. It was really rather fun to do this part, since I merely had to run some boards through my table saw, and then could glue them up immediately onto the ceiling of the attic. Once the boards were in place, then I added the beams. I waited until I had all of the wood in place before I painted.

I wanted to make this look like an artist's garret. It's a bit on the rough side - perhaps like the character who does his painting and thinking up there...

We purchased the stove in Frankemuth, MI and the fold-up cot from Norm's Dollhouse in the Denver, CO area. The rocking chair was a gift my folks picked up on a visit to China.

You may have noticed the door to the room is slightly ajar. It leads nowhere. That back wall sits against the wall, since this dollhouse is only one-room deep. I designed the house to sit on a shelf on the wall.

Adding a Ghost to Your House

2009-04-02T18:27:00.006-05:00

She's there. Unfortunately, she looks like a blur in the right-hand window of Pam's dollhouse. She's a proper Victorian lady standing sideways by the window.

When children visit, it's fun to challenge them to see if they can see the ghost. They usually find her after a little looking.

Since you're reading this blog, you obviously have access to a computer. If you have a colored printer and some overhead film compatible with your type of printer, (available at your nearest office supply store) you can create your own ghost! Here's how:

Find a picture of a person that you like. It should be one that has a white background behind the individual and no added details. If you have software on your PC that allows you to crop out the background so that only your subject remains, use that to isolate your "ghost."
Next, crop the picture so that it's in the same dimensions (roughly) as what you'll need for your window. Then save your ghost's picture in a place you can find easily such as your desktop or your miniatures file.
Open a Microsoft Word document or a PowerPoint presentation - either works for this. Or if you have the fancy photo software I mentioned above, you probably can make this effect without having to use Word or PowerPoint.
In the MS Word or PPT, click on view and select toolbars and make sure the drawing toolbar is activated.
Draw a rectangle that's the same size of your window where you want to insert your ghost.
Next, right click on this rectangle and select "Format Auto Shape."
Select the tab marked "Colors and Lines."
You will see three sections in this dialogue box: Fill, Lines, Arrows. In the "Fill" area click on the down arrow for color. You'll see many different colors, and near the bottom of this drop-down box, you'll see text that says, "Fill effects..." Click on it.
You'll now see a new dialogue box with four tabs. Select the one marked "Picture."
Click on the box that says, "Select Picture."
Navigate to your ghost's picture and double click it. This should insert your picture into the box you have drawn. Then click OK in the dialogue box.
You will have returned to the original dialogue box and you should see your picture in the box where you would ordinarily see a color. It will be badly distorted at this point, but don't worry about that.
Underneath this box you'll see a slider bar and the word "Transparency." Simply slide the bar to the right until your picture becomes ghost-like.
Since you'll use up a transparency page whether you print one photo or many, I suggest you copy the boxed picture and paste it several times onto the page, and then adjust the level of transparency to several percentages (10%, 15%, 20% and 25%) would be a good start. Then print the transparency.
All you have to do is take your scissors, trim the ghost out of the transparency film and glue her to frame of the window (or just set her into the window). Voila! Your dollhouse is now a haunted mansion!

Tools I Use to Cut Miters for My Miniatures

2009-03-30T20:48:00.009-05:00

There are a number of good ways to cut miters. I use three different tools to cut mine. Each has its advantages.

The first, and simplest way to cut them is to use a miter shear called the Miter Master available from Micro-Mark. This scissors-like shear is extremely sharp and cuts a very precise 45 degree angle in moldings.

Micro-Mark says this tool can cut wood up to 1/2 inch thick by 1-1/2 inches wide. I would never try to cut anything that thick with this shear, but cutting a flat piece of molding? It's awesome!

The next tool I have used extensively in dollhouse miniature making is a miter hand saw. I use the Dobson Miter-Rite from Micro-Mark. With its well-designed, two-screw locking system, you can secure the saw very precisely to the angle you need to cut your wood.

The 45 degree angle marked on the plastic arc on the top is "fairly" accurate, but if you're a perfectionist, don't trust it. You'll want to use a plastic 45 degree angle ruler to set the saw accurately. The stable sleeve that holds the saw blade ensures you will make a virtually straight vertical cut in whatever piece you're mitering.

Finally, my tool of choice for cutting thicker pieces (such as the dentil molding around the ceiling in yesterday's blog), is my modeler's table saw (also purchased from Micro-Mark). It can cut up to an inch thick piece of wood. Again, to get a precise 45 degree angle quickly, use a plastic triangle between the miter gauge and the saw blade to get your angle. (Be sure the saw is turned off before doing this, however!)

Since my workshop is so small, I have my dollhouse on display in my living room, but my workshop is downstairs. So, I frequently get a workout running up and down the stairs to cut wood on my table saw. That's why I've become more comfortable using the Miter Master shear - it's so easy to measure, cut and glue molding - especially window trim. If we had small children in our house, though, I would be very careful in where I left this tool. I shudder to think about how badly a child could get cut on it. (Of course, they could get hurt with my table saw, too, but I can lock my workshop when I'm not in it.)

My thanks to Micro-Mark for permission to use their photographs in today's blog.

Finishing a Ceiling

2009-03-29T12:03:00.006-05:00

I thought I'd share briefly about finishing ceilings. This is the dining room of my latest house. I used a combination of things to do it. The ceiling itself is acid-free matte board. (I use acid free materials whenever I can in my work, since I want my grandchildren and maybe even great grandchildren to be able to enjoy my miniatures long after I'm gone.)

With wooden dollhouses, I think matte board is really the easiest way to finish off ceilings. A small piece of molding around the edge helps to hide any imperfections as well as to help hold the matte board in place.

Even though I thought my walls were perfectly straight and all corners were 90 degrees, I checked to make sure using a right angle square. If any corner was not precisely 90 degrees, I would have had to adjust the angle of my miter cuts for that corner. In cases where my ceiling has a cut-out or extends into a smaller nook area, I create a paper model of the ceiling before I ever cut out the matte board. (Saves making mistakes in cutting.) Be SURE you mark which side is up so that when you place the model onto your matte board to draw lines, you have the proper side selected!

I purchased the sconce above the chandelier as well as the ogee and dentil moldings around the edges of the ceiling. (I've tried making my own dentil molding. It's a pain.) However, I did make the octagonal molding that floats around the chandelier sconce. To do that, I cut out straight pieces of wood approximately 1/4" wide and then I used a compass to draw quarter inch wide arcs on the same kind of wood as the straight pieces were cut from. I then cut out the arcs with my table jigsaw.

Next, I used my Dremel tool and one of the Dremel router bits to create the indented and rounded effects of this piece. I routed both edges of each piece. I then used an emery board to smooth out the top of the rounded "bead" to remove any imperfections.

Next, I set my table saw miter gauge at 22.5 degrees. I cut the straight pieces in appropriate lengths so that I had two sets of equal length straight pieces. Then I cut out an arc that filled in the remaining portion of the inner curve of the routed pieces and created a right angle. Holding the curved piece against the arc, I was then able to cut the 22.5 degree angles into the curved sections. The last step of creating this molding was to carefully measure where I wanted the molding to go on the ceiling.

I should mention that I worked on the ceiling outside of the dollhouse. I cut the matte board slightly narrower (about 1/16th inch) than the length and width of the room, so it would go in easily. I then centered the sconce in the middle and glued it into place. With the ceiling flat on the workbench in front of me it was fairly easy to measure and piece together the molding pieces described above. Next I glued the matte board into place. I used a few pieces of thin wood that were about 1/16" taller than the floor to matte board ceiling. I bent these and set them in various spots around the room to help hold the matte board in place while the glue set and dried. (I used at least six boards to hold up the ceiling.) Once the ceiling was firmly in place, I glued in the ogee/dentil moldings.

By the way, I use a capenter's ruler to get precise inside dimensions for the molding. I find it a very helpful tool. Most any hardware that sells tools also sells these rulers. They are eight inches long when folded up. The segments can be twisted 180 degrees to extend out, making the full length of the ruler six feet long when fully extended. Inset into the last piece of the ruler is a sliding brass rule that can be extended. You can insert the folded up ruler into a room, push out the brass extension and get a precise reading of how wide your room is.

It's crucial to get precise measures of the room so that you can cut your molding exactly. If your measurements are too wide, the molding won't fit in the room. If it's too narrow, you'll have ugly gaps in the corner(s) or molding that doesn't go all the way to the wall.

Thank You, Friends!

2009-03-20T22:15:00.005-05:00

I have received three blog awards from you, my friendly readers. Thanks to De at De~lightful Minis (twice!) and to MiniMaker at Creating Dollhouse Miniatures for both of you thinking enough of my blog to recognize it.

I'd love to pass along the award, but I'm so green in the blogging arena, I haven't spent enough time snooping around to find a lot of blogs.

I must say, most of the sites I have found have been delightful, and I'm fascinated with what I find. As with all things, though, time is our greatest enemy. I have a full time job and enjoy a full time hobby; if I spend much time on the computer, I'm actually cheating myself on workshop time, and there's still so much to do! I'm working on a fancy, dressed Victorian bed right now, which I'll share with you one of these days soon.

So, to my fellow bloggers and new-found friends, thank you again!

Hand Laid Floors Add Beauty to a Room

2009-03-19T20:37:00.009-05:00

These photos illustrate two floors I hand laid for my latest dollhouse. For the floor on the left, I used my table saw to cut three different kinds of wood into small pieces. I used stops on the table top so that each piece would be exactly the same length.

I then took a piece of acid free drawing paper and drew out a grid pattern on it. The lines helped me keep everything in alignment. I dabbed some Weldbond Glue on the bottom of each piece of wood and when I set it down on the paper, I slid it around in a circle in the general area where it would go to even out the glue underneath the piece of wood. Then I pushed it into place and held it momentarily until the glue began to set. I found that I got a more precise pattern if I pushed fairly hard to hold the piece in place. If any extra glue emerged around the sides onto the paper, I immediately scraped it off with a wooden toothpick. If it oozed out from between the pieces of wood, I used a damp tissue to wipe away the excess.

By the way, if you know someone who is diabetic and uses syringes, I've found they are terrific for applying glue - especially if the needles are cut down in length. (If you have small children anywhere around, though, I don't recommend this method.) You can remove the plunger, squeeze a modest amount of glue into the syringe and reinsert the plunger. Don't plan on reusing the syringe. I normally can't reload and do multiple loads of glue in a syringe. The syringe allowed me to squeeze much more precise amounts of glue onto each piece of flooring so that I had far less excess glue to clean up.

Although I had to pay some attention to what I was doing, the process was one that I could do while watching TV. It took me about a week to complete each of these floors. Once they were all glued up, I then took my orbital sander and smoothed them down using some of the finer grades of paper. I finished them using clear stain to bring out the natural colors of the wood, and then I coated them with several coats of Deft varnish. I rubbed the varnish out with some 0000 steel wool and then coated the floors with wood wax. I then buffed down the waxed floor.

By the way, before I began each flooring project, I made a precise model of the room that I intended to floor. I trimmed about 1/16" of wood away from each edge, since I knew I would be adding wooden wainscoting and trim with miniature quarter-round, which would hide all edges of the floor. By cutting it a little shy of full width, it was easier to set the floor down into the room. You can use glue to hold the floor in place or if you think you might have to someday remove the floor to fix some wiring, you can always use double-sided carpet tape to hold it in place. I recommend gluing it down, though; especially if you live in a humid climate.

My First Project

2009-03-17T18:58:00.005-05:00

This was the first room box I ever created from scratch. My wife was a fourth grade teacher at the time, and my parents had given her a McGuffey's Eclectic Fourth Reader.

I decided to build a shadow box that held the reader in the top half of the box and created this old fashioned classroom for the lower half of the box.

At the grade school where I attended so many years ago, the walls were all painted with an industrial green paint, similar to what's here. And, yes, I sat in desks fastened in rows to 1 x 4 boards, just like these are in this tiny classroom. We even used the Big Chief tablets for writing in when I was a kid - just like this one I found at a miniature store.

Other than the tablet and the books on the desk, I made everything in the room as well as the cabinet that this is in. If you study the chair in detail, you'll notice that the three spindles in the middle are a bit mismatched. I didn't do that on purpose. It just happened.

I made all of the spindles for the chair using toothpicks for the wood. I "turned" the wood with needle files. Since I didn't have a lathe at that time, I would hold a needle file against the toothpick using my thumb to apply pressure and turned the toothpick around and around with my other hand until I got the approximate "turning" that I wanted. I used the triangular shaped needle files to create sharp lines and the round needle file or the half-round needle file to create more rounded grooves. Depending on where I placed the needle file helped determine how wide the gouge would be. I would then finish the turning with pieces of fine grit sandpaper.

The pencils in the pencil cup were two more toothpicks that I made ever so tiny using the same turning method and an emery board. The apple on the teacher's desk was a wooden bead.

If you look really closely, you'll notice another error I made in building the room. I didn't realize that the wood of my wainscoting would shrink over time. (I made this nearly 30 years ago.) Since it did shrink, there are gaps exposed between the pieces of wood I used for the wainscoting. I wish I had taken a dark felt pen and had colored the wall with a stripe about 1/8" wide behind the area where the wood came together. The shrinkage would have been far less visible as a result.

The truth is, I think most of our best learning occurs from our mistakes, and I made some with this project.

Looking Into The Shop Window

2009-03-16T18:22:00.006-05:00

I received a nice note from Brenda that concluded, "I would never dream of having the ability to do what you do..." That makes me feel a little sad when I hear that, because so many folks have the ability, if they have the right tools and/or the right resources. I've just been incredibly lucky in that regard.

Please know this: I got a D in wood shop in the 7th grade! Of course, I wouldn't mind showing that shop teacher a few of my pieces today...

A lot of the stuff I do requires patience, occasionally a steady hand, and a willingness to give new things a try. I'm hopeful that through this blog I can inspire others to try some new things in mini-making. There are always new skills and new approaches to learn. Sometimes the items I work on turn out wonderfully. Other times, well, let's just say the old shop teacher would have smiled and said, "See? I told you so!"

I often talk to myself when I'm working - sometimes out loud and frequently within my head. I coach myself as I go with statements such as: "Careful! Slow down. Steady.... Did you measure that right? Check it again! Looking good. Yes! That's the way to do it." I try to tune out the voice that says, "I could never do that..." Instead, I more often think, "I'd like to try that sometime..." It certainly leaves me with endless projects to do!

All of this said, please understand how much I appreciate your kind comments for this blog. Thank you, Brenda, and thank you also to the many others of you who have left such kind comments!

More Uses for Jeweler's Saws

2009-03-15T22:07:00.005-05:00

The sign "GOGANY" and the panels just below the roof line were all cut out using a jeweler's saw. The shop was a miniature club project. We were given the basic box with a front window and sidewalk and room for a front door. What we did with it from there was up to the individuals.

GOGANY stands for George's Oddities, Gimcracks, Antiques and Nicknacks of Yesteryear. In other words, a store full of odds and ends - a great way for me to include "stuff" I've collected or received over the years; although, it hardly made a dent in that collection! The rocking horse in the foreground was my Christmas gift to club members one year. I made a couple extras so that my children would also have one. For the life of me, I don't recall who made the doll. We bought her at a miniature show, and she's a gem!

You may notice that the letters for GOGANY may appear to be rounded on the edges. They are. Once I cut them out with the jeweler's saw, I used one other tool that I most frequently rely on with miniatures - an emery board. I use these tools to sand off any rough edges, smooth any bad cuts and in this case to finish off the letters making them nice and round! I sometimes cut the boards in half lengthwise (or even narrower) as needed to get inside tight areas for sanding purposes.

Another Example...

2009-03-13T17:48:00.004-05:00

Here's another example of a multi-layered piece. Again, I used cherry wood (my favorite for carving and furniture making). This piece was very challenging, due to the various angles, shapes and pieces of wood involved. The bonnet in the center posed some particularly difficult problems in how to piece together the top horizontal pieces of wood, which were routed, to the hand-sawn and carved bonnet piece in the center. The carved pieces on the corners (also cut out with the jeweler's saw and then shaped, carved and sanded) were much easier to fit into the scheme of the piece. (If you want to view the piece in larger size to see the detail, I think you can click on the photo.)

Where the Jeweler's Saw Shines

2009-03-12T19:07:00.004-05:00

This bookcase is one of my pride and joys. A number of years ago, my wife gave me a book titled Blackie and Sons The Victorian Cabinet Maker's Assistant. It was filled with what I thought were accurate scale drawings. Turns out, not quite.

I followed the drawings to a T only to discover that the top portion of this bookcase could never hold any books on the shelves - they were too short! The two months' worth of carving the side pieces for the top had to be done all over again, only taller. Aargh! Sometimes miniaturing is an exercise in patience!

Everywhere you see fancy filigree on this piece, I used a jeweler's saw to cut it out. The teeth on a jeweler's saw are so tiny on the smallest blades, you can't even see them. You can only feel them when you run your finger up the blade. The blade I currently have in my saw is .48 deep by .2 mm thick. In inches, that's .013" x .007". Tiny! You can drill a hole the size of a pin and thread the blade up through to do your cutting.

The disadvantage to using a jeweler's saw is the delicateness of the blade. If you don't keep the saw perfectly vertical as you saw or if you try to push too hard as you make a downward stroke, the blade snaps. If you're lucky, you may have snapped it at one of the extreme ends of the blade instead of in the middle, which means you can shorten the saw and keep using the same blade! (I LOVE that about the jeweler's saw!)

By the way, there are three layers of wood in the front drawer of this bookcase and on the sides, too. I cut out the outside of the carved design first from 1/32" cherry wood, then glued the piece to another equally thin piece of cherry wood. (I used clothes pins as my clamps to hold the piece in place while it dried.) Then I cut out the inside, giving me a depth of 1/16". Then I glued this piece to another 1/32" piece of wood. So, it's approximately one inch thick in scale.