Dealing with treasures, cont.

If you are curious about what I did with all the treasures I showed in my previous post, here are some reports.

I was right about the unusual chest of drawers: it looks great in the yarn shop. The old table was, like in so many projects, a temporary solution that just hanged on, until the right piece turns up. I have put some stuff in drawers.  The cash machine is probably slightly too big, but I don't think it matters. It looks much better than the old, modern one made from a printie.

Removing the glass and putting it back was easy, so my glazing solution works well. (You can see the before-image of the shop in the linked post).

Replacing the chandelier in the reception room was surprisingly painless. I didn't even have to remove the whole floor above, just lift it a bit. I think I did the same when I put up the current one. This is possible because I always assemble floors on card so they are relatively easy to remove or lift.

Since the new chandelier has a hanging hook rather than a ring, I thought about a new way of attaching it. Rather than using thin wine wire as before, I made a loop from champagne wire, put the ends through the hole and bent the ends. It is a stronger fixture; it looks both neater and more natural. The whole operation took me about five minutes. In case you wonder, the ceiling rose is made from a cheese box lid.

Obviously, I had to remove all objects from the drawing room above, and when I was putting them back I thought that the new clock would look nice on the chest. And more period-correct.

This is what happens: adding and replacing all the time. We do this in our 1:1 life as well, don't we?

I planned to move the chandelier from the reception room to the upper hall, but it proved next to impossible. The floor above is firmly attached, with a staircase glued on to it, so that would demand serious reconstruction I am not prepared for.

 

After trying the chandelier here and there, I have decided to replace the one in the music room. I am doing it reluctantly and with a strong sense of guilt because this chandelier was among the very, very first objects I made, more than ten years ago. I still like it and will use it in another project. But at the moment this feels the right thing to do.

Again, I didn't have to remove the whole floor, and I used my newly acquired technique, although this chandelier has a ring rather than hook. So this time I did the opposite: made a hook out of wire, ran it through the whole and bent, then hung the chandelier on it. This way, next time I want to change the light, I won't have to remove floors. Why haven't I thought about it before? Seems elementary now.

So the music room now looks like this (I see I need to adjust the candles - they keep falling off). 

Wait a minute, you are probably saying now, what about the master bedroom that was supposed to get one of those grand chandeliers to match the mirror? Ah, do you remember the two-arm chandelier I was planning to put into the working kitchen? It is now going into the master bedroom. The room above is nursery which doesn't even have a hardwood floor (reminder to improve this!) so it was as easy as it can be. And here we are. Yes, the ceiling rose is a yogurt lid. 

Full view of the room:

I am sooooo pleased with all these changes, not least because they turned out to be significantly less arduous than anticipated. And as I am looking at the rooms, it feels they have always been like this. A good sign.

I now have two nice lights to use somewhere else. I am sure I will think of the right place for them.

The outcome of this exercise is that I have discovered carefully suppressed flaws that need attention (not just the nursery floor), and I am looking forward to returning to Womble Hall after a long pause while I was occupied with other projects.

Come back soon.

Tall case clock

This weekend my miniature group decided to make a clock. There are four clock kits in the series, of which one is very common and the other three less so and therefore expensive. I paid more for the very last one I bought than I will admit. But we decided to make the most common clock, William and Mary tall case clock.

 

I had had it for quite a while and heard intimidating stories of how difficult it was, as well as an encouraging story of how easy it was. Anyway, this was the kit we decided to make, and making things with the group has become a source of much joy.

I had never made a tall case clock. I have upcycled many clocks for my clockmaker roombox (this post also shows a clock made from a very crude kit). So I was rather apprehensive, but I have made some sophisticated miniatures recently.

I decided to stain the clock with light oak. Maybe because I only had very little left in the jar it was darker than I wanted, but I still had to use 3-4 coats.

Then I started the assembly in the order prescribed in instructions. Sometimes order is crucial.

The base was easy, but the case kept falling apart, and I had to fix it with masking tape. 

Gluing together the base and the case was easy, as was gluing together the top part, which I now know, after some research, is called the bonnet.

Then I glued on the pediment and thought it looked too large. My group ensured me it was ok. 

 

At this point, I needed to switch my attention to the door, and as usual I attached the knob while the door was still flat, but I had to varnish it before. Then there was quite a complicated operation involving hinge brackets which I did wrong and had to do again, and it took some time to dry.

Meanwhile, I looked at the pendulum, chain and weights. The instruction said cut the chin into two uneven parts, which I did before thinking, immediately realising that it would have made more sense to use the chain in one piece, running it through the holes and attaching weights after. But now it was too late. I used my strong all-purpose Swedish glue for the weights, not sure it would hold, but it did - so far. But rather than gluing the chains - with weights - into holes I used my favourite wine-bottle wire to hold them together on top of the block. 

 

I thought I was very clever, and maybe I was, but there was a problem later on, of which in due time. So far I tried the assembly in the case, and it looked good.

The upper block is not glued in yet because it had to be done together with installing the door. It was quite late in the evening, and I was tired so I left the door until the day after and instead finished the face. I considered finding a more interesting face on the web, as I did with some clocks, but decided against it. It wasn't too bad. In cheap clocks and on faces from the web, the hands are fake, but here were two tiny hands, and I knew there was no way I could glue them on perfectly in the centre. The instruction suggested that a small pin could be used (not provided), and I opted for this solution. My drill didn't like the metal plate, but finally I got through. I used an ordinary sewing pin cut off by half. This way the hands even can be moved.

 

Can you, honestly, remember whether the hour hand goes on top of the minute hand or the other way round? I had to go and check my 1:1 tall case clock.

The day after I finally had to deal with the door, and it went surprisingly easy after the first unfortunate attempt. The trick was to insert the door and the upper block with pendulum and weights at the same time. You'd need an extra hand. 

The last step was to glue on the bonnet, and here I realised that I had been smart with the chains and now had wire on top of the assembly which meant that the bonnet would not fit neatly. Since it was too late to do anything about the chains I had to cut out a groove in the bottom of the bonnet, which nobody will ever see unless they for whatever reason dismantle the clock bit by bit.

 

In the end, I am quite pleased. I still think the pediment is too large, but that's not my problem. As I was making this clock I believed that I wouldn't like it, but that I could always put it in the clockmaker roombox. As it is, I like it well enough to put it in the dining room. It is taller than the Barton clock that was there before, and therefore it is better visible. 

 

 The dining room is getting tremendously crammed with furniture, including the recent additions: the side table, the serving table, the dumb waiter and the cellarette. 

 

Junk jewellery clock

As the last project of this rainy weekend I made a clock from one of the many junk bits of my treasure chest. I was looking for something else when this piece caught my attention:

Of course it was a clock! I removed the stone - good jewellery-making tools are essential for this kind of work.

Then I cut a clock face to fit into the frame and attached it to the wire with masking tape. I cut the chains to have two open chains rather than two loops and added two beads for weights. Finally I glued a tiny ornament on top. Of course, mechanically it wouldn't work, but I think it was fun to use the original shape.

This will be a good addition to my clockmaker's shop.

More furniture renovation

I have bought a cheap bundle of furniture on ebay, advertised as "in need of repair". On closer inspection it was carelessly assembled and unfinished. In other words, a challenge.

I started with the clock, since it would fit nicely into my clockmaker's shop. This is what it looked like and what I did with it:

First of all, since it is kit furniture, it has ugly tabs which I learned how to deal with when I made half-scale kits. I cut off the tabs (picture in the middle) and sandpapered until the surface was smooth. I painted the inside of the clock dark brown, and I painted the pendulum gold. I then stained it with mahogny stain and gave it a coat of varnish. If I had made it from kit I would have glued in "glass" from the inside, but I couldn't do it now, so I cut a piece as neatly as possible. I glued on a face from another clock that I had remade - with this one, it didn't look bad at all. And I covered the places where the tabs were still visible with golden stickers. 

Here it is in the clockmaker's shop - which has developed a lot since I last showed it here: 

 

There are several new long-case, or grandfather clocks which I have improved. There are also several new mantel clocks that I have bought in a bundle from ebay (there are still more models I haven't got so I am hunting for bargains). But I am most proud of two recent additions:

I bought them on the same day from two different sellers. The one on the left is a pen sharpener of brass-like metal. The pendulum moves if you shake the clock, but at least it looks natural. The clock on the right is a collector's item from Durham Industries, of which I could not find much information except that there are lots of miniatures on ebay and elsewhere, and the marking says Durham Industries, New York, Made in Hong Kong 1972.  There is a knob on the back which makes the pendulum move. I think both are lovely and a very good complement to the clockmaker's stock. Items like these, put in the foreground, make a huge difference in a room box or any miniature environment.

More clock makeovers

I need many clocks for my clockmaker's shop, and I was lucky to get a set of four on ebay.

They are not particularly pretty, and who'd want identical clocks in a shop anyway. So my task was to make them all different and attractive. I started with the bigger one and followed instructions from Jean Nisbett's helpful book on converting standard ugly furniture into pretty and unique. Nisbett recommends enamel hobby paint, but I prefer ordinary water-based acryl.

First, I painted the clock dark green. I didn't have the right colour, so I mixed green with brown.

Then I used a coat of lighter green, which I immediately wiped with a cloth, and after it had almost dried, used sandpaper unevenly over the surfaces.  Then I used a coat of varnish.

 

I made the face from a printie, covered with transparent plastic. I used ready-made sticker decorations.

With the second clock, I wasn't as elaborate. I simply stained it with mahogny and varnished. I glued on a wind-up button from a real watch. In the picture below, I placed an original clock by its side to show the difference.

The remaning two clocks I decorated in various ways. I glued some lace on one and painted and varnished it. I deliberately let the original surface show through a bit since it creates a worn effect. The last one I painted with Swedish "country red" which gave it a more noble light-wooden finish. The pendulum is an envelope clip. All faces are from the web.

I also have an original Barton grandfather clock with movable hands, the origin of which I cannot remember, but I know I haven't paid a fortune for it and didn't at that time know it was a Barton (or what Barton was for that matter). It is too big for the clockmaker's shop, and I have always had it in the Victorian house.

Cuckoo clock

For my clockmaker shop, I am renovating all kinds of clocks, and one of them is this: you may recognise it from children's dollhouse accessories. But I have made it over quite substantially, as you can see.

First, obviously, I painted it dark brown, stained with mahogny and varnished. I changed rope to chain. I used a real clock face and real hands, which I must admit I glued on. The tiny wheel on top is a real cogwheel. I think it was worth the effort.

Clockmaker's shop, continued

As I have said repeatedly, a miniature project is never finished, and I am still waiting for an ebay lot of clocks, but I can show details of the clockmaker's shop as they are now. First, there is a table with all kinds of things on it. The table comes from another dollhouse where I have now replaced it with something else. It fits much better here.

The box used to be a yellow plastic shelf from the plastic house. The parts are real clock parts that I use for steampunk jewellery, and so are the clock faces. The tools in tumblers are also tiny clock parts. The magnifying glass, spectacles and chain watch are from various lots.

Now I am going clockwise (sorry, unintended pun!) around the walls.


 
The hourglass is a miniature that I bought long before I started miniature-making. It fits in nicely here. The cuckoo clock - rather ugly - is from an ebay lot. The silver clock is a pin. The ornate mirror is from one of my recent flea market rounds. I have "aged" it by painting it with a thin layer of black watercolor. Mirrors create interesting effects, so I have several very small ones here and there. The bats (Christmas crackers) are for the atmosphere. On the chest (which comes from a serious antique shop):




A pretty notebook somebody gave me. An antique stamp shaped as an owl. Not sure it really fits in, but can stay for a while, as well as the bottle and the chess piece. Three clocks from charity shops.

The white grandfather clock has an interesting history. The metal clock beside is actually working: a battery-powered desk clock. 

The steampunk construction is made from plastic cogwheels that I painted copper. Most clocks are buttons, but the one in the middle is made from a beer can ring. Note the tiny mirror on the right.

The magnificent corner shelf was bought in a thrift shop for 50p. It has a real miniature compass and some other trinkets. The spiders are for atmosphere (luckily, I have no arachnophobia).

Finally, my pride, the large wall clock, made from a picture frame that I painted gold and a pair of crazy earrings donated by someone. The small clock is a button, and its pendulum obviously an envelope clip. The round mirror is old and naturally aged and cracked.

I have just discovered a site with a hundred different antique clock faces. Come back soon!