Monday 27 January 2014

Tudor Apothecary Workshop Tall Chimney

The computer went to the PC Girls today, and they discovered that there was a problem with an old IP address that wasn't randomizing (whatever that means!). Hopefully, I can now upload photos again.


Yes, it worked! The chimney at this point is only attached to the roof gable, the two side pieces have to go on yet, as well as the open end gable. The fit is pretty good, I may have to do a tiny bit of added clay to hide the teeny gap I can see. The back roof, when it is finished, fits flush with the back side of the Apothecary Workshop, while the front roof with the louvers will overhang the lower story. It's nearly impossible to see that the brick courses in the lower chimney are not quite straight, thank goodness.

One of the small problems I didn't think about was covering the join between the lower and second stories; it is quite wide, so I think I may have to do a single extra-wide strip there, rather than two strips. That would create a lip to hold the roof in place - it will continue to be removable for ease of display and moving it.

Next will be the chimney cap, and the installation of the chimney pots. More clay work, also glue, and patience. Waiting for glue and paint to dry is not one of my favourite activities....

Wednesday 22 January 2014

Tudor Apothecary Workshop Second Story Chimney

Bless my daughter, she figured out what was wrong with Gmail  and was able to upload the photos, so I can show you another "how I do it". As the top courses of the lower story chimney were very crooked - I marked the brick courses while the clay was flat, rather than on the chimney skeleton - I decided to take off the two top courses and re-do them somewhat more straight. For the chimney skeletons we used a scrap of 2 x 4 wood left over from a Real Life building project.




Scraped version of lower story chimney top.


Newly patched top two courses of lower story chimney top. The brick courses have been marked with a steel ruler edge and a tool made out of an expired credit card, something I came across in a very early article Rik Pierce did for one of the American mini magazines. The courses are then further refined with dental tools I begged from our long-time family dentist. Texturing is done with either a stiff, old toothbrush or a small wire brush of the sort sold for cleaning suede shoes. The clay I use dries to a nice brick colour, as you can see.



The photo of the chimney clad in smooth wet clay got lost somewhere in outer space (where do missing photos go?). This is the whole upper  chimney with all the bricks marked and refined with dental tools. I made the usual mistake by missing one brick course while marking in the verticals, which you can just see on the left side of the chimney.  The clay had begun to dry while I was fixing that, which meant it was not inclined to take the texturing. When the clay is completely dry, I will tidy up the edges (there is a little shrinkage, so I usually leave some extra clay top, bottom and sides). Then the next step is painting in the mortar, followed by light colour washes to differentiate the bricks a little.

I have to bevel the edges of both chimney portions a little in order to mark in the mortar line between the two sections. That could be interesting....


Monday 20 January 2014

Problems, Problems, Problems

Google won't let me upload any photos. I bricked the upper chimney of the Tudor Apothecary Workshop today, but can't share the pictures because the computer freezes every time I tried to add photos.


Will try again tomorrow. Hopefully things will have sorted themselves out by then.

Saturday 18 January 2014

The Flu Is Finally Over

Both my carpenter-in-chief and I have been dealing with a nasty, coughing flu. My c-in-c had it for more than two weeks, while I managed to get better again in less time. For a while I could have doubled for Rudolph, my poor nose was that red. Wednesday was the first day I went outside for more than a week.


The roof has finally been cut to accommodate the chimney. I hope to have time to work on it this Sunday, and  to post a photo. Assembling the roof section is a painstaking job, and neither of us are 100% as yet, so only a little gets done at a time. Our brains aren't quite working properly, we can't seem to figure out which pieces have to be assembled first, and everything keeps collapsing as clamps aren't much good on slanted surfaces.


In the meantime, I've been tidying up some of my craft supplies. Apparently, I have a whole plastic bin full of pieces of leather, far too much for just minis, so I am hoping to try miniature cobbling, but at 1/4 human scale rather than 1/12 scale.

Monday 6 January 2014

Tudor Apothecary Shop and Living Quarters



We are currently in the middle of a household flue epidemic, my carpenter-in-chief has been hacking and coughing away for a week now, but insists he is getting better. As the workshop is not heated, and temperatures have hovered below 20 Celsius, I haven't had the heart to ask for the roof to be cut to accommodate the chimney. Yesterday evening, I developed a sore throat and started to cough as well....

Here are most of the components for the second half of the Apothecary, the shop and the tiny  living quarters above it. While waiting for people to get better, I will begin to do some designing on this, deciding where the bricks, stucco and support beams will go. The two sets of stairs have to be covered in a stone effect, and there are an awful lot of small, narrow pieces that will become the raised floor level, which can hopefully hide some of the electric wiring. I may as well brick the lower half of this piece while bricking the (eventual) chimney. In the meantime, it should be possible to cut, sand and stain the beams, and begin the stone work on the stairs.

All that will have to wait, however, until we are all healthy again. Today, it is pouring rain outside. At least that will reduce the level of the snow pack somewhat.  I am not a fan of winter at all....