Working on the Workshop Stove

We were unable to get together for our virtual meeting last week, but we are having two meetings this week. Today's meeting was another virtual one, and I did a little more work on the workshop, assembling a more convincing stove and a brick platform for it to stand on.

The actual stove is a pencil sharpener, in pot metal, with a sort of bronze-brown finish. First of all, I had to take the little conical cap off the pipe at the back; this has been replaced by a new pipe made from a bendy drinking straw, a piece of dowel to reinforce both the long pipe and the curved top, strips of manila file folder for the joins, and eventually a washer for the fitting in the wall. The flashing on the stove's lid was removed with files and an emery board. The stove will stand on a brick base, to make it more fireproof.

Now I have to wait for all the various glues to dry; I used the pot metal, a plastic straw, card, and wooden dowel, so several kinds of glue were used. The one that takes the longest to cure is the metal glue to re-glue the bent pipe from the back of the little stove on to the stove again; it broke off when the cone was being sawed off. Then I get to paint it; right now, spray paint seems the best way to do it, but it is very cold here and I can't spray paint in the house; I may have to make a spray booth out of a cardboard box, and use the storage area in the basement....

When this is all dry, I can test-fit it into the wooden shoe workshop, to see where it is best placed; I kind of want it in the centre of the right side wall, but it may interfere with the space needed for all the shoe-carving equipment. I also have to mark its position on the wall, before I put the paper clay stucco on.

We are having a rare face-to-face meeting this Friday, weather permitting, as we are currently in a favourable phase with regard to the pandemic. I am not sure what I will manage to get done that day, as we are sharing some of our supplies to continue work on our various projects. Those will be dug out tomorrow, ready for my fellow miniaturists to check out.