Just a Quick Note

I've been rather quiet lately, and it may continue for a little while yet; we have three family members in hospital, in Europe and in Canada, and in this time of Covid there is, of course, no visiting, so we are having to rely on information from doctors and nurses via the patients' family members. We have been keeping in regular touch with their families for updates, and it sounds like there is good progress.

Today, we woke up to more than a foot of snow (nearly 30 cm); it is very pretty against the bright blue sky, but it is also quite messy. I managed to drive my car into and out of a parking lot that had not yet been cleared of snow, and really worried I wouldn't be able to leave again, but my small car is mightier than I thought, I guess, as I made it back out to the cleared road with only minor slipping.

There has been an urgent demand  locally for hats and socks for the homeless, so minis are temporarily on the back burner, although I hope to get some mini work done tomorrow during our regular Wednesday virtual meeting.

Stay well and stay safe!

Magnolia Shrubs

I mentioned that I was making some magnolia shrubs for the planters outside the flower shop, Floriana. This is the first attempt; although I like the look of the plants, the bare branches looked odd to me. The only thing I could do to finish things up, was to make some flower and leaf buds. For these, I used tiny painted twists of model magic, a very lightweight air-dry clay.

After painting them a very light green, I glued them here and there on the shrubs, and once the glue was dry, brushed the bases very lightly with a nearly dry brush and the colour of the branches. The petals were made from white paper, one side coloured with a pink-purple colouring pencil, following a tutorial in the May/June/July 2020 issue of 1 zu 12 magazine, written by Hannelore Merchel.

They look quite nice in the French wooden planters, either side of the door to Floriana. A very small touch of spring, when it is bitterly cold outside with lots of snow. Because of where we live, the sky is an incredible light turquoise blue, a colour I always associate with the coldest winter days, and the sun is bravely shining.

Back to the wooden shoe workshop now....

 

The Back Wall Is In Place!

OK. I haven't been posting that much, because I will admit it took some courage to tackle this large back wall of the wooden shoe factory. However, after doing the right back corner section, I realized it would be much easier to do all the rest at once, and I decided today was the day.

It didn't take as long as I feared it would; I worked in 10 cm (4") wide sections from floor to slanted beam, and it looks as if it just might work. There is some unevenness where the sections join, but I can likely sand that into shape and use paint to sort the rest. The dividing wall slots nicely into place in the space left for it; I used a scrap  piece of wood during the stuccoing process to keep it clear of the paper clay.

Now that that wall is done - well, except for painting and aging - I can decide where to place my little pot-belly stove, which warms the workshop on cold days. I have a metal pencil sharpener stove for this purpose, but think it should really stand on a brick base, rather than right on the tamped "clay" floor. I also have to decide where to place it; the original has it in the right back corner, but I think it would warm the space better if it was in the centre of the side wall. 

The stove requires piping, and that involves cutting off the metal top in order to add a section to go into the wall. It will also require a fitting on the wall, which I will have to work around when I put the paper clay stucco on that wall. I can't do the floor until I have the walls in place, but I can probably place the windows and the door. That should make it look much closer to finishing!

I am going to assemble two magnolia bushes destined for the planters of the flower shop this afternoon, provided the stink of burning plastic disappears! It looks like the built-in vacuum cleaner has just died...

What Happens If You Don't Think

This morning, I tested the long slanted roof section of the wooden shoe factory, after having finally glued in the buttresses and the toilet block. The roof section wouldn't fit! Scratching my head, I decided I didn't think ahead well enough; the thickness of the paper clay stucco on the hallway wall took up a good 1/8" of space (approx. 3 mm) . Not a huge measurement in the common run of things, but it makes a big difference in 1/12th scale!

Scary! I had to trim back the finished stucco, and hope I didn't chip things too badly. It is all to the better that I discovered this now, as I will have to do the same thing in the corner of the workshop, and it would have been a lot more difficult to chip away in that confined space. The dividing wall hasn't been glued in place yet, as I still have to do the "clay" floors. It was, therefore, fairly easy to lay it flat on my worktable and slice and sand away.

Lots of dust mess, minimal chipping of the rest of the wall(whew!), and now it fits. But, I wasn't thinking ahead again, and I knocked two of the little coat pegs out of the other side of the wall. Sigh! Now I will put those back in place, which involves Superglue, and that item and I do not have a good working relationship....

Wooden Shoe Workshop Progress Report

 Two of us managed to get together on-line today for a miniature meeting. During the meeting, I dirtied up the hallway and sink area, fitted up the window, and added the faucet.

Apart from the hallway floor, there are now two areas of the workshop that are pretty much done, ready to have accessories installed. The smaller bench to sit in the hallway is stained and ready to assemble, later this evening.

A close-up of the janitor's sink, faucet and drainage basin in the hallway, with the bathroom's green door to the left. I added some more "dirt" above the grate after seeing this photo, as I suspect there would be lots of splashed water from the grate to dirty up the wall. I'm pleased with my afternoon's work.

The "dirtying" was all done with chalks, in ochre, cinnamon, brown, gray and black, with a coarse bristle paint brush. The cracks in the stucco were done with a fine paintbrush and very diluted gray paint. Next job is to lay the crack or joint filler floor, and paint that. Once that is done, the bathroom wall and stairs can be put in, and then it's on to the workshop area proper. Just having the window in adds to the look of the thing, I think!

Working Away!

With the drying times involved here, it is going a little slower than I had hoped. However, I am still plugging away at the Klompenfabriek, and here are a few progress photos. The photo above is of the clay freshly applied to the wall, with a skewer keeping the hole for the faucet free of clay. As everything is quite wet here, I set the wall down flat on my table (the Lego bricks keep the screws from scratching the table surface.) The tools to the right are what I used to texture and shape the clay; my knife, a rubber-tipped sculpting tool, and a brass bristle brush. The latter is used to make the tiny pits in the wet clay that make it look like stucco.

(If you enlarge the photo, you can see some rather linear pits, upwards and to the right of the brick section. This was removed using my fingers, and then re-pitted using the small end of the brush. Photos are super for showing you what needs fixing....)

The brick insert is at the level of the faucet, and was made of left-over paper clay bricks that I glued on to a piece of paper for stability.  I was a little concerned that the moisture in the cellulose clay might affect those bricks. The whole required about 24 hours to dry completely.

The clay was rolled out as thinly as possible on a smooth glass cutting board; in the past, I've been able to roll the clay on a backing of waxed paper, which allowed me to move it with minimal problems to my wall surface. However, either the composition of the wax paper or the clay has changed, as the paper shredded. There followed half an hour of picking shreds of thin damp paper off the paper clay....(Some bad words were used.) Fortunately, I was able to gently roll the clay off the glass surface, and apply it to the wood, with yellow carpenter's glue.

The stucco has had its initial coat of paint, mostly white with a bit of ochre and grey. The next job is to age the stucco with chalks and paint. There is a fitting in the wall now, at the top of brick section, for the faucet to go in. The photo I had of this wall from the museum photo showed the faucet just stuck on to the stucco wall; however, I felt it needed a proper fitting to look authentic. I punched a small circle out of cardboard, with a small hole in the centre, painted it medium grey and then over-painted it with pewter metallic, so that it would look rather worn and old. Once the aging and dirtying is done, I can do the floor of the hallway. The sink will eventually be glued to the floor.

One inadvertent miscalculation is the long bench destined for the hallway; it is too long, in relation to the janitor's sink. That bench will  move to another project, and I'll make a better size to replace it. It would have worked if the sink was off-centre, but I didn't like the look of that. The small spaces in the corner can now hold a broom or mop. Much of this will be invisible when the bathroom door is open!

 

This Might Become a Two-Burner Hot Plate

Well, our part of the world is back into "extreme danger" or Red Phase as far as Covid-19 is concerned, and I am very grateful that I have the computer and Skype to get together with my mini friends. We met up yesterday afternoon, with Louise working on extending her farmhouse and Marilyn working on a secret project; I decided to try and produce an antique-looking two-burner hot plate for the wooden shoe workshop.

It is built, like so much these days, from bits rescued from the scrap pile. The basic build has worked out as I had hoped, except that I should have made the thing a little taller in order to add knobs at the front; as it is, the knobs will have to go on the corner squares.

If you click on the photo, it should enlarge; this would allow you to see better that the base of the hot plate has a trim of button-hole thread. The whole construction, except for the burners, will be painted in an as yet undecided colour, and then I hope to pick out the thread trim with some gold Treasure Wax. Old appliances were often quite fancifully decorated.

The two floral-shaped bead caps are intended to become the bottoms of the knobs, with a bead of some sort on top of that. A few months ago, I found a treasure trove of jewelry findings in a charity shop, and I now have enough bits to last me several lifetimes! There are some small knurled knobs, which are actually bead spacers, that will make ideal knobs for the little hot plate.

I am still deciding what would work best as the burners themselves; the female part of a large snap fastener, or the male part. Either way, I will have to go to the sewing store for that, and most if not all shops are currently closed....