Warp Wrestling....

A Twisty Business.....

I Left you last week, Dear Readers, with the unfinished repairs to the base of the Dollmaker's Studio and the woeful discovery of my dead drill. You can imagine my happiness when I happened to mention the dead drill to a co-worker the next morning and she said "You can have the one Randy (our boss) gave me when I moved here. I'm not using it!" And she brought it to work the following day! So I was able to tackle the Warp Issues on the weekend without having to purchase a new drill! I wish I could say the rest of the repairs were that easy. The plywood I used is quite thin... only 1/4 inch thick, so any screws used need to be pre-drilled quite carefully right along the edge of the facing board. This is hard to do with a bent and twisted board! I decided to get the less warped side done first and screw it in place (not yet with glue so it was still removable) and then wrestle the warped side, one screw at a time until all of them were aligned correctly.

This is what the base looked like to begin with... 

the front panel not attached. 

(Sorry for the blurry photos....! My camera

 is getting old and the light is not the best...)

And because I did not remember to take photos

 of the Wrestling match in progress.... 

here you can see the front panel

 with screws on both ends... still not glued.

The next step was to add the cross-beams

 at the front and back which would tie

 the warped walls firmly together at the top.

Here you can see both of them added, 

making a sturdy framework at the top of the room.

This required screwing a longer screw through

 from the outside corners into the long beam. 

The front panel is still removable.....

Because it is easier to add the hinges to the doors

 while the whole panel is unattached...

(And the newly added cross beams are holding 

the warped wall in place... for the moment!)

And this time when I attach the panel, 

I added glue to the joined edges.

Here you can see a close-up of the more warped side.... 

wrestled into alignment as best I could!

And yes, there are a Mighty mess of screws involved!

These will be covered by the "stone" facade of the base.

But first I needed to add primer to the doors....

And even though the walls are straightened out... the floor is not!

Here you can see I am testing the upper floor added onto the base.

I have increased the ceiling height of the upstairs room

 by extending the walls of the base above the floor level...

The junction of the walls will require some finesse... 

still in the "development" stage!

But the floor does help hold the building "square".

Meanwhile, I have begun to make the egg carton "stones" for the floor....

I am not attaching them until I figure out

 what to do about the warp in the Floor!

Should I build a framework to go under the floor... 

thereby raising the whole structure?

 Or should I just screw the floor 

to the base board now.. and forever...?

I don't really want to do either!

I am reluctant to raise the floor... 

it is supposed to be stone on the ground....

 

And I don't want to attach the whole building 

firmly to the base at this early stage of the build....

Hmmmmm...... this will take some thinking....!

Even though, without thinking it through...

 I started to attach the "stones" 

on the outside of the wall by the door!

(Which will make the courses wrong

 if I add a framework under the floor...!)

Aiy-yi-yi!!!

I declare, Dear Readers,

This Warp-wrestling is a Twisty Business

That might just have me tied up in knots!