Castle Windows...

Shedding A Little Light...

It has Shocked me, Dear Readers, to realize that I started to build The Castle Dollhouse ten years ago in February. If you study the earliest posts on this blog, which I began Ten Years ago this week, you will find that I was eagerly and diligently focused on this project. Well, this and the Lovely Old Dollhouse too, and The Folly... but I was making very steady progress on the Castle. I never would have thought it would still be so far from finished after Ten Years! But so it is. I will not waste time lamenting a process that has been so much fun over so many years, but will get on with showing you the process I developed for the windows, oh so many years ago. You must understand that I knew very little about building dollhouses back then, and had barely discovered blogs and the internet... so there were many shortcuts and techniques that I knew nothing about. To begin with this is a completely self-built Dollhouse. I drew up the plans, cut up the plywood and drilled and glued the pieces together. I owe a great deal to the Inspiration of a former blogger whose blog "the Tudor Medieval Jacobean Queen Anne's Dollhouse" started me on many of the methods I chose, in particular the tiles for the Great Hall Floor were a direct inspiration from Nina's work. But when it came to the windows I wanted real glass. And there are no ready built kits for real glass Medieval windows. So I was on my own! The method I came up with is time consuming, but it allows for the unforgiving nature of glass and the results are relatively convincing. The theory is that I build a "glass sandwich" with the pane of glass between two layers of thin basswood or plywood cut to fit the window opening. Remember that because I cut all these openings myself... they are highly irregular!
In the above picture you can see the Council Chamber window with the back layer of the 1/8 inch thick plywood cut to fit snugly inside the window opening.

I cut two of these and sanded them to fit as closely as I could.... 

the light shining through the gaps magnifies them!

And you can see how irregular the shape really is.

(My theory is that the builders of this Castle 

had to make do with some inexperienced stone cutters!)

Once I had the two panels fitted, 

I needed to cut away the center to leave

 a thin framework of plywood. 

This was easier in theory than in practice... 

the plywood I had was splintering terribly

 and the layers were not holding together..... 

I was really not sure it would work!

But with careful planning the splintered side of the wood

 could be toward the glass and therefore not visible...

Above you can see the test fit for the back side of the frame.

Meanwhile, because we are Staying Home

 and NOT going out unnecessarily to shop....

 I needed to use some of my old scrap off-cuts of glass

 that had not broken cleanly on earlier glass projects...

 specifically The Glass House at the Folly.

There were a few little pieces that

 just might work if trimmed a little more...

And then I had to dig out the Old Bottle

 of Faux Lead Line for Glass painting...

 and by some miracle it was still unopened

 and was still perfectly good!

But my ability to make good clean lines

 with it was sadly out of shape....

I left it to dry and went out to work in the RL Garden...

Therapy for the Soul at this time of year!

I was not sure I would get anywhere with this window!

But here you can see the test fit for the painted back section of the frame.

Yes, it has gotten very late... and dark...

 

 

 And I was also fitting a thick wooden shutter to cover the entire window...

Made from the cut-out piece of one of the other windows.

And in the open position..... just look at all those Hinges!

(You do know how much I Love hinges!)

The following morning once the "lead" paint was dry enough

 I had to test it to see how it would fit in the window...

 

For the first test fit it doesn't look too bad!

(I am feeling encouraged!)

But we still have a long way to go.

The lead lines are Way too blobby... 

and the outline is not close enough to the edge of the frame.

But I learned that with care and an exacto knife

 I could trim up the edges of those messy lines.

The more I trimmed the more I saw that needed trimming...

And it needed to be tested to see how it looked.... 

not quite there yet....

And here I'm testing to see if the frame should be a darker color....

But it is getting late again and hard to tell.

 

In the bright light of the following day 

I painted black around the outside edges

 of the "lead" framing... to fill in the gaps.

And tested it again....

The light coming in the window behind is too bright...!

So I blocked the light, the better to see

 the frame and the leading...

I think the darker frame is not right...

but want to test it with the Fireplace in place...

Definitely too dark. But the lead lines look okay,

 and not too many gaps are showing!

So I repainted the frame... 

to resemble a stone framework....

And testing with the Not-yet-finished shutters...

Split so only half can open at a time.....

Just the lower.....

Or just the Upper....

Or Both!

(See why I Love hinges?!)

But we really need to see it with the Light coming through.....

I think it's getting there!

(Although the pattern is confused by the

 fake stained glass of my RL window behind it!)

So there you can see, Dear Readers,

 how I build the Real glass windows for my Castle,

Just shedding a Little Light!