Plan B....

 

Build It Better....

I am Happy to Report, Dear Readers, that I was wrong on at least two occasions in my recent posts! I had mentioned that the only light in The Tower no longer working was the Stable's lantern which would need to be entirely re-built. So I was very pleasantly surprised, as I was fidgeting with the lantern trying to decide how best to re-build it, to discover that the only thing wrong with it was a very loose light bulb! Once it was properly screwed in, I plugged in the cord and It worked! No need for a major re-design. My initial wiring did leave me room to access the socket and tighten the bulb. And you can see in the above picture, However dimly lit, that I had also patched over all those screws that were used to attach the exterior stairs. It was a simple matter to re-paint the rocks....

Can you see any screw heads in this picture?

All that remained to fix were the grout lines....

 

As you can see in this shot....

 pretty difficult to tell the screws are there!

But the second place where I was mistaken, 

Dear Readers, required a little more work to fix.

My lovely Stables "door bar" which seemed to work so easily

 with just the screw to turn the bar.... stopped working.

I was going to have to re-design the method 

for raising and lowering the bar from outside the Castle.

This took some serious thought!

But I came up with a solution!

 

I reasoned that the bar would need to be attached firmly to the pivot,

 and that would need to be attached to a lever from the outside.

Since the metal screw became loose in the wood after only a little use,

 I decided the whole structure needed to be made of wood.

I needed to use a wooden dowel, of sufficient diameter to be sturdy, 

(in this case 1/4 inch) and I would need to "square it up

 where it attached to the bar so it could not easily slip when turned.

The hole in the bar needed to be squared too,

 so it fit snugly like a tenon in old fashioned post and beam construction.

Like so.

The hole through the wall needed to be enlarged to take the dowel width...

I needed to be very careful that I left enough "wall" beside the hole..... 

(this might be a weak spot, but it doesn't get stressed by the turning)

 

This is the bar in place.....

And in the "up" position. It works, it fits.... 

but I need to build the "lever" for the outside.

The other end of the dowel would need to 

be "squared" to fit into the lever bar....

And I needed to start the "rocks" which surround the door on the outside

 so that the lever could be positioned at the right depth

 to be able to turn and not catch on the rocks.

The new "lever" basically sits on top of the rock surrounding the door.

When the "lever" is down, it means the bar is in

 the "up" position and the doors can open.

When the "lever" is pointed up, the bar is down.... 

here you can see it because the doors are still open.

If they were closed, the bar would grab into the holds!

See?  

The lever and the bar are both securely tenoned on the dowel!

It works!

And you might have noticed, Dear Readers, 

that while I have been wrestling with this complicated little lever,

 I have also begun painting the rocks on the Tower walls!

Well, first the primer coat....

Then the base coat of light gray....

Then the darker detailing of the "stonework" surrounding the door...

 

 Still in the just "roughing" it in stage....

Gradually trying to define the "rocks"......

And with the magic "grout lines" added....

Wow.... what a difference they make!

So you can see what a difference

 Plan B makes, Dear Readers,

Building it Better is always worth the effort!