The Castle Door Continued....

 

 Chip, Chipping Away....

As I Mentioned last week, Dear Readers, a big part of the complicated Castle Entry Construction has to do with the Electrical wiring box location and the attachment of all the wires for this Castle Tower. As I know I mentioned the last time I was cutting wiring channels into this old plywood... a year or two ago?... the wood has hardened with age and is very difficult to carve! The darker wood grain is harder than the lighter sections, but the irregular nature of the ply layering makes it challenging no matter which way you want to go. You can see on the back side (the painted wall) where I have carved the channels for some of the wires but not yet glued the wires in. There are reasons for this! Many of my "lights" are already "antique" (constructed years ago and a bit beat up in construction!) so they need repairs and or revising. And as I was contemplating actually gluing some of the wires in place, I began to think about the inevitable switch to LED lighting that seems to be overtaking the world, both big and small! What to do? Glue in all my old incandescent fixtures knowing I will eventually have to redo them with LED wiring? Or start over now with an entirely new wiring plan? Or plan to be a "hybrid" castle and gradually replace failed incandescents with battery LED fixtures as time goes on? The questions stumped me for a moment or two! But I reasoned that no matter what, wiring channels needed to be cut and whatever wiring I used would run through the same channels. So I pulled out the exacto knives and chipped away (literally!) at it.

This is a first thing in the morning sunny day shot...

These are the wires from the top Tower room... 

The Lord's Bed Chamber candles and fireplace.

As each wire joins a channel, 

the channel has to be cut wider.

 

Here you can see where the wires for the next room down, 

The Lord's Council Chamber, join the rest.

They are draped over the window frame

 to keep them out of the way of the blade.

These ones are the Hearth lights and the fireplace fire.

The channel has not yet been cut for the lights

 I want to add that will be along the side wall.

And for the torches in the Guard room at the entrance,

 there is no path for the wires but over the door!

Lots and lots of carving needed!

And because it was so challenging to carve,

 I tackled it in little spurts.

And in between, I worked on the stairs framework structure.

Testing the size of the Electrical box to be sure

 I can access all the outlets once the strip is glued in place.

Adding glue to the already "constructed and tested" 

part of the stairs framework. 

And gluing it to the base of the Castle Tower!

And the very next morning deciding

 I had maybe been a tiny bit hasty with the glue...

 because I decided there needed to be

 an additional attachment point for the framework!

Yep, retro fitting already!

Better now than later....

So I drilled glued and screwed that extra framework

 to both the castle and the base from the outside.

It would have been too difficult to get the drill

 into that part of the stables anyway.

Then the stairs were glued and screwed in place as well!

You can see all those counter-sunk screw heads

 which will be spackled over soon!

I know some of this is boring details,

 but if I need to figure out later what I did

 (when those screw holes are all hidden),

 I will have the record here!

The basic frame work is now attached! 

The side wall and the buttress wall are still only temporarily screwed in.

 I need to be sure the wiring part is done before I make those permanent.

But I promised you hinges, Dear Readers!

I know, it doesn't look like much.

These are my favorite 3/4 inch brass hinges.

They are large for dollhouse standards,

 but for crude Medieval construction

 they are not unreasonably large.

They will be altered to resemble iron

 and I will add the usual decorative straps.

The challenging ones were the ones for the Electrical box....

Sorry, my picture is dark... it was a thunder stormy day...

And I neglected to take any pictures of the carved insets

 I had to Chip away at to embed the hinges into the crack....

not the conventional placement for these hinges.

But I wanted them to be mostly invisible..... 

to conceal the box as much as possible.

When I get it all painted, the box will be hardly noticeable.

Meanwhile... the wire channel chipping....

Thank heavens a fair amount of it was working with the grain!

Straight, quick and clean!

These are the Guard Room torches' wires.

It took a lot of patience to cut over the door...

Slowly but surely....

And working on the rest .....

Drilling a ton of screw holes to attach the outer wall to the framework!

Because the doors take up so much of this wall,

 the structural rigidity is compromised, 

so I have compensated with a lot of screws!

You could say it is over-built...

I just call it sturdy!

Here you can see the double layer of doors to the Stables...

I will be constructing a way to bar the doors as well!

And the top slanted section of the buttress has been temporarily attached.

I need to be sure the wires all fit and can travel down behind the buttress.

Thankfully, I will not need to bury them in the wall for this part!

Here you can see the slanted top to the buttress sections.

The wire channels are all cut now too.

But before I can glue them in.... 

I will need to make repairs to all those castle torches and lamps....

some of those wires have been hanging off

 the back of this castle for more than twelve years!

 

Finally, some real progress, Dear Readers,

All from a lot of Chipping away!