Are Not So Fast....
You Might Suppose, Dear Readers, that now that The Chapel was finished and I was finally able to work on The Ladies' Solar, that progress would be quick and satisfyingly efficient. So much of the Castle structural methods were already firmly established.... just pull out the lumber (rocks) and get building, right? As you can see... I got going on the next steps right away... the staircase to the Lady's Bed Chamber above. But then I realized just how late in the year it was! October??? Oh... uh oh.... October! Clearly, Time was getting past me... I don't know how... but it was already October....! (long time blog readers Know what that means around here... a special form of mayhem erupts all on its own schedule... but with a dreaded Deadline.... (heh heh)...spooky... right...? .....) And more importantly... the season was changing... I would soon lose the time for opening doors and windows to air out the fumes.... painting with Primer being a culprit on big tasks... and I really REALLY needed to get that final exterior wall on the Ladies' Tower primed and painted! It was already three (Three!) years since I had done this for all the Lord's Tower walls. The weather had already turned chilly and Autumnal in my neck o' the woods... but I saw a day being forecast for temps in the high sixties.... on Thursday.... and after that... heading towards the fifties at best. So what was stopping me? All I had to do was get the Ladies' Tower wiring channels cut... the powerstrip box constructed and built into a new buttress on the back side of that wall..... Was there enough time....? Well, only one way to find out.....
I have been doing so much work recently on the back wall....
(which got its coats of paint back in 2021 when
I had realized how badly the exterior of The Castle
needed to be painted to protect the plywood!)
that you might have forgotten that this side wall
was still not painted.
It has been bothering me for years!
Here you can see I made a start on carving the
wiring channels for the few lights already in place.
The Dungeon has one torch light...
the Chapel has the two candlesticks by the Altar...
and there is a tiny candle in the Monk's cell...
I think Henry left it there when
he was using that room a looong time ago.
These four lights were some of the first ones
I put in place in 2010 when I began to build the Castle.
I ran the wires to the exterior and "around to the side"
where the power plug strip was "attached"
(the peel and stick backing on these strips is not known for lasting).
The glue gave out long ago and the power plug strip
dangled off the side of the Tower
(I was careful to make sure no wires were crossing!)
and only got used when the Castle lights are turned on.... ie. plugged in.
Sixteen years of dangling took a toll on the plug strip...
its wiring came apart!
So we are starting almost from the beginning here.
This is the Tower side wall with the flash turned on.
You can see the beginnings of wiring channels for
those first lights carved into the old wood.
The darker wood is much harder to carve than the paler wood....
so putting the channels in white wood where possible
is much easier on the hand...! (This was a major reason
I had not simply painted the wall a long time ago.)
Even so, I don't know where all the lights for the upper rooms
will need to be placed, and at the very least
there needed to be a vertical channel at the back corner.
The fireplaces run along the back wall to this channel
and lighting for the upper two rooms will be
brought over to this channel too.
From there they will run down to the wiring box
tucked into the buttress at the back corner....
still to be built!
And the buttress has to fit in to the narrow space
beside the Postern Gate Door!
(It is not entirely hidden and not entirely secret....
but very seldom used... you would need to scale the cliffs after all...!)
You can see the channel for the Dungeon torchlight
runs up over the door to the power box area on the left.
Yes... there are stairs in there...
they come up through a trapdoor in the Monk's Cell...!
Here I am starting to "block out" the structure of the power box
and how it will all be attached (very securely!) to the Tower wall.
The block of wood on the left will be glued and screwed
firmly to the wall and the power strip will be attached to it.
The base will be attached from below to this block
and to the one on the right side of the door.
Here you can see I have cut the two side walls for the buttress...
the right hand one will have a staggered wall to pass the window.
These walls are screwed into the first block
and the inner base along the sides.
Here you can see the basic structure of the plug strip box and buttress base...
it will be glued and screwed onto the Tower wall....
thus when it (the buttress) gets used as a "handle"
to move the Tower around.... it will be very firmly attached
and no harm will come to the wiring!
It became clear that the wiring needed to be glued into those channels
right away in order to continue building the buttress!
And in order to do that I had to splice
and shrink-tube the connections
at the right length to reach the plug strip
with the right amount of wire to spare.
Here you can see the candlestick wires
from the back wall of The Chapel ...
I run them "through" the corner so as to
minimize stress on those wires at the corners.
And the Dungeon wires need to go around the door...
As you can imagine, Dear Readers... this takes a while!
The upper ends of the buttress have to be
glued and screwed to "blocks" (5/8" x 5/8"stock wood)
which are themselves glued and screwed firmly to the Tower wall.
The buttresses need to be very sturdy!
Here the buttress pieces are mostly built
and "tested" for attaching but not yet
glued permanently in place.
The front panel will have an opening door section
at the bottom to access the wires.
And the short piece of "buttress"
on the right side of the Postern door
also needed to be constructed.
It holds the base section firmly in place
and helps hide the door.
But by now it is Wednesday night... I am tired....
the primer needs to be painted the next day...
the section over the Postern door can be added another time.
The basic framework is now glued and screwed securely in place!
The next day, as sometimes happens after a good night's sleep,
the fresh eyes of morning see things differently!
There was a scrap of wood... a cut off piece from years ago...
kicking around in my way... making a nuisance of itself
as it would not settle into a category of scrap....
it was large and pointy and ... odd!
But suddenly I thought it might fit over the Postern door
as part of the buttress framework I was still trying to build....
so I cut it to fit the space....
(because you couldn't tell if it would work
until it had been cut to fit.....) and ...
I know it is hard to see... but it fits the spot just right!
And then maybe it needed to be given a saw-toothed edge...
like so many of the other old door arches.....
But I was hurrying that day and forgot to get many pictures....
you will have to wait 'til later to see it in place...
because now it was Finally time to get the primer on the wall!
Oh my goodness... this felt like such a relief....
like old dry skin getting a soothing lotion at last...
which then has to dry sufficiently...
you can see in the background
my door is open to the porch outside...
a lovely breeze wafting through the house
and out the window on the south side....
And then the gray base coat of paint...
And the whole wall is now painted!
Just awaiting the "rock" details....
along with the rest of The Castle facade.
And yes... I am still working on the details of the Postern Gate...
And I have to attach the front of the buttress
and the opening door to the plug compartment...
but I got the bulk of it done in time!
So clearly, Dear Readers,
the Next steps weren't at all
what I thought they would be....
Not at all Fast.... but (mostly) done at last!
