A Taxing Time......

And A Tiny Update....

I had to Prepare my Taxes, Dear Readers, before the Social Distancing became too strict to allow for any meetings outside the home, so my weekend was mostly Not about minis. But I got my taxes done and filed and can rest easy on that score. We are still trying to behave as "normally" as possible in this time of upheaval, while taking all due precautions. Nonetheless, all the schools are now closed and everybody is preparing to stay home for a while. At my school the students and teachers have been on Spring Break, and that has been extended for another week, until the end of March. The plans for the rest of the staff are still being figured out, we have been going to work as usual. It is still a changing situation and we are heeding all the care recommendations.  But in spite of my focus being elsewhere, I did manage to paint a few more stars on the Castle Council Chamber floor! I am trying to keep the pattern a random "scattered" effect.

I will probably not add many more stars.

I think this is just about right!

And over in the Doll Maker's Workshop....

I cut and fitted the paneling beside the arched doorway.

 

 

Then I painted and stained and glued it in place.

And here it is right side up in the morning sun.

And that was All I got done, Dear Readers,

 in this Taxing Time!

I hope you All stay well, 

and your loved ones too.

And maybe even have a

 Little more time for minis!

Doors And Floors....

Panels and Tiles....

There Were Only a few more pieces of rails and stiles to cut for the paneling on the opening wall of The Dollmaker's Studio, Dear Readers, but they required much more patience than the others because of the opening doors. The panels just barely fit so that the central stile would span the crack between the sides when the doors were closed, but this meant I had to glue pieces on more carefully and align them around both the windows and the cracks in the doors. Above you can see the main pieces cut but not stained or glued.

And here you can see the stain has been added.

 I decided to glue all these pieces in place

 before trying to cut and measure the top rail for the middle section.

 I needed the pieces to stay put in order to measure properly.

Here the top rail for the middle has been added.

Here I am making sure the doors open properly..... they do!

And the view through the arched opening... both walls are paneled!

Testing with the arched door in place... those windows need cleaning!

And from the other end..... this really is a very small room!

And I think I need to make some kind of paneling 

for the walls beside the door.

 

But before I do that, Dear Readers,

 I wanted to show you the other project I was working on

 over my vacation a couple of weeks ago.

I had decided I finally had the time to make the floor tiles 

for the Lord's Council Chamber in my Castle!

(It has only been about .... 

I don't know how many years since 

I really made any progress on that room!)

I dug out the sculpey I had bought....

 all those many (seven, eight or nine?) years ago....

 and discovered it was Almost too old and stiff to use....! 

Almost.

With lots of patience and lots of kneading

 it eventually became usable... 

so I cut and baked tiles ... 

one brick per day (all I could stand to knead)

hoping I had enough of the colors I had bought!

I had Just enough, if I also used a few remaining tiles

 from the Conservatory floor... the gold ones in particular.

I wanted to make a pattern that emphasized the center of the floor,

 rather than have an over-all pattern.

 The gold tiles were a "mistake" I made years ago 

when I was making the tiles for the Great Hall Floor.

 The final step was to spray varnish over the painted patterns of the tiles.... 

I grabbed the gold spray can and only realized my mistake

 when the tiles were turning gold before my eyes!

In the right light you can see the painted designs through the gold.

I liked the effect and saved the tiles...! 

I think they work for this floor.

Then I added the Red Star Stone to the center...!

I think it is important to test these ideas in varying light....

Morning light adds a beautiful feeling!

And the next morning I like it even more!

(I can't tell you how long I have been dreaming about this floor!)

But it still needs some more embellishment....

(I do love lots of detail!)

I had always wanted it to have more stars in the pattern...

So I started painting some of the tiles with gold stars.

 

 Just a few to start with to see if I liked it....

And then just to be Sure I was happy with the Red Star Stone,

 I swapped it out for a blue one...

I definitely like the spark of the red one!

(And it will have a power role to play... you will see!)

So I kept adding a few gold stars scattered over the floor...

I will be adding a few more!

But that is as far as I got, Dear Readers,

While I was waiting for the glue to dry

 on the Paneling for The Dollmaker's Studio!

More Paneling Progress...

The Opening Wall....

I Hope you will be happy to learn, as I was, Dear Readers, that my worries about the glue were premature. After several days of "not looking at it", when I removed the books and turned the studio upright, the panels were much better attached than I had thought! Only one short stile was needing to be re-glued. So I finished cutting the top rails and stiles and carefully glued them and the top row of panels in place.

 

Here you can see the pieces fitted before staining with an acrylic wash.

And here you can see them after the staining and the gluing.

Because the glue was "co-operating", 

I decided to tackle the paneling for the opening side wall

 using the same methods.

Here is a view through the opening for the arched doorway,

 showing the side wall doors(on the left side) in the closed position

 and the bottom rails fitted to the uneven (warped) floor.

 

It was much more difficult

 to construct the rails and stiles for these doors, Dear Readers, 

because the structure had to lie on its side so the doors were closed

 in order to be sure all the pieces were fitting correctly.

 I had to reach in to make measurements and fit pieces. 

Here the end stiles are being glued in place, 

weighted by my tape measure and a stack of stones!

And the panels needed to be carefully positioned

 to fit around the center door divide.

Here the stiles have been cut and are being tested for position

 in order to measure the central rail pieces.

Here most of the rails and stiles have been cut and stained.

 This view is through the small doorway,

 trying to test the alignment of the rails.

(They need adjusting!)

 

Here you can see that the end panels need to have a "split" 

down the middle to allow for the opening of the hinged side walls..... 

this was challenging to measure and cut!

I glued the end pieces in place before gluing the entire wall

 so nothing would shift by accident.

Same for the other end.

 The uncut panel piece is just there for temporary spacing.

Here the rest of the short stiles (for the lower panels)

 have been fitted. The alignment of the center rails is improved.

Once again, I carefully glued the lower panels,

and the stiles and rails in place. 

I used the wood glue and weighted the whole with books.

 (And didn't take pictures)

I left it for days!

But eventually I needed to remove the books and stand it up

 to see if the side wall doors would open properly!

(The upper panels on the door side are not yet glued)

The wall opens just as it should!

And the other side too! It works!

So now all I have to do is complete the

 upper half of the paneling for the opening wall!

 Well, that and all the other steps 

like sealing and painting and... 

you know how it goes!

But clearly, Dear Readers,

 I am making steady Progress

 with the Paneling for the opening wall

 of the Dollmaker's Studio!

Paneling Progress....

Rabbeting Rails and Stiles....

I had a week of Vacation, Dear Readers, but you would not know it for the meager progress I made on the Dollmaker's Studio paneling. I had high hopes of completing at least one wall and maybe even adding the electrical fixtures... but there were many other RL tasks that slowed my progress. At least, I can blame it on that, but it probably was more to do with my uncertainty of the method to use for making this paneled wall! You can see in the above picture that I have cut a length of wood for the bottom "rail" of the paneling to fit along the length of the room. I had several unanswered questions about the technique to use to make the "rails"(horizontal pieces) and "stiles"(vertical pieces) of the paneling. Should I rabbet the edges of the rails and stiles so the panels were partly overlapped on each side and thus held securely in place? This would need thicker wood to begin with. Or should I use cardboard "spacers" between the panels and overlap the cardboard and panel edges with thinner strips that didn't require the rabbet on the edges? This would require thinner wood and several thicknesses of cardboard strips. And should I glue all the pieces to a mat board and then place it in the room.... or should I glue everything directly to the plywood wall....?

I started by turning the studio onto its side... or back, 

so that I could work on the wall with gravity in my favor!

I took the bottom rail (1/8th inch by 1/2 inch stock) 

and manually cut a "rabbet" (or rebate) along the under side edge. 

This turned out to be easier to cut than I had feared.

Then I spaced the panels across the wall 

to get a good idea of the precise measures.

The panels would space neatly with 1/8th inch between them

 and 1/4 inch at each end. (This convenient spacing made life much easier!)

I added the next row of panels and tested 

the spacing for the different widths of wood....

1/2 inch wide or 3/8th inch wide stock for the rails and stiles?

I preferred the look of the 3/8th inch stock 

for both the rails and stiles.

And it would still allow enough overlap for 

cutting the rabbets at 1/8th inch on each side.

This is just another view of the Studio on it's side....

Here is a view of the underside of the bottom rail... 

showing my messy manual rabbet...

It is all cut with the exacto-knife.

I decided to make the manual rabbets in the thicker wood (1/8th inch stock)

 in part because I think it will make the paneled wall 

more structurally sound in the long run to use all wood. 

(I could be wrong about this!)

I also decided I needed to build the paneling directly into the room.

 This is mostly because the room dimensions are not perfectly square

 and the plywood is a bit warped in places.

I didn't want to get it all built and then discover it 

wouldn't quite fit past the edges of the opening 

or the floor was too warped....

 (remember the warped floor?)

And knowing how quickly small measuring discrepancies

 can add up to a large error... 

I decided to cut and fit each piece individually... 

no mass cutting of pieces that turn out a fraction too short....!

I started by fitting the end stiles which are against the side walls.

Then made the stiles for every second pair of panels....

you will see the pattern as it develops.

It is hard to see the wood when it is blonde.... 

I am "staining" it with a watered down burnt sienna acrylic paint.

The paneling will not end up this color, so I don't need to match exactly.

The only piece that has been glued in place so far is the bottom rail!

This is the underside of the center stiles.... 

my cutting doesn't need to be exact, just needs to fit between the panels.

Here you can see it from the "side" 

showing how it sits over the edges of the panels.

Once the taller stiles were all cut,

 I could measure accurately for the rails that fit between them...

And then the short stiles between the rails...

All of this fiddling and dithering, Dear Readers,

 took days and days!

And still nothing was glued in place but the bottom rail...

No, I did not glue those vertical stiles in the wrong places! 

The not exact nature of the plywood walls

 meant that the rails in the middle row

 are a tiny bit longer than the bottom.

This is the advantage to building it the slow way!

It was at this point that I decided the bottom row of panels

 and the rails and stiles needed to be glued down.... 

there was too much "shifting" happening... 

and I needed to find out how well the glue part would work...!

So I took my courage in my hands 

and started to apply the glue to each piece....

trying to position them exactly 

and not get too much glue in the wrong places...

 

 

And then needed to find the right sized books to weight it all down!

(I had not thought that through!)

Then I let it dry.

The following day I was able to position the 

remaining panels in their places (no glue yet!)

And I also discovered that 

not all the glue was sticking properly.... grrrr...

I am using ordinary wood glue ... 

because this is wood....

but the plywood has been primed

 and I know this interferes with good adherence....

 Sigh.

I am still deciding what to do.

One or two of the small stiles are not attached. 

A couple of the ends of others are not Well attached....

There is a chance I will be picking it apart

 and using different glue on some or all of it.

 

I am not looking at it for a couple of days...

It might not be as bad as I think it is....!

But that is as far as I got, Dear Readers,

On my Vacation paneling project,

Rabbeting rails and stiles.