Записи автора Виктория:
Spring time
I’m working on commissions lately, lots of work and I practically have no time for my own projects. And it’s +20 outside, spring has come at last! Love this time of year.
Recently I came across Natalia’s post about bobbin lace, I always wanted to try it, even started making my own bobbins but realized that it was taking too much time, so I dropped it. Two weeks ago I decided to try again, I ordered bobbins set and roller pillow. It was a fantastic experience for me. Though I realized that the bobbins I was using were only good for Russian (Vologda) lace, where thicker threads are used (mainly linen), and I was more interested in Bedfordshire lace. So I made two pairs of English bobbins, spangled them, I also made a block pillow, which worked just fine for me.
Here’s my first try with a silk thread, it’s 9 mm wide lace. A bit too wide for this thread, but I’m working on it 😉 I decided to take it slow and learn the basics before trying to make it in miniature, so I’m afraid it will take some time to show something new.
New Old Book
This book has been in my wish-list for quite a long time. I didn’t see any good reviews of it, you know, I’m too curious, always wanted to know what was inside. “Making Miniature Furniture” is out of print, I saw it on Amazon available from different buyers (mostly US), but later found it on biblio.com. The book was available from UK, so I decided to give it a try.
This particular copy is 1997 edition, originally printed in 1988. It’s had a bit different approach than of Harry W. Smith, though I quite liked it. No metalworking chapters, only wood. Lots and lots about instruments, principles of work. There are no furniture projects like Victorian table or something like that, but mainly general – building frames and doors, drawers.
I liked these small references on different styles, nothing new, but still interesting.
Color illustrations are great too, just loved marquetry work here:
Too many details on this photo 🙂
Carving legs
I finished carving these legs last week. I’m almost pleased with result, I was even thinking of making another version of them but I have other projects to do too, so I decided on moving on. I really liked working with cherry, though with pear wood it would be absolutely different experience. The only problem I had is, when I was finishing working with spheres, some of those small claws started to split and fall off so I had to glue them back. But I liked how the joints and claws turned out.
Carving spheres was fun, they look just right from every angle.
The other details above the leg were supposed to be carved by Dremel, but I didn’t like the result at all, simple V-shape micro chisel 0,5 mm was the best option.
I also bought a set of Narex chisels lately. They are quite good for their price, but require additional work. Kirschen is still my number one choice.
I also started working on drawers, two of them were shaped according to the profile of the sides. The most difficult part here is done.
Bombe Chest
I decided to try one more project from Harry W. Smith’s book that I really like.
This chest is made of mahogany in the book, but I really wanted to try cherry for this one. The most interesting part was to make curved sides. Usually I follow all the tips from this book, but this time I was a bit confused. I didn’t like the way of shaping these parts – with a small drum sander held in a flexible-shaft machine. I tried it and found the results inconsistent. Working with a bandsaw was absolutely different experience, very easy and precise. The original thickness of a stock was 8 mm and I shaped it to 2 mm.
Then I cut dovetails for the dividers and glides. All fitted nicely.
The back was also easy to make. Then I needed to carve four claw foots. Something like this:
I’ve seen several how-to videos about carving them, I highly recommend those from Popular Woodworking. Though they all are really helpful, especially their references on different shapes and forms. I’ve been working on them for the last week or so, not really happy with the result but I’m close to the OK version 🙂 Hope to show you them soon.
Long Weekend
It’s not my work, again:) It’s my hubby’s work. Recently we bought a jig for making spheres on metal lathe, and it was the first try. The height of this spinning top is 45mm and diameter is 35 mm. The jig is originally made for Proxxon lathes but it wasn’t compatible with lathe we have, so we had to build the fixture to mount the jig on lathe. The fixture was milled out of duralumin block.
As for me, I’m still working on the balusters, I made six so far and need to make eight more. All of them are made of makore, I decided not to use beech, just didn’t feel right.
Ornaments
The last weekend I tried to focus more on miniatures stuff than upcoming elections, it was such a relief to unfollow some people on Twitter and Google+, got really tired of the politics. I decided to change the way I work on my dollhouse, I was working on only one room before moving to another, which I found not really good idea. In the end, I do it just for fun, right? Besides, I’ve found some really good ornaments for the wallpapers, it was just the right time to try them.
For the living room I chose this great Chinese ornament, so now the room is all about flowers – parquetry, walls, sofa.
Читать дальше…
Friday, Friday
This morning I’ve found that Google Friend Connect widget was gone. I have no idea why they decided to stop supporting it, but it’s not very good sign. I have e-mail subscription and RSS feeds in both English and Russian, Facebook widget, hm, I have to many widgets I suppose 🙂 I’ve installed another one, called Linky Followers ( is it any good?)
Among other news, I’ve subscribed to another British magazine – The Dolls’ House Magazine. Very original title. I love that they have apps for Android and iPad together with pocketmags.com. So now I receive only two mags, both from UK.
Last month I cancelled my subscription for American Miniaturist and Dollshouse World i-mags. I’ll never buy anything from Ashdown again, seriously. Couple months ago I found that I couldn’t access Dollshouse World i-mag, at first I could see no pictures, and then all I saw was 404 error. I thought at the time that they have some problems with a server or something. After a month of this 404 error I wrote to UK office support. Actually, I was the first Russian subscriber, they didn’t even have Russia in their list of available countries, I had to ask to add it back then (it was 2 years ago I think). Anyway, this time I got no reply. Also, suddenly the same thing happened with American Miniaturist i-mag page, again this 404 error, then dollshouse.tv and all ashdown sites. I’ve checked from different IPs, different ISPs, and found that I couldn’t access these sites only from Russian IPs, if I was using American proxy everything was just fine. I wrote the second mail to UK office, no reply again.
I thought, this is ridiculous, I pay for the service they can’t supply, I don’t even get the answer from Tech Support. This time I tried US office, I received the reply saying that it was their new security policy, they closed many IPs to prevent hacker attacks (yeah, like I’m a hacker, right). They said they forwarded my mail to UK office, can you guess if I got the reply?And nothing about refund, nada.
I had to ask for it myself, and yeah, I didn’t hack anything, I prefer to pay for the service. Eventually they send my refund to my Paypal account, it wasn’t full, I got it for the remaining months. I was lucky here, because just several weeks ago Russian Paypal couldn’t accept money, only send them.
The best part of the story – I still receive spam from them asking me to renew my subscription. They just don’t remove my email from their list.
Photo etching in miniature
I’m still playing with photo etching, the results are not always good, but, as usual, the process is much more fun than result. 🙂
Actually the process itself is quite easy, but you need to follow several rules not to screw it up. I’ve found several good videos about photo etching in Russian, but I’m sure there’s even more in English out there. My tutorial will not be complete without them.
Experiments
I’ve been playing with brass copper etching for the past couple of weeks. I had some ideas for a dollhouse chandeliers and realized that I needed more tools than just a lathe. So I bought myself a dapping block. I think I’ll make a post about it soon.
