Русский 
English All in progress
I should have put another title to this post, something like “Ugly Photos’ Post”, but nevermind.
I had a strange week, I actually did a lot of things, but seems like I don’t have much to show to you. I’m still making the parts for my chandelier, another one. I also continue learning metal lathe things. My husband is a great teacher, very patient, I should say. I did learn a lot, but still have to ask him if I have any questions.
As a result I made a beautiful candlestick, made of aluminum, but it looked very silver to me 🙂 Unfortunately, no photos for you here as it broke when I started cutting it off. The good thing is that I learned a lot, I also tried that mysterious jig for making spheres (absolutely, useless by the way for aluminum, because it’s easier to make them with files).
Experiment number two – metal spinning. Looks fantastic in this video, which is not mine, obviously 🙂
I don’t have silver, but lots of copper. I’m not very good with spinning, I managed to make these, hm, “cups” after five or six attempts.
Dolls house lights
I think that July will be a month of making lights. On one hand, I have a commission, on the other hand I need to make a lot of lights for my dollhouse, and all this in art nouveau-ish style. I did several sketches, and probably will make all of these projects. I started from the easiest one, I used here a brass strip (remember my post about photo etching?). I’m not very good at soldering, my husband was very happy to give me some tips, because the last time I did it, I was about 10 years old trying to fix my ZX Spectrum keyboard (I failed:) and my tape recorder (this time I was lucky). The results now a more satisfactory, but not good enough for me. Anyway, I’ve just started! 🙂 Drilling was easier 😉
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 The jig is originally made for Proxxon lathes but it wasn’t compatible with lathe we have, so we had to build the fixture to mount the jig on lathe.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.
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.
Cannon
This is my husband’s project – a cannon. 🙂
My first Candlestick
I’d call it – “the first pancake is always the failure”. In my previous post I wrote about my first try working with metal. Here’s what I’ve made:
It’s made of brass, its height about 20mm.
I always wanted to try metalwork, but it seemed like some crazy idea. I’m in love with woodworking, I really like building miniature furniture. I started learning woodworking from scratch, I couldn’t tell the difference between lathe and router, pine and mahogany. And now with metalwork I feel like I’m starting all over again – watching lots of videos, reading forums, blogs, books, etc.
It was hubby who really wanted this new hobby, because, for example, working with lathe would be something new, something different from woodworking where I felt more comfortable. I was very skeptical about this metal lathe thing, first of all, it’s the whole new experience, I know almost nothing about metals, besides, I thought why should I? I’m into wood really. Second reason, I watched youtube videos, lots of them. And all I could find were the men who were making details for their machines. Nothing practical, nothing “cute” 🙂 So you buy the lathe just to make the details for it! 🙂 Lots of fun.
Then I started working on my dollhouse, making sketches for candlesticks, chandeliers. When my hubby saw them he said – Well, you could make most of the parts on lathe, but you don’t want to buy it. I knew he was right.
Long story short I was convinced, I really wanted those damn candlesticks. To make them from beads is fun, but to make your own, from scratch is even more. My husband spent days choosing the right model, finally, we had one.
I like small machines, my hubby doesn’t. So which one did we buy? 🙂 Well, if you think that 40kg machine is quite small for apartment you’ll think I won.
Then there were hours of cleaning the lathe with white spirit. After it was done we’ve found it was New Year’s eve and all the stores where we could buy metal were closed. Thank God, our local hardware store was open on the 2nd of January.
Only at that moment when everything was ready, I’ve found that to make the spheres on the lathe is not that easy. You’ll need a jig for it. I still don’t have it, but I’m using files to make the edges round. Works good.
Well, it’s very clear I’ll have to learn a lot about metalwork, but someday maybe this Dickens’ Desk will have two wonderful candlesticks.
Here’s another photo:
Somehow (hehe), on the photo the lower part of candlestick looks heavy, too big. But when I’m looking at it – it’s fine. Good reason to make more photos during work.