Cob irons and more clay stuff

In an effort to avoid working on the bake ovens, I decided to work on the main roasting fireplace :)  Yesterday I cut some 3/8" plywood to the correct shape for the cob iron supports.  (Cob irons hold the spit at different heights from the fire to help control the roasting of meat. ) 

 Here's a photo showing a huge fireplace with cob irons at Hampton Court:

The cob irons for my little fireplace are about 4 inches high and 1 3/4 inches deep, angled from front bottom to back top.  Again, I took all this from Brian Long's Tudor book. 

These are the plywood forms in place.  The spaces to the outside of each cob iron will be for the wood stores.

Then I rolled out some grey polymer clay (see, I'm getting smarter -- grey means I won't have to paint them grey for grout!) for the brick impress.  Again, learning from my mistakes, I made the clay sheets thicker, this time :)  I cut them out to the shape of the supports.

Then I impressed the clay with the molds I bought from Malcolm's Miniatures.  Again, I used the Tudor brick.

The thicker clay took the impress so much better, as you can see.  Then I baked and painted them and trimmed the clay appliques to more precise size (using the impress molds, of course, distorts the size a wee bit).

And here's what they looked like this morning:

I also made a few bits and bobs last night while we were watching dvds --  mostly knives, another pheasant (this time designed to drape over the chopping block) and an "iron" hanging rack for all the game storage.

I'll be back to do the draw for the books a little later :)

Kitchen storeroom

Yesterday I built a little platform in the storeroom and framed in the door to the kitchen.  I shaped each of the boards that make up the platform (they're just offcuts of pine I stole from my husband's workshop) and I really like the effect.  Now I want to build a new table with a top actually constructed from boards!

There's going to be a little ladder up to the platform and then another ladder up to the room above.  See the little stool I made?  Katie Cat has curled up on it, to keep an eye on the pheasants.  Or perhaps she caught them.  We may never know.

 

Thursday evening, while David and I watched a dvd (New Tricks -- do you know it?  A great police procedural from the UK) I made my first attempt at making dead pheasants out of polymer clay :)  Then last night, while David and watched a dvd (State of Play, a thrilling BBC series -- I know, there's a theme developing here :) I made my first attempt at painting dead pheasants made of polymer clay :)

They're a little garish, but I'm quite pleased for my first attempt.  Not as hard as I thought they'd be, although I felt very sorry for them, making them dead and all.  Next time I'll actually go back upstairs and get a small brush for the markings, instead of being lazy and using the brush I happened to have in my hand!

The blue embroidery floss is temporary.  I doubt even wealthy Tudors used blue cord to hang up their pheasants.  But I had to hang them up right away, and shove them in David's face.  "Look!"  I said.  "Dead pheasants!"  "Yes, I see" he said, politely (he's English).  "How fascinating."

He's really very patient with me and my enthusiasms :)

Finally, here's a view from the storeroom door into the kitchen itself.

Tiddles's embroidery and the Tower bedchamber window ...

We took some photos of Tiddles's masterpiece of needlepoint on Thursday, but I haven't had a chance to share them with you, yet.  This is her tapestry:

She followed a pattern from Sandra Whitehead's book Celtic, medieval and Tudor wallhangings in 1/12 scale needlepoint.  It's stitched on 32 count fabric with two strands of embroidery floss. 

By the way, Tiddles was 9 when she started this in November, and she's 10 now :)

This girl is amazing, isn't she?  She comes by it honestly -- her mother, Jennie, is the finest needlewoman I know -- fast, accurate, tidy and with perfect stitches.  Tiddles is going to be just as good, I think. 

From the sublime to the comparatively ridiculous, now :)  I finally finished the little casement window in the Tower bedchamber.

I was worried I wasn't going to be able to get the panes out, but it broke apart quite obligingly when I pulled on it :)  I'm not entirely sure it was supposed to, but it helped the process!  I stained the bits and pieces, applied miniature pin striping to the panes for leading and then reassembled the whole gubbins.  I glued the window back into the wall and framed it, and now I have a lovely, working casement window so when the inhabitant of the tower chamber needs a breath of fresh air, he can put down his lute and lean out :)

Medieval or Tudor trestle table for kitchen

As I start to accumulate details in the kitchen of the castle, I am more and more dissatisfied with the kitchen table I have.

Quite frankly, it sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb.  The colour is too intense, the construction too advanced.  It may be just fine in the William and Mary kitchen, someday, but it's just not right here. Neither are the joint stools ...

This is more what I want -- a trestle table in the same more natural wood finish I'm using for the other wood in this room.  But I like the trestles best in the second photo, the one from Winkhurst. (In fact, I love ALL the things in this photo -- look at the butcher's block!  The scales! The three-legged stools!)

Brian Long, in his book The authentic Tudor and Stuart Dolls House, calls them "comb" trestles.

So I'm going to make my own.

I took a piece of quarter inch thick basswood, 7" x 4" and trimmed a little off the side using a razor saw, so it's now about 7" x 3".

Then I used the offcuts from that, plus a little scrap balsa wood, to make the tops of the trestles and three legs each.  I have this great tool -- the Easy Cutter Ultimate (Ultimate!  Woo!) that makes cutting odd angles very, very simple.  Thank heavens.  Because I suck at geometry.

I cut the six trestle legs using the 105 degree angle guide on the cutter for both the top and the bottom of the legs and trying (and probably failing) to get all the legs exactly the same length :)  I scored the top of the table with my razor saw to suggest planks.

Here I'm attempting to assemble the trestles with glue, using pins to hold the legs in place until the glue dries.  A sturdier way of doing this would be to make tenons at the tops of the legs and insert them into mortises in the tops of the trestles.  Or you could make tiny pegs of toothpicks and use them to make a better joint.  As you can see from the photo above, one of the legs of the trestle on the left is clearly made of balsa, not basswood, because the pin has gone right in!  The other pins I'll trim when the piece has set up.

After the glue set, I sanded everything, carved the edges of the table top a little roughly with an exacto knife, and painted all three pieces with the same weak wash I've been using all day -- lots of water, a little white and a little burnt umber.

I may glue the table together for sturdiness, but for the moment, here's what it looks like in the kitchen.  That's better!

Kitchen doorway and sideboard

I had a few minutes, so decided to trim the door from the kitchen to the storeroom.  I used really thin balsa for the sides of the frame and thicker balsa for the lintel.  Thank heavens for photos in macro!  The photo below showed me that I hadn't pushed the lintel far enough down on the right hand side, and the glue was still wet, so I could fix it easily!

I stained the balsa with some of the left over colour wash from the wall -- burnt umber, a little white, lots of water.

And I dressed up the sideboard for the photo.  Two nights ago I made a couple of trial sugar cones or sugar loaves.  I'm going to do a tutorial on those soon, although they're so easy a tutorial isn't really necessary :)

Tutorial -- colour washing an aged wall

I've decided to take some photos while I prepare and colour wash one of the walls in the Castle's kitchen wing.

I started with a wall made of 3/8" plywood (obviously this isn't a scale model, per se, because the wall isn't thick enough for scale :)  I painted it white.

The surface is okay, but clearly shows the typical plywood grain and has a few large knots and gaps in it.  So the first thing I do, partly to fill in the obvious plywood gaps and partly to give it the texture of old plaster, is to roughly apply a partial coat of some kind of crack filler. (I'm not worrying about the area right around the door in this example, because I'm going to cover the bit of pink tape and the error in cutting with some framing for the doorway :)

In Canada we have various brands of Poly Filla available -- I've used all different kinds. This one is designed to fill bigger gaps so is more fibrous.

I applied it with a scrap of plastic, because I prefer a fairly flexible applicator for walls.

Okay, now you can apply your colour washes -- these would go for walls, chimney breasts or anything you want to keep fairly "whiteish" but want to look aged or rustic.

You need to do at least two washes, one "cool", one "warm".   Maybe start with a grey -- a little white, a tiny amount of black (very little black) and a lot of water. You want a nice, neutral, super watery grey. (I use artist's acrylics because that's what I have, but any water soluble craft paint would be fine).

Test your solution in an inconspicuous part of the model. It should change the colour, but not be really, really obvious. You'll notice it, but it shouldn't look too opaque.

If it's too heavy (as it clearly is in the photo above), immediately dilute it on the wall with a clean brush and more water.

That's better!

When you've got the solution to your liking, roughly brush some on all the parts you want to age. You do not want to cover all the white, just scumble the wash on a bit, stand back and look at it. Don't use a tiny brush -- a good half an inch diameter round brush would be perfect.

It looks okay, but it's a little flat.  Now mix up your second wash. This should be a warm one. It's the balance of warm and cool that really makes things look three dimensional. For the second wash here, I just added a little burnt umber to the very watery grey wash.  It's fine to work wet into wet, by the way.

Step back from the project often. Breathe. Have a cup of tea (or a gin and tonic). Come back and just let your eye wander over the work. You'll know when it's right!

Most of all, have fun :) Remember, if it really looks dreadful, just paint it over white and start again!

Kitchen Floor, possible final glaze

I used a varying glaze with a base of low lustre acrylic medium and differing amounts of raw umber.  Raw umber is always the go-to colour to muddy anything up and age it.  The floor looks a lot better now, after more sanding and polishing.  I will add the soot effects of the fire later, when I'm feeling braver (it always seems to take a lot of guts to really dirty up a nice clean kitchen (although I seem to do it with ease in my 1:1 kitchen :)

 Yesterday afternoon I added the wall between the kitchen and the pantry/storage room, which really helps define the space, of course.  And I glued together my little sideboard and put it in place.  It's just resting against the wall for the moment, because I need to be able to get into the oven opening and do a lot of busy work on that in the next few days.

And just before I go to bed, one last (arty) shot of the stone :)

Charcoal burner unit

I'm constructing the charcoal burner / hotplate as a separate unit, so that we can build spiral stairs behind it.  I wanted it to have an arch above the brick hotplate and shelf, so here's what I'm trying.

(Sorry for the photos, I did this part last night and it was dark :)  I bent a piece of cardstock (cut to fit the depth of the unit) until it made a nice arch, then taped it in position and trimmed it for length.  (Note the hot pink theatrical spike tape!  I couldn't find anything else, eh :))  I cut a piece of balsa wood the width of the unit and then taped the cardboard to it.  I marked the line of the arch and cut it out of the balsa wood.

I then taped the cardstock arch to the balsa wood front, and glued the arch in place.  I'll fill in the rest of the front with balsa and then plaster over it, hiding all my awkwardness, I hope, without creating too much more new awkwardness!

The brick hotplate is still removeable, and will stay that way, so that I can install or fix whatever lighting I decide to put inside this thing.

UPDATED 6:16 pm

Here's the charcoal burner unit so far.  I stuccoed the front of the unit with Poly Filla and because I was having problems making it smooth I decided to make a virtue of necessity and make it really textured :)  While it was still pliable I scored in the outlines of the stone arch above it (I also thought of making "stones" and setting them into the plaster, but laziness won out).  The stonework needs a wash of a warmer colour, but then I think's it's about done, except for the wiring and a piece of trim across the front.  Hooray!

Brickwork for kitchen fireplace

I'm going to use the same technique for the back of the kitchen fireplace as I used for the fireplace in the tower's Library. 

I made a paper pattern of the back of the fireplace.  Then I rolled out scrap polymer clay, making sure the sheet was larger than my pattern, and used one of the impress molds I bought from Malcolm's Miniatures (via the Dutch dolls' house store Silly Sisters).  I have quite a collection of these, now -- the one I picked was the Tudor brick -- these are longer and thinner than later bricks, and I thought it would give a nice detailed texture for the back of the big fireplace.  English bond would have been okay, too.

My impressing is so very far from perfect,  I almost crumbled it up and rerolled it, but I think after it's been painted and the fireplace has been filled with stuff, no one will notice my lousy work!

Then I baked the impressed sheet.  It baked a little wiggly in the oven, as it tends to -- I find that if I glue it down really well, everything comes out okay.  If you want to cut down on the wiggliness, then make your sheet of clay thicker and use more even pressure when impressing than I have here.

I cut it to shape using scissors (one of the wonderful things about impressing bricks into very thin sheets of polymer clay is that it's a cinch to trim). 

Here it is, fitted into the fireplace.  I will now paint it grey (for the grout) and then start painting in the bricks.

Here it is, back in the fireplace, after it's been painted grey and then had its first dry brushings with cadmium red,  raw sienna, burnt sienna and burnt umber. It now needs the detail work to bring out the grout, blacken the central bricks and so forth. In terms of sheer speediness, this technique is really great!

Does anyone else find that taking photos reveals all sorts of things that the naked eye can miss?  Looking at the photo below, I see that because the "brickwork" doesn't fit the fireplace cut out perfectly, I'd best paint the edges of the back of the fireplace in a nice bricky colour to help camoflage that :)

Working on the Kitchen floor, plus rough carpentry

Here's how the floor is looking after the first few coats of glaze.

There are things I quite like about it, and things I am really, really not happy with.  The floor was scored a little too enthusiastically in places :)  leaving big lumps and gaps.  Some of the stones look great.  Some look just ... fake.  What I Have Learned From This:  just as I learned not to score floors at night (from the Great Hall experience :)  I have now learned not to score floors all the way down to the wood, and to try to keep things lump free from the beginning!

I think I'm going to have to try cleaning up some of the grout lines, perhaps with my rotary tool, and then replastering some bits.  Or I'll stage the room so that this part of the floor is totally covered with stuff :)

But I'm very happy with the little shelf I built for the hot plate alcove!  It's balsa wood, with a very weak wash of burnt umber and white.  I think it adds a lot of interest over the charcoal burner.

And here's my first attempt at a rustic Tudor sideboard, as seen in Hampton Court.  I'm going to cut it down -- make it both less deep and shorter, so it'll fit in my space, but I'm pleased with the overall effect.  Again, it just got a weak colour wash so it would keep its rustic good looks :) It's a really rough piece of basswood I got in a craft package, and works well for this application right out of the bag. At the moment it's balancing on top of the chimney breast!

Egg carton stones

I've been researching making stones or bricks out of egg cartons, because I thought it might be a great way of edging the fireplaces in the kitchen.

Problem is, it's darned hard to find paper egg cartons with solidly flat lids where I live.  And the ones I can find are pretty flimsy (not like the egg cartons I remember when I was a child :)  But I really want to try this technique, so I guess I'll be buying a lot of eggs!  What can I make with a lot of eggs? (besides meringues, for pity's sake, because when I consume meringues, a great deal of whipped cream is involved :)

If you want to check out this technique, here are some two links:


China Doll -- Brick Tutorial

Carol Jones's Egg Carton tutorial at Victoria Miniland

This one also has some wonderful suggestions for grouting in general!

Castle kitchen - floor and hotplate

When the KnitWits met yesterday, we worked a bit on the kitchen.  Tiddles helped me cut the wood for the hot plate surround and she and Fred worked on the kitchen floor.  We smeared a relatively level amount of Poly Filla over the floor and then the kids scored it with knitting needles to make stones.  It needs to be sanded and so forth, but they did a great job :)

Later, I used the balsa wood cut outs that Tiddles made to construct the box in which the brick hot plate (over the charcoal burners) will live.  Again, it needs a lot of cleaning up (and I need to make the arch which will form the top of the hotplate opening) but it's starting to look like a room, already.  I'm not going to glue it in place yet -- at least not until Tiddles has had a chance to build the spiral staircase.