Paper Mâché Carousel - Painting the Platforms - Part 42

 This week I have been working on painting the platforms for the carousel.  It takes much longer to paint than I would like.   

Each of the platforms is in a different stage of painting.  Even though the plywood was sanded before painting, it still was rougher than surfaces I normally use for painting.  I think I have worn out a brush from scrubbing the paint into the striations in the wood.

This photo shows the underside of the base for the carousel.  It has received its final coat of green.  The wooden ball feet have been painted with two coats of 14 karat gold paint.  

The red spot on the right is where the cord will come through from the other side of the platform where the rotating platform will sit.  It is lined with wool felt to keep the cord from rubbing on the wood.  I will also add some electrical tape around the cord for extra protection.

I still need to seal the paint.  I will use varnish as a sealer.  I hope to get all the platform painting finished (or at least most of it) before I start on the sealer coats.

This photo shows the ceiling side of the upper platform.  It needs another coat of paint.  After the two coats of gesso, I painted it with Prussian Blue.  I was actually thinking of doing a night sky with stars but decided it was too dark.  I painted over that with Cerulean Blue, but it needs another coat of paint.  I am thinking of mixing a little Titanium White with it to lighten it up a little more.  

The other side of this platform will be the roof of the carousel.  I have not done any painting on that yet.  I still need the holes drilled for the screws that will hold this platform to the central column.  

Hopefully those holes will be drilled today.  The temperature today is fairly moderate at 86F.  For the next few days after that it will be 100 to 103F (39.44C).  We are well into a blazing summer here.

The central column with its paper mâché outer column has received a second coat of gesso.  At least you can no longer read the words on the newsprint that was used to make the external column.

It has come down to crunch time on making a decision on how to decorate this part of the carousel.  I have gone through so many possibilities of how to paint this.  Things I have considered are adding mirrors to reflect the horses, painting a forest scene, painting it to look like a tree trunk, and adding gilded pieces to make frames and painting something in the frames.  

There are so many ways to go.  One part of me wants to make this a really ornate carousel.  The other part of me says to simplify the column and keep the main focus on the animals and how they are decorated.  At this point, simplifying is winning.  I really want to get finished with the painting so I can get on to decorating the animals and getting them set onto the carousel platform.  I have been working on this project for over a year now.  I would like to see it completed.

Once again, I am showing the photo of the first test of the movement of the carousel.  It helps me to see what I am working towards.   The animals go up and down and the platform rotates.  

The animals have not yet been painted.  The carousel has two horses, a tiger, a ram, and a rabbit.  I want to add some flowers, blankets, and saddles to them before painting.  There is still quite a bit of work to do on them.  

This is all the progress I made this week.  Check back next week on Monday or Tuesday for the next update.

Paper Mâché Carousel - Central Column Support Completed - Part 41

Today I have pictures of the wooden support in the center of the carousel.  As many of my long-time readers know, my husband has been helping me with cutting the wooden pieces.  This project would never have gotten off the ground if it was not for his help in cutting the wood and giving me some technical advice. Thankfully, he is able to translate my description of what I want into something that will work.  Once again, his timely advice saved the day.  More on that below.

The blog may look a little choppy today.  I have more pictures to show than text.  I used to be able to place the pictures where I wanted them, but something has changed and I have not had time to figure out why I cannot move the pictures around like I used to do it.  

This photo is the wooden central support column that will go

inside the paper mâché column.  It has been screwed into the platform which the animals will be on.  This is two 2x4 pieces screwed together.  The corners of the blocks have been cut down to allow it to sit inside the column.

Technically, the paper mâché column is strong enough on its own to support the weight of the top platform of the carousel.  The wooden central column has more to do with making sure that the platforms will turn in tandem.  The poles that the animals are on must stay straight up and down.  If the ceiling platform should get out of sync with the floor platform, it could

cause the wooden poles to break.

This photo shows the wooden column from the top down so you can see how the corners have been shaved to fit it into the paper mâché column.  It is slightly narrower than the external cylinder.

The next photo shows the underside of the floor platform.  It has already been painted.  Four screws have been drilled through the platform and into the block of wood shown in the picture above.  

The screws are counter-sunk into the wood.  This platform will be mounted to the rotating platform, and I did not want the heads of the screws to be causing a problem.  

I will be blogging more on how I mount this platform to the rotating mechanism in a future post.  

This side was chosen to be the underside because of the blemishes in the wood.  Once everything is put together this will be completely hidden.

The last photo, shown below, shows the paper mâché column sitting over the wooden support.  You can see that the wooden column tops the paper mâché column by about a quarter inch (6.35 mm).  I had thought that it should be even with the top of the column, but my husband said no on that.  He reminded me that wood shrinks and swells and that had to be accounted for in the planning.  Right now, we are in summer and there is a lot of heat and humidity so the wood is in its swollen stage, so it is a little higher than it might be in winter.

All in all, it is probably a good thing that it is a little higher.  the wooden piece is level.  The paper mâché column is somewhat (mildly) off level.  I may need to add some shims here and there.

My husband suggested that I figure out some way to add trim to cover up that small gap.  I have not totally figured that out yet, but I am not worried about it.  I just look at as a new layer of embellishment to be added to the carousel.  Where there is a will, there is a way.

The paper mâché column has been glued to the floor layer.  I will be painting it in place.  The top platform will be resting on the column and screwed into the wood as the bottom platform was.  The top of the paper mâché column will not be glued to the top platform.  It will only be held in by screws.  That way, if I need to take the carousel apart for any reason, the top platform can be lifted off easily.

That is it for today's blog post. Check back next Monday or Tuesday for the next update.

Paper Mâché Carousel - More Layers and Primed - Part 40

More progress on the column for the carousel.  I know it seems as if I have been working on this section for a long time.  I guess it has been at least three or four weeks that I have been working on this one section.  This week I added the last layers of paper mâché. 

After the last layers were dry, I headed outside to sand it.  I needed to smooth some of the rough edges.  It is not a great time of year to be outside sanding.  Although it was still fairly early in the morning, it was 92૦ F (33.33 C).  The outside workbench was in full sun, and I was wearing an N95 mask and eye protection.  I felt like I was roasting out there.  

I did not spend as much time on sanding the inside of the cylinder.  Once the carousel is put together, it will not be seen.  So, I sanded enough to get it fairly smooth, but there are a few rough spots here and there.

Right not it only has one layer of primer on it.  I generally give my pieces two layers of primer.  The print slightly shows through on the first layer.  If I were using an exterior primer I might have gotten away with one coat.  However, I am using an acrylic primer to make sure it works well with the paints I will be using.  Maybe that is overkill, but my thinking is if you build it like you wanted to last a hundred years, it just might.

The bottom of the cylinder is not painted.  I want to be able to glue that to the wooden platform.  At least that is the plan for the moment.  I am not sure that is going to be necessary as the piece that will hold the top and middle platforms together will actually be screwed into a center wooden piece.  

I will blog more on that soon.  The good news is that it is ready for that part to be added.  The bad news is that I have to wait for my husband to cut that piece.  He only wants to do it on a day when he is already working outside. However, I really need to have everything ready before this piece is added.  Otherwise, I will be having to take it apart and put it back together again multiple times.  

I have already put the carousel together once (minus the internal column support) to test the revolving mechanism with the platforms.  It is not that easy to put together.  I will blog more about that when I put the carousel together for the final time. 

My husband was a little aggravated that I did not have him cut this wooden piece when I had him cut the platforms.  I had to tell him that until all the layers of paper mâché were in place that I did not know what that final measurement was going to be.  It is surprising just how much depth six layers of paper mâché will add to the project.  

The wooden piece needs to be exactly even with the top and bottom of the cylinder in order for the top platform to sit on it without being wobbly and have no gaps between the cylinder and the top and bottom platforms.  

This photo is the underside of the platform where the animals will be mounted.  It has had a coat of primer, and this is the first coat of acrylic paint.  I decided to start painting here to see just how problematic the painting of the plywood platforms might be.  I chose this piece for the underside because it has low spots here and there.  Once the carousel is put together, it will not be seen.  

In an effort to keep costs down, he was using some leftover scrap plywood from one of his projects.  It is not in the greatest shape.  Even after sanding it was still pretty rough.  The other platform pieces are in better condition.

Anyway, I had to scrub the paint into the plywood.  The grain of it did not take the paint well.  It gave the platform a very marbled look.  I will be giving it a second coat.  In a way, I kind of like the marbled look.  It reminds me of sun and shade playing across the grass.  I will see what happens after the second coat.  

I want to get the platform pieces painted before I start on the decoration and painting of the animals.  I am glad to be getting to that point.  It feels as if I have been working on this forever.  In fact, I started on this last June.  This is the longest, most difficult project I have ever worked on.  I enjoy my time working on my projects, but sometimes it feels like wading through mud.  Mostly that is because I want to get to the parts that I really enjoy rather than working on everything that needs to be done that are not as much fun.

Check back next Monday or Tuesday for the next blog post.

More Pâper Mâché on the Column - Part 39

 I am back from my vacation and once I caught up on everything that needed to be done, I started working on the carousel again.  When I left off last blog post, I had added the top and bottom pieces of the carousel and had covered them with tape.  This week I have been working on covering those areas with paper mâché.  I know readers are tired of seeing the same picture, but this is a photo of the column with four layers of paper mâché on it. I still have two to go.

The first layers top and bottom were added by the regular strip method of applying paper mâché.  It took a long time and is partly why I did not finish all the layers this week.  After that, I decided to work smarter not harder and figured out a different way to add the paper mâché layers.  

Anyone that works with paper mâché will tell you that the first layer is the hardest one to get on because it has more difficulty adhering to the surface.  That was one of my reasons for wanting the first layer to be done it strips.  Working in small pieces made it easier to get each strip pasted down well.  

As I blogged in an earlier post, I had originally planned to have the top and bottoms of the column added as trim pieces that were not connected to the main column.  I changed my mind midstream on that because the ring of the column did not have a large enough gluing area for when it is attached to the platform.  By attaching the trim to the column, it gives a much larger gluing area.

To speed up the process, I decided that using large circles of newsprint would be the quickest way to get this piece finished.  I used a compass to draw circles that were larger than the column.  I folded the circle of paper in half and then in quarters so that I would have some reference lines to find the center of the circle.  I snipped a small line with scissors to have a starting point.

At this point I want to digress for a minute to tell you about my method for keeping my work surface clean while working on paper mâché pieces of this size.  As you can see from the photos, I have my work surface covered with plastic to protect the table.  At this point I placed a piece of Press and Seal over the plastic where I was working.  (Press and Seal has a waxy coating on one side that allows it to be pressed down firmly to stay in place.) I lay the circle down on the Press and Seal area and spread paper mâché paste on one side.  Then I flipped it over and spread paste on the other side.  Then I covered the top, rim, and part of the side of the column inside and out with paste.  After that, I gently lifted my pasted circle of paper and centered it on the column. 

(When I finished with pasting the circles on the Press and Seal, I can just pull up the plastic, fold it up and throw it away.  My work surface is still nice and clean and does not have any of the little flour paste pieces that flake and get everywhere as the paste dries.  Getting rid of the paste leftovers quickly means the work surface stays clear and is less of a mess to clean up before the painting begins.)

Once the circle was centered on the column, I used more paste to smooth the circle onto the column.  When that was firmly attached, I used a pair of old scissors (do not use good scissors for this) to cut along the reference lines I had folded into the paper up to the edge of the column.  The little snips I had made in the center made it easy to find the reference lines under all the paste.  So, I cut the lines all the way to the edge of the column, then folded the triangular pieces down onto the inside of the column and made sure they were pasted down well.  The inside was not as neat as the outside and has a few wrinkles, but no one will ever see it.

Next, I burnished the paper to the rim of the trim pieces using more paste to make sure that the rim was secured well.  At this point the circle still spread beyond the base of the trim.  I used scissors to make small cuts around the paper circle so that I could fold in small pieces of the edge to the underneath side of the trim and down the side of column.   I wish I had taken a picture of that step.  This explanation is not great.  I guess the best I could compare it to would be to use a sewing term.  In garment sewing, they tell you to trim the seam and clip the curves using small cuts on the edge of the fabric to allow the fabric to bend around a curve.  That is what I am trying to explain here.

I suppose people that work with paper mâché are wondering why I used scissors rather than tearing the paper.  Most people know that scissors will leave a hard edge on the project while tearing creates a deckled edge that does not leave a hard edge.  In this case, the paper circle was very moist from having the paste put on while lying on the table and then being worked around the inside, upper edge and rim.  When I tried to tear it, the paper started coming apart and little pieces were being pulled off.  The cuts will only show on the underside of the rim.  Most people will not be examining the carousel that closely and will never see them.  If I find I cannot live with the hard edges, I will cover over them with a torn piece of paper so that they will not show.

Anyway, two more layers of paper mâché to go on the trim and one more layer on the column go and this portion will be finished.  The edges of the column trim are a little lumpy.  It will need some sanding before it is primed.  

People sometimes wonder why everyone says to use six layers of paper mâché.  One reason for that is because if you are sanding and hit a layer where there is a bubble under the surface, or a large lump that needs to be sanded down to flat, that you have enough layers to do that without sanding down to the original surface.  It also has to do with weight bearing in some cases.  If the piece is not strong enough, it could crush when weight is added.  Also, if you are cutting a piece off a mold, you have to have enough layers that the pieces will not curl.  Three layers and the cut pieces will curl inward and be really difficult to work with.  Four layers and they will curl and have to be pried back into shape to glue the parts together.  (Scroll back to my pumpkin blogs to see more on this.)  At six layers, the pieces will curl less and hold their shape.  It makes it much easier to glue the edges together.  Hope that is informative for those new to paper mâché.

So that is about it for this week.  Check back next Monday or Tuesday for the next blog post.

Next Step for the Carousel - Part 38

I am sorry that I have no new carousel pictures this week.   I have added a couple of forest pictures though.  My husband and I decided to take an impromptu vacation.  We had planned to go to the mountains over the Memorial Day weekend, but the weather report was calling for such bad weather that we decided to reschedule it.  When the weather cleared and the forecast was nice, we decided to jump on it and just pick up and go.  That did not leave me any time to work on the carousel this week.  So the project is still where I left off last week.

 

 So, still six layers of paper mâché to go on the central column.  I will need to decorate it before it is installed on the platform.  I guess that means another trip to my local craft store.  

I have two visions for the decoration of the central column, and I have not yet settled on which one to use.  One idea is to have some Johnny Cake faces and mirrors framed with small scroll work to reflect the animals.  The other idea is to paint some type of forest scene on it.

Both ideas have some problems. Since the column is round, any mirrors would have to be fairly narrow or else they will not fit on the surface well.  I did not have that problem on my last carousel because it had a square central column.  Commercial scroll work pieces may be too large to fit flat on the column, but I could custom make the pieces to fit using paper mâché clay.  It really comes down to what is available and how much work I want to put into the project.  Sooner or later I need to get this thing put together.

 My idea for the forest scene would be something like these pictures I took while up in the mountains.  My main problem is the painting of it.  Although my painting skills have improved somewhat, I am not sure I could paint it well enough.  While I am beyond painting trees that look like lollypops, I am not sure I could do it well enough that it would not be a distraction from the animals.  

I suppose a third option would be to just decoratively paint it with stars and scrolls.  It might be the easiest thing to do.  It might be less distracting than anything else. 

The column will be glued to the platform and will rotate as the carousel turns.  Anything that is behind an animal is going to be behind it permanently.  I would prefer the mirrors if I can get them to fit on the column.  They would reflect the far side of the animal.  

I suppose that if I made a backing out of clay that was rounded enough to fit column, but had a flat surface on the front I could glue the mirror to that.  Hmmm.... I may have to experiment with that. In any case, the worst that can happen is that I have to get another oatmeal box and start over on that part of the project.

Some people may wonder why I don't have more of a plan before I start.  I just prefer to work free form and create what strikes me at the moment.  Working spontaneously allows me to bring forth a better project that working from some set in stone plan.  There are some parts of the project that must be exactly placed, such as the bumps that will make the animals go up and down, but in other places I can just play.  Imagining and playing are the best part of the project for me.  

 The photo below shows the ram.  I think he came out well.

Check back next Monday or Tuesday for the next bog post.

Paper Mâché Carousel - More on Creating the Column - Part 37

This week I have been working more on creating the central column.  I wanted to have some trim on the top and base of the column to give it some more gluing area and to cover the join between the base and ceiling platforms.  I went through a couple of changes on how I wanted to make it, but I think this change will make it work better.  At first, I envisioned the trim pieces as a separate piece, but I think it will work better as something made as an integral part of the column.  It will give me more gluing area when I attach it to the base.

I will show another picture of the column in a minute in a different photo.  But, for now, I will start with making the trim pieces.  I started by tracing around the column on a piece of cardboard.  That would be the inner circle.  

It is hard to see in the picture, but I made some registration marks on the inner circle and corresponding marks on the column.  These will make it easier to make it fit on the column.  Slight variations in the thickness of the paper mâché layers, and slight cutting errors make it harder to match up the column and trim without the registration marks.

I measured the diameter of the inner circle and marked the center.  Then I used a compass to draw the outer circle.  The registration marks were then transferred to the inside of the outer circle.  Then I cut out the inner circle and outer circle with a sharp craft knife.  

I made four of these circles.  The cardboard was not thick enough in a single layer, of I used two circles taped together to form a single layer to make it as thick as I wanted.  The registration marks were remarked on each layer of the tape.

In the upper portion of this photo, the base of the column is shown with the first set of rings taped to it.  

The column and rings matched up easily when using the registration marks.  The column of the cylinder was made using a repurposed oatmeal container.  Scroll back to previous posts to see that being covered in paper mâché.  If you cannot scroll back, you can go to this blog's URL which is folkartbycaroljones.blogspot.com  

So here is the column with both sets of the trim attached.  Each end is double taped to make prevent water infiltration into the cardboard from the paper mâché paste.  I always double tape because I have had some unfortunate experiences in previous projects when the paste was too moist and the carboard soaked it up.  

The angle used when taking the photo makes it look as if the top trim is larger than the base.  That is just a property of the photo.  The trim pieces are actually the same size top and bottom.

There are a couple of places that are not exactly in the round due to small cutting errors.  They can be built up later with layers of paper mâché strips.  The areas are so small that it was not worth the effort of cutting out two more circles.  When the carousel is finished, it won't even be noticeable.

I just added a picture of the carousel that I took when I was testing the rotating mechanism.  It gives you an idea of what I am shooting for with the central column.  

This coming week I will be working on the paper mâché layers that will make the trim a permanent part of the column.  Maybe I will have a chance to at least get the primer coat on it.

Anyway, that is my stopping point for this week.  I am getting very excited.  Now that I have all the major pieces ready, I can start decorating and painting the animals.  I want to add saddles, bridles, flowers, and ribbons to the animals using paper mâché clay.  I will probably be making the clay myself, so stay tuned for more information on that part of the project.  

Check back next Monday or Tuesday for the next blog post.

Paper Mâché Carousel - Priming Continues

 There is not a lot to report this week.  I have been priming the plywood discs that make up the base, floor, and ceiling of the carousel.  Most of the discs are primed, with the exception of the top of the ceiling layer.  I have not yet determined how the top of the carousel will be decorated so I am holding off on that piece.

The only other disc that looks anything other than painted solid white is the layer that the animals will be on.  The center of this disc has a circular layer that is not painted like the rest.  I forgot that I needed to keep that layer clear in the center for now.  I painted it on the first coat and had to go back and sand that area to get some of the primer off.  I will need to sand a little more but decided that I would do that later.

The reason for keeping the center clear is that the central column will be glued in there.  This portion of the central column is mainly decorative.  The actual support for the roof will be inside the column.  I will blog more about that in another paragraph.  

At this point the center circle is larger than the column.  I have also accounted for the trim that will be glued around the column.  The area is still larger than what I expect the column and trim to occupy, but I wanted to leave plenty of room for gluing.  I will have to go back in and paint in the rest of the primer once the column is in place.

This is the central column as it is right now.  It is covered by three layers of paper mâché on the inside, and five layers on the outside.  It is very strong.  It could hold up the ceiling on its own, but I need a wooden piece on the inside that can be screwed into the base and ceiling to keep them rotating as one unit.  There will be a separate blog post on that when I get that far.  

For now, my plan is to build the trim onto the base of the column.  It will be made of cardboard and paper mâché.  It will be permanently attached on the base.  It needs to be attached with glue and paper mâché before it is primed and painted.

The top will also have trim, but at this time my plan is to attach the trim to the ceiling and just have the column fit into it rather than trying to glue it to the column.  That will help when it comes time to put it together and if I should ever need to take it apart again.  

Why would I want to take it apart again?  Who knows.  Maybe the rotating platform fails and needs to be replaced.  Or maybe I need to ship it somewhere and it will travel more safely if it is packed as flatly as possible and reassembled elsewhere.  If I had to transport it, my main concern would be for the dowels that the animals will be mounted on.  They are only a quarter inch (6.35 mm) thick.  I am concerned that a mishandled package could give it such a jolt that it could crack the dowels.  Maybe I am worrying over nothing, but I would hate to go to all this much work and have something break it.  The dowels could be replaced but it would be a lot of work to do that.

Anyway, that is where I left off on working on the project this week.  Look for the next blog post on next Monday or Tuesday.