Update on the Carousel Project

I have made some progress on the carousel project, but unfortunately it is not very visible.  As I blogged last time, I was making a decision about what material to use for the pole that runs through the animal.  I had to decide whether to use brass rods or bamboo.  After digging through my box of bits and parts, I found the brass rods. 

A few minutes of experimenting showed me that the bamboo rod in such a small diameter was too flexible and could break at some point.  I had suspected that might be the case.  I have made dolls that had 3/8 inch dowels as part of the support and found that they dowels were not sturdy enough supports.  While the menagerie animals will be on a platform, and would not necessarily be handled by the pole, it is not worth the risk of having it break at some point and ruin the piece.

And, that's when the good new/bad news cycle started.  It went like this:  The good news:  I have the brass rods.  The bad news:  I don't have enough brass rods to complete the project.  The good news:  I remember that my husband had borrowed a rod for one of his projects and may have some leftover.  The bad news:  He doesn't remember what he did with the rods.  The good news:  He finds the rod, and two others as well.  (More bits and parts successfully transferred from his pile to mine.)  The bad news:  I'm out of metal cutting wheels for the Dremel tool.  The good news:  I find time (during an extra busy week) to go to the hardware store and by more cutting wheels.  The bad news:  That's as much as I've been able to do on the project this week.

So there you have it.  The good news is that today I'm home and able to work on the project.  I plan to cut the brass rods and drill the holes for them.  After that, I can get to the point I've been waiting for:  painting the figures.