Carousel-Part 27-Sometimes You Have to Say "Time to Start Over"

As many of my readers have probably already figured out, my housing just isn't going to work out.  It would have been much easier and quicker to have used four long pieces to make one box with some bracing rather than the fiasco I created.  I really have no excuse for the mess because I have a lot of experience with remodeling my home.  Although it appeared to be laying flat when I was gluing it together, the box twists and leans like the leaning tower of Pisa. 

Not only did I mess up on the design, but I also had a math fail. As in, I failed to account for the added length due to the cross pieces.  Rather than making the housing twelve inches high, it turned out to be thirteen and a half inches high.  Even so, it should have only been twelve and three quarter inches tall. 
Obviously I cut something wrong.  Sometimes I just amaze myself at how badly I can mess something up. 

At thirteen and a half inches the housing is too tall.  It just won't look right proportionately.  The good news is that it is not expensive to start again.  The cost is relatively minor.  I'm glad that I'm buying my supplies from a big box hardware store so I don't have to face the same clerk for my third trip in to buy one quarter inch pieces of wood! 

I suppose that it is possible at this point to take the boxes apart and cut some of the excess length on one section.  The box has a slight twist to it, but that could settle out once it is glued to the external panels.  I'd need to shim one corner of the box to make it plumb.  I'm just not sure it is worth the effort.  I'll have to think about it.  Check back for the results.

Carousel-Part 26- Center Housing

The two boxes will be joined with more wood to create one rectangle.

In my last blog post I had said that I decided that the housing in the center of the carousel needed to be larger by half an inch in each direction.  This required another trip out for more supplies, so I had to work that into my schedule before I could proceed.  I had to go to the hardware store anyway, so I checked there for the 1/4 inch square wood pieces.  The hardware store had poplar pieces in that size, but not the balsa wood.

I actually liked the poplar better because it felt sturdier that the balsa. I felt that it was really what I needed to make sure the structure would support the weight of the roof.  Also, it was less than half the price I had paid for the balsa wood.  The big difference was that the poplar is harder to cut.  Not that cutting something so small was all that big of a problem. 

The rectangular structure will form the center housing for the carousel.

If the other workshop had been clear, I would have used the chop saw to cut the pieces and been done with it.  However, the work room was occupied by my husbands project and he is applying finish coats of varnish to it.  I didn't want to put any sawdust in the area.  I didn't want to take the saw outside because it looked as if it was going to pour down rain any minute.  (We have been having a lot or rain this year.  For several years we had been in a drought.  The rain is now somewhat above normal, but after so much drought it feels like an incredible amount of rain.)  I could have used the cutting blade with my Dremel tool in my studio, but it throws sawdust everywhere and I had just cleaned up from the last time I did that. I ended up cutting it with a coping saw.  That kept the sawdust to a manageable minimum.  It took a while, but I finally had the pieces cut. 

So, I finally was able to start on the housing.  Basically it will be a big rectangle two and a half inches on each side and twelve inches high.  Fortunately, small pieces of art do not have to conform to the building code.I am building the internal support in three pieces because the support beams are so thin that I felt that a middle support was necessary.  Once it is all together I'll decide if it needs further supports. 

The pictures show the first two rectangles I made.  They are glued and held together with tape at the moment.  Once the glue is dry, I'll add the extra pieces of wood that will form the third rectangle.  So now I'm just waiting for the glue to dry so I can get on with things.

Once the whole structure is in put together, I will reinforce all the joints with glue and fabric.  I'm using glue and fabric because the pieces are so small that I am worried about breaking the wood if I try to put a brad in them.  A quarter of an inch is not a whole lot of area to work with when you need to make sure that the wood will stay together.

The photo of the carousel is shown with the original sized square not the new larger size.

Carousel-Part 25- Animal Placement-Photos

I thought I'd include some pictures of the menagerie animal placement today.  Last week I decided that the carousel would have an actual housing rather than just a piece of dowel holding up the roof.  I used squares of paper to figure out the size.  Now that I've actually cut the base, I'm thinking I ought to go a half inch larger.  Fortunately, I have not cut the wood panels yet.  It will mean another trip to the store for additional pieces of wood to make the supports of the structure larger.  Such is life.

We had a storm blow threw on Thursday evening.  It was mostly a wind event.  One of our big poplars was ripped in half.  The half that was torn off fell on the power line and took out our power and cable TV.  Our power is back, but the cable company has yet to fix the cable.  It used to be a rare event that we had tree damage, but in the last few years it has become an annual event.  Recently it has become an every storm event.  Dealing with the storm damage, the power company, and the cable company impacted my time to work on the project this week. 

Anyway, I hope you enjoy a view of the menagerie animals on the base of the carousel.  The square in the center is the base of the housing.  It is not yet glued into place. 

Carousel-Part 24-Floor Varnished and Guilded

I added another coat of stain and varnish to the floor of the carousel.  The floor looks quite a bit better now, although it is hard to tell that from the photo.  The gloss varnish creates a lot of glare.  When I try to photograph it, has too much reflection.  I tried to reduce the glare in this photo by bouncing the light off of white paper to soften the light.  It still is not quite right, but the photos are getting better.

My first coat of stain was pecan.  It looked a little red, and had not stained evenly.  Once I added a second stain in pine, the floor looked much better.  Up until then I was wondering if I would be able to continue with my plan because the floor was not looking like I expected it to look.  As I found out, part of the problem was my expectation of what it looked like and the other part was that I don't have any experience with installing real wood floors.  As soon as I put the varnish on it the floor really came to life.  It looked a lot better.

Once the floor was varnished, I painted the exterior portion of the base with 14 karat gold paint.  The gold paint really added something to the look of the floor.  The change in how the base looked has really recharged my excitement about the project. 

My next step is to build the housing that holds up the roof for my project.  In a real carousel the equipment that moves the carousel and the sound system would be inside this room.  For my little project it only holds up the roof.  I placed the animals on the carousel to get a feel for what size the housing would need to be.  As you can imagine, it is really small.  I finally settled on one and a half inches on a side.  I actually considered using a one and a half inch dowel as I have a piece that is just the right size.  However, I finally decided that I would take the longer route and make a little square building.  I'm hoping that I will have the building put together by the next time I blog, although it may not be completely decorated and painted by then. 

Holiday Weekend-No Post Today

There is no post today because it is Mother's Day. I'm off for the holiday.  Please check back on Wednesday to see what is new with the Carousel Project.

Carousel Part 23-Carousel Floor Stained-Also Cabin Trip Photo

I've stained the carousel floor.  It is a little patchy.  Some areas stained better than others.  I guess that is  to be expected, after all this floor is made from skinny craft sticks.  The sticks are not the best quality of wood. It looks better in real life than it does in the photo.  I am debating to add another coat of stain to make it a little darker.  I used a pecan colored stain and it is not stain as dark as I would like it.

We had some small cans of stain here at the house, so I chose between what was available here rather than go buy some new product.  It did not seem economical to purchase a whole can of stain in order to stain one square foot of space.  We had pecan and dark walnut stain.  I thought the dark walnut would be too dark, so I went with the pecan. 

I also added a photo of the stream behind the cabin.  This area had filled up with gravel.  I dug out most of the gravel pit by hand.  I estimate that I moved over a ton of gravel. 

Carousel Part 22-Sanded Floor also Photos from the Cabin and Folk Art Walking Sticks

I've made some incremental progress on the carousel.  The floor of the base has been sanded with 100 grit and 350 grit sand paper.  It is now much smoother than it was.  There are still a couple of spots I may go over one more time today.  The problem is that the thickness of the wood strips is not the same on all the strips.  On something this small, a millimeter is noticeable. However, overall I think the sanding went quite well.  The edges rounded out better than I expected also. 

A coat of gesso has been painted over the wood glue that I used to fill in the gouges the cutting blade made in the base.  It filled in nicely and sanded to a smooth finish.  I won't paint the trim until after I stain the floor.  I think that will get to that tomorrow.  This section is not as exciting as creating the menagerie animals, but taking the time to get it done right will yield good results in the finished piece.  I think that once the base is stained and varnished that it will change the look of the piece in an amazing way.

Just to keep the blog from being a bore to read I'm adding a couple of pictures from my last trip up to the cabin.  The forsythia was in bloom and it was beautiful.  Also, I've included a close up view of one of the walking sticks created by folk artist Ray Mabe.

Carousel-Part 21- Next Step on the Flooring and Some Folk Art Photos

Flooring before.

After excess flooring is cut off.

Despite rainy weather that has prevented me from working outside, I have made some progress on the carousel.  I'll have to show you a before and after picture for you to notice though.  I used a Dremel tool with a cutting blade and cut back the flooring so that it is flush with the top of the base.  Once I finished it, I noticed a lot of gouges created by the cutting blade and thought, "Maybe I should have used a router".  Perhaps I should have, but it was too rainy to take it outside and set up.  Also, I wasn't totally sure that a router might not rip the fragile craft sticks to pieces.  Anyway, done is done, and I've come up with a solution to the situation.  If the solution doesn't work, then I have an interesting "design opportunity."

I filled in the gouges with wood glue that is sandable and paintable.  Once the piece is sanded and painted, they will not be noticeable.  I would have used some wood filler, but I could not find any in the workshop and it was quicker than heading out to the hardware store.  At the moment, the piece needs a good sanding and some work on the rim, but it will look better once it gets a few steps further along.  At times like these I just have to keep reminding myself that it is not finished yet and it will look better in a while.

I know that the slow pace of the work can be annoying and frustrating for readers, so I thought I'd add a couple of photos from my last trip.  The pictures were taken up at the cabin.  There is an interesting piece of
an old weathered root that sits on top of a shed.  If you use your imagination, it looks like a dragon's head.  The other photo is a section of a painted folk art walking stick made by folk artist Ray Mabe.