Carousel Part 33- More Progress on the Carousel

Roof base has paper mache' and has been sanded.

I'm really pleased with the progress I've made this week, although once again there are no new pictures.  I had planned to have new ones, but the progress is more in the nature of things that don't have a lot of visual value.  However, next post will be different.  I plan to have the animals in place by then. 

Rings for roof have been sanded.

The last few days have been spent adding more layers of paper mache' and sanding the completed rings.  Not much to see there, but the rings and spokes are smooth and ready to be painted.  It does not sound like much, but that represents hours of work. 

I have drilled the holes for the poles that run through the animals.  The base of the carousel has been mounted to the spinning platform.  (A note to readers that have tuned into the project later on:  the carousel will rotate on a ball bearing platform.  The carousel will not be mechanized, but will spin with the push of a finger.  This is a folk art carousel.) 

The rotating base has now  been attached to the wooden base.

I had a bit of anxiety at this point.  It was absolutely essential that the holes go in the right place on the first drilling.  I did not want any holes in the floor that had to be patched.  Part of the difficulty was that I could not attach the housing first because I had to turn it over to attach the rotating base.  I could not attach the rotating base first because I then I would be trying to do some precision drilling on a moving base.  So I sat the base on the base and measured and moved it around until it was even on all sides.  Then I used some low tack artist's tape to mark off the placement of the housing.  The tape was helpful not only for marking the spot of the housing, it was also helpful because I could mark mid-point and the exact spot where I wanted the holes for the poles.  For the cat and pig, it was the mid-point, but the poles on the camel and giraffe were not centered on the mid-point of the animals.  The placement for them was slightly off to the right of center.  This helped the animals look evenly spaced around the carousel.  Checking and double checking, (and even triple checking) to make sure that everything was right took another big bite of time.  Thankfully, everything came out okay. 

The rotating base now has a coat of primer on it.  I did not paint it before it was attached because of the possibility of the paint getting scratched whole it was on the drill press.  I plan to gild it with the same 14 karat gold paint that is on the wooden part of the base. 

I made my first attempt at creating the face plaques that will be mounted above the mirrors.  It did not work out so well.  By the time I added layers of clay to cover the base and build up the face, the piece was ridiculously out of proportion to the rest of the project.  The project is so small, that trying to sculpt a face was really challenging.  (Remember, the menagerie animals are only two and a half inches long.)  So I am on to Plan B.  More about that next post.

By my next blog post, I plan to have the animals mounted and the roof construction completed.  The roof may not be attached to the housing because it will be easier to attach the face plaques if the roof is not in the way.  I hope to have the plaques completed, but it depends on how things go.  I also have a Plan C and Plan D just in case Plan B does not work.  I'm so very close to finishing the project that it is hard not be be impatient.  Unfortunately, making tiny faces requires a lot of patience.