Thursday, April 23, 2009

The Walls Go Up!

It's not much to look at yet, but this is the start of a new roombox. In an earlier blog, I showed a picture of a PowerPoint slide where I had drawn out the floor plan.

Since this was my idea to make an old-fashioned barbershop, I'm leading our miniature club in this project. I hope it turns out well!

As you can see, we glued a framework very much like what you'd see in a real building, except for one thing - these boards would be 4 x 4's if they were in full dimension. I discovered when I built my last roombox using this methodology that gluing up a scale 2 x 4 wall was flimsy. When 2 x 4 frames are built in real life, builders use big honking nails to hold the pieces together. But in miniature, I used only glue. End result? My walls weren't very solid - they fell apart on me a couple of times when I moved the frame around. This time, I've used a heavier base wood (3/8" x 3/4") and 3/8" x 3/8" timbers for the uprights. As a result, the walls are far more sturdy.

I will change the photo in the back wall. I didn't like the angle, and there were too many cars in the photo. I took a different photograph from First Street in Salida, Colorado, did some photo shop work to remove two cars, and now have a wonderful set of Victorian store fronts with no cars!

We'll add acid free matte board to the front of the framework above to create the walls for this old fashioned barbershop. Next month we'll be adding the revised "view" out the front window, walls with wallpaper, a wall of bricks outside the shop door along the back, and maybe even the tin ceiling and if time allows. It will be a busy day of building!

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