Let there be Light - episode two

This is a second  piece I wrote for Dolls House and Miniature Scene magazine when I used the Small world power strip for the first time.  With luck I will be here tomorrow with Dalton House's wiring completed and fully lit.

Let there be light

This month Marilyn Ormson gets to try out a new (to her) lighting system.

The brevity of this piece is a paean to the simplicity of the lighting system I used.

The ‘old’ way

A while ago Martin Butler from Small World Products contacted me because he’d read something I’d written about my suffering when putting in round wire lighting.  Don’t get me wrong I much prefer it to the copper tape system but I positively hate those wretched little plugs that have to come off and go back on the wires.  They do nothing for my sweet nature – I become an enraged bull and discover language I didn’t know I knew.

He suggested I might like to try his ‘Easy-wire system’ instead and he very kindly sent me the bits and bobs (and more) to do it.  I joyously exchanged the gang plank and plugs, seen here on my Wentworth, for this… 

The ‘new’ way

I totally understand that for some of you this looks scary, complicated and very electrical.  At least I hope that is the case because it did to me.  I suspect it is because we are used to the idea of plugs and sockets and anyone who has had nothing to do with fiddling about with electrical bits and bobs can be ‘put off’ by the sight of a bit of kit which is alien to them.  DON’T BE!

The capacity of the power centre I used here is a bit of overkill on the small property I was wiring.  I was only connecting eight bulbs and this strip could handle eighty-five!  It is important when choosing the size of any power centre that you know how many bulbs, not lights, you will want to connect.  From Small World Product’s tiny (SW06) power centre which can handle forty-five bulbs, up to the one I am showing you here (SW04) there is an SWP system capable of controlling a simple room box to a huge mansion, including flickering fireplaces and added wall sockets.  But, I am getting ahead of myself.

If you have been following my build you will recall I had a time hitch on the lights as I couldn’t collect them for a couple of months.  Sadly, it still didn’t pan out as I wanted so in the last week of the ‘lighting month’ I ordered some replacements from my regular ‘life-saver’ Jennifer’s of Walsall; a couple of days later they arrived and within an hour they were in the house.  So much for this being an episode about a month devoted to lighting; it turns out to be more like a description of a lighting coffee break.

Positioning the lights

If anything in your project depends on the light being in exactly the right place you need to find a way to mark its position. Don’t do this ‘by eye’; you’ll be astounded how far out you will be. In Chocolat’s case I wanted lights centred over the two counter tops and in the shop windows. I put the counters in their place and marked the centre of their tops.  For the shop windows I hung a heavy bead on a thread (bit like a plumb line) to find the correct position for the lights. 

At this point you can carefully measure from the back wall to the spot and from the side wall to the spot and carefully transfer these measurements to the floor above.  The point where they intersect is where you will be drilling a hole for the wiring.  I have my own method which consists of folding a piece of paper a couple of times until it fits nice and squarely in the corner and, in this case, its other edge is on the centre of the counter.  I can then put a mark on the paper where I want the hole to be in the ceiling.

I then transfer this information upstairs.  This photo isn’t the best example because, in this case, I had to make an allowance for the built in cupboards in the room below.  I hope you still get the idea.  Basically you are making a template in the area below the ceiling to position the light and then transferring it to the floor above, ready to drill your hole through the ceiling.  Phew!  Maybe measuring is easier after all.

  

Groovy

This work actually took place a couple of months ago when I wrote part two – ‘If I had a hammer’.  I mentioned having cut the grooves for the lights as part of the wood-working month. 

I did it by cutting along the pencil line with a steel rule and box knife; then I used a ten dollar not-a- Dremel with a router bit to cut the groove followed by a tidy up with a triangular file.  This last part is totally unnecessary unless you have OCD.  You then need to drill a hole in the back wall to allow the wires to exit.  Ignore the wrong looking hole in this picture it was leftover from its previous existence as O’Rourke’s Post Office.  So, joy of joys, when I came to put the lights in, all the grooves were waiting for me.

  

Check everything

If you have little people who need to walk under your lights ask them nicely to do just that.  Most of my lights were on chains and they all had to be adjusted quite a lot.  The ones over the counters and in the windows needed to be the ‘right’ amount of dangle and the ones in the rooms needed to allow free passage underneath.  I stick them in place with a bit of masking tape so I can keep fiddling with them until I am happy and then hack off the appropriate length of chain and rejoin it to the ceiling rose fitting.

  

  

  

Did I say check everything?

Old faithful (the gang plank) is great for checking each light is working before you mess about putting it in place.  This is vitally important if you are using lights that have been used somewhere else before.  These lights were new but I still plugged them into a lighting bar and checked that they had survived Royal Mail.  They were good to go.

Afterwards I got a real sense of pleasure chopping off the plugs and knowing this time they would not be going back on.

Contrary, moi?

I don’t like the appearance of those oh-so-useful sticky tabs that come with most lights so I peel them off and stick my lights to the ceiling with glue.  What glue, you might ask.  I have tried just about everything from thin double-sided sticky tape, the usual PVA, a hot glue gun and super-glue and they have all given some sort of problem.  I now use my all-time favourite glue which I promote at every opportunity; so here we go….

I use it for everything and I mean everything – it glues any material to any material and will glue painted and stained surfaces.  It dries clear and you can paint or stain over any residue.  It hasn’t failed me yet so I’ve no reason to believe it won’t work on lights.

It is called R/C Modellers Craft Glue by Deluxe Materials but I call it my rocket glue as it claims to withstand the shock of rockets taking off and landing.  Don’t ask for rocket glue though because they have one by that name!

The lights that have a sticky tab also have a slit in the ceiling rose to let the wire through, always check you have put that at the back out of sight.

Be tidy

Not just because I am pernickety but because your floors and skirting boards will go in place better.

Straighten the wire before sticking your light firmly in place.  Thread through the hole in the ceiling and run the wire flat and neatly along the groove.  You should exit, where you can, straight through the back of the building.  If you have to meander, like this one, snug it down between the floor and the wall as it travels along the back – fingernails are good for this if you have them.  Don’t push too far or they will appear in the room below.

I considered running my wires through a thin plastic straw (coffee stirrer) so they could be pulled in and out without disturbing a floor but decided this might be a step too far as I am very unlikely to want to pull them in or out.  It is a good thought though if you think you might want to change the light some time or you are concerned that they might go kaput.

I always hold them neatly in the groove with a piece of masking tape.  This will lie flat under any floor surface you might want to put down.

The kit

This is the power strip, its instructions and three little ‘feet’.  It screws into place through three holes you can see on the board and these spacers are used to keep the soldered bits on the back of the board free from the surface you are fastening it to.

This largest size only measures 4.75 inches by 1 inch so it is lovely and compact.

Again I confess to being fazed by the instructions – entirely my fault not theirs.  Why do I have this mental resistance to what I perceive as ‘boy’s toys’?

They are perfectly clear and I understand them but I feel I need language like – strip the ends of the wires, screwdle them up a bit and bung in the holes in pairs, which is what this actually says and is what I did.

There is a second piece of kit which I now deem essential if you are going to do more than one house or are tackling a lot of lights.  It is a wire stripper and cutter.  Until the kind Mr Butler sent me this I have always used scissors, teeth and nails – not always my own!  This is not only unhygienic, it is also not a good look if caught doing it nor is it even very effective.  This little gizmo made it a doddle and – boy, did I look like a pro.

  

The good bit

Using the super stripper/cutter simply chop the wire to the right length, strip some of the plastic cover off, fold over and twist the wires a couple of times until you have a decent size ‘blob’, shove it in the holes and tighten the screw.  Each light will have its own number and two holes labelled plus and minus.  For our purposes this labelling doesn’t matter, either wire can go in either hole.  So here you see one of my lights going into the terminal numbered 1.

I had the power centre already screwed in place when I was putting the wires in.  This was probably not the best idea.  It would have been marginally easier to be able to jiggle the strip around but it wasn’t hard to do any way, so it didn’t really matter.  You may want to consider it if your power centre is going in a more awkward position than mine did.  I also had the power supply attached so I could check each light as I went along.  This is especially easy to do with this strip as it has a switch for every light.  You can buy any size strip with or without individual switches.  They have a minimum fifteen year life and are repairable – neither of those claims can be made for the cheaply made white lighting bars.

This is the power supply (transformer) – also provided by SWP.

As you can see it is more powerful than I needed on this project.  I am so enamoured with the system that I fully intend to cannibalise Chocolat when I do a larger project and replace these items with their smaller versions – that shows how easy it is to do if I am prepared to undo and redo it.

Lights make a huge difference

Even when I was brand new to the game I knew I wanted to light my builds.  It creates a whole other atmosphere.  Here, on build three, I have even added the suggestion of rooms further back.  In dollhousing we are almost always looking at just the front slice of a building and that frustrates me in terms of reality.  This is the door through to the stairs which lead down to the, what was once a bakery’s, kitchen.  I have also added a light in the stair well on the other side of the room.  This ‘extension’ to the building would have been pretty pointless without lights.

  

No time at all

I am so cross that I didn’t time the job but really I don’t think it took much more than an hour.  I know the grooves were in place and that is a very time consuming part of doing the lighting but actually fixing in the lights and their electricals was so easy.

I have all kinds of other bits and pieces that I can’t wait to build into my next project such as the sweetest little wall sockets to plug in lamps and Xmas trees. All my future rooms will come with sockets.  There also wasn’t a ‘design’ opportunity for flickering fires in this piece – there will be next time.  Maybe I’ll get a chance to show you how I get on with all that.

  

I used the word ‘brevity’ in the opening sentence – clearly not a skill I am familiar with.  I assumed that even I could cover something this simple in a few sentences.  All I can say is the job took a great deal less time than telling you about it.

I have eight lights in place in a wink, thanks to Mr Martin Butler and Small World Products. 

To see more pictures and more details of the work take a look at Chocolaterie Maya’s blog: