How to..... make up HOM kits

This post is a bit of a shoo-in following some conversations on a Facebook Group I like for House of Miniatures furniture, so it won't be of general interest but it is part of my 'diary' for this build.  So apologies for folk who want to see how the actual Dalton project is progressing but I hope it helps a couple of people I have been talking to about making up HOM kits. (Facebook link: Chippendale Miniatures/House of Miniatures)

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As always let's begin with the caveat - this is not an absolue how to make up HOM kits so much as how I make up HOM kits.  There must be as many methods out there as there are folks doing it, BUT, for newbies, this might give them a place to start until they find their very own method.

It is also intended as a general guide so nothing is specific to the piece I am making. (My second huntboard)

First..... what equipment will you need to make up the kit?

Glue

If you use any pva white glue you will have problems if any gets on to your furniture where you don't want it - you can not stain over it.  Some people stain their pieces first and then glue - I have done this but I know the joints are not rock solid.  That's probably OK if stuff isn't going to be moved around much.

This glue is fabulous.  It gives you time to fiddle about before it sets, if any goes where it shouldn't it dries dark brown so it doesn't show and it fixes rock hard.  I always apply with a cocktail stick.  I use a glass tile but anything you like will do to put the glue on.  A tile or an old plate though is an excellent tool to have on your desk for glue and paint and all sorts and it will clean up like new. Mine has had six years hard wear.   Give it a bit of a soak in some a warm soapy water and a scrub or a scrape clean.

So you have your glue and you have checked you have all your pieces before starting.  If you buy unsealed boxes it is hugely exasperating to find something missing half way through a build.

Skip read through the instructions to give you a feel of what you are about to do but don't get bogged down or panicked by detail - all will become clear as you do the job.  

You might prefer to do things the right way and sand your pieces before assembly, I am all for shortcuts so I don't do mine until I am ready to stain.  Also I would argue these are very fine pieces and some have even finer detail and they won't take kindly to endless sanding without losing their lines.  

Carefully and slowly follow the instructions and do the assembly.  Try to line things up perfectly.  There are some strange angles on some pieces like splat backs on chairs for example and there is so much you won't be able to correct once your glue sets.

A right angled jig can help a lot when making mini furniture.  I invested in a small magnetic one right at the beginning of my sojourn into this game and have never regretted it one iota.  You can make a pretty decent one out of Lego and or just build one from wood - all of these will help you square stuff up nicely, but a magnetic one is the bees knees.  This little gem will keep things square and will also push and hold things in place while the glue sets up.  A quick Google search and I am seeing them for about £30 in the UK and $30 in the States (I got mine a bit cheaper than that at a show but it was six years ago!) 

Sanding

Don't panic at the sight of this lot - there is no way you need all of them but I am showing you the sort of stuff than might be useful and you could select from this depending on what you can find easily .

There are two buffers/files used in manicures - white top left and blue and green on the right.  The beige sandpaper at the bottom is 400 grade so it is very fine.  The two grey pieces on the top labelled FINE and SUPER FINE can be found in the decorating section of the hardware store as they are used by painters and are brilliant for our work.  

When I am doing these HOM kits I have out a piece of 80 grade sandpaper for large scale sanding; to make drawers fit for example, a piece of 400 grade sandpaper for general rubbing down before staining along with my most used sanding tool - the white sponge nail file/buffer.  Brilliant tool and cheap as chips.  Mine came from Dollar store but again if you Google them they are easily available even if you can't get out to a shop.  I commend them to you before all else.

So there are only three bits of sanding kit that I consider necessary.  

Here are some more alternatives in case you already have these - all good and useful mini sanding bits and bobs.  The Norton stuff also known as Abracast (I think) is good because it is washable and never wears out unlike sandpaper.  Another nail kit piece in pink, basically anything fine and on foam.  The sanding sticks I have only seen once at a show and they are sometimes handy for getting into nooks and crannies but I wouldn't really say seek them out.  Similarly with the assorted shaped files - I just got them because they were silly price at Aldi or somewhere.  I do use one or two of them now and then.

So...... you have now glued and assembled your piece of furniture and you have carefully sanded everywhere with the nail buffer to get the best possible surface for the stain and finish to go on.  Only tip I can think of here is to knock off the edges a little to make it more realistic.  If you look at your own furniture you won't see an absolute ninety degree right angle sharp edge - they are all very slightly rounded off.  Don't over do this - just a couple of passes at about forty five degrees and with a curving motion and the sharpness will disappear.  

Use a large soft brush and lint free cloth to ensure you have been meticulous about removing the sanding dust - no good preparing a lovely silky surface for the stain only to lock in heaps of very fine sawdust.

Stains

I have gone through too many kinds of stains to even begin to remember them ....  from Minwax pens to tins of spirit based household woodstain .....  and many, many more.  Then I found these and I absolutely love them.  I confess to having put all three in a small glass jar and mixed them together.  I have ended up with what I wanted which is a 'mahogany' type colour with enough depth to cover the wood.

They pretty much go on like painting with acrylics and are water based so soap and water means an easy clean up of your brushes and you.  They dry overnight and don't stink.  Win, win, win.

There are loads of gel wood stains but I haven't ventured into trying another make as I was happy enough with these and the three have lasted me years; but if these prove difficult for you to get it might be worth a shot at another make.

OK, Gluing/assembly, sanding, first coat of stain all done...... here comes the hardest bit of the whole process for me.   Heaps of patience.

Leave as long as you can, at least until the next day, you want the stain to have completely dried out to allow the wood to shrink back to its absolutely dry state.

If you run your fingers over the wood at this stage you will discover it is slightly rough again.  When you paint or stain wood the moisture raises some of the wood fibres - nibs - so after any first coat of painting or staining you need to repeat the sanding process to denib the wood.  At this point you almost feel as though you are going backwards in your build but it is probably the most necessary step for any kind of decent finish - at this scale all those nibs will show in the end result.    

If you look at this picture closely you can see why I said it feels like going backwards.  The top three drawer fronts seem to be all nicely stained and then I go and sand them again (see the two other pieces) so they actually look worse.  They may look worse but they feel a whole lot better.  If your fingertips won't tell you the difference (my husband's don't for example) go across them with something like a cotton wool bud and see how it snags on the wood compared to how it passes over after you have sanded it.  The brush in the picture is just to show you the large soft brush I use to clean off the dust .... followed by fingers and a cloth.

Off you go now to do the second coat.  

After that the choice is yours - use your best judgement to see if it needs denibbing and be sure you have a nice even coverage.  You may be fine with just the two.

I do a sort of very slight sanding by giving it a good rub down with a scrumpled tissue.  All paper has wood fibres in it so even soft toilet paper and tissues are micro rough and it will smooth the surface nicely. (message to your nose and botty)

Finishing

Ah, here is the stumbling block in my How-to.  This is still a work in progress with me I haven't yet found the perfect top coat.  The main tip here is that you don't want to use anything gloss in a dollhouse.  Be aware that everything is 1/12th even the amount of shine on something 😊 a satin finish will give you the miniature equivalent of a glossy shine on your furniture and painted wood.

I have tried a gazillion different 'varnishes' from small pots of various artists' acrylics through to tins of household finishes and am not happy with any of them.  The closest I got was a satin B & Q quick dry interior wood finish so something like that might be worth a go for you.  The issue I had was that it always seemed to have a certain amount of visible brush strokes in the finish; I couldn't get it perfectly flat.  I know some folks spray their final finish and that too might be worth considering.

I have tried all kinds of waxes for wood and even shoe polish and furniture polish - they will all give you a reasonable finish  but are a bit of hard work as you will have to do several goes at it.

Currently I am using this.... 

I don't think it is my final solution as it is not quite shiny enough.

I apply this generously with a brush and leave about an hour and then wipe off the surplus  I then do the same again and finally buff it.  It will give a slight sheen and a smooth surface.  Again if you want to try this I assume any oil wood polish will do.  I am just researching Tung Oil for my next piece, so watch this space.

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PS:  This is my happy place for painted, stained stinky hands, it totally fixes that.  

PPS:  24 hours later and this is what I did  😱 

I thought I would try adding some varnish.... it went into a gloop that I tried to rub off quickly before it dried..........well that's a case of start again if ever I saw one.

In the wild hope that someone is reading this who has definitely conquered the glaze element of these builds PLEASE let us know here.  Until then ...............

PPPS:  .... will it never end..... I just got quite a nice sheen using a 50:50 mix of gel stain and acrylic varnish.  My actual mix was made up of three colours of Americana Gel stain (see above in the post) and the shiny bit was a mix of Delta Ceramcoat Satin and Gloss Varnish - so a bit of a complicated recipe to follow but it might be worth worth trying equal parts of any water-based gel stain and a water-based gloss of choice.  (NB: you can not mix water based things with solvent/spirit based things - set off on one path and follow it through)

Oh dear

In my last post I  left you in suspense as to what I might have ordered from Proops Brothers.........


As Violet Elizabeth would say, "I'll scream and scream until I am sick"

I know you are fed up hearing about the window saga but I really thought I had it sorted. I am struggling to cut up my gazillion strips of wood that I need to make the frames.  They are only one eighth of an inch square but absolutely solid.  Knives won't do it and the saw is slow and often splits the back of them - they are really too small to try to make a cut on the opposite side each time to help avoid this.

So, I ordered this .....

..... a little guillotine meant to cut strips of wood and plastic..... I watched the youtube and everything!  It chomped through strips of wood and bits of plastic but on my window frames it barely makes a dent. 

....... but well done to the company, not the slightest quibble about a post paid return/refund.  That is impressive these days.

Just so I leave you with a little up rather than down here is what I made whilst waiting for it to arrive.

Duncan Phyfe window seat circa 1810-1820

I am a great believer in placing something to the front and centre of each room and love the challenge of finding something appropriate but nothing that will prevent us looking into the room easily when we open the front of the house.  When I am making these little worlds I do imagine myself into the rooms to see if they actually work - can I walk round them easily?  is it a room my subjects could live with and have a life in?  with this in mind it would clearly be a nonsense to have a whole side of a room without anything there (our fourth wall).  Hence the challenge.  

This  seat will do the job nicely in my music room.

On a spree

I have finally reached the stage in life where I think going to shows is probably beyond me now, especially since moving to Scotland.  Any UK shows are something of a trek from here and the thought of long haul flights to the American shows (sadly) brings me out in a rash (not literally 😊)  I did fifteen years of trotting back and forth across the pond and the actual travelling seemed to get worse and worse in all kinds of ways.  I have crohns disease and part of my condition is chronic fatigue.  I need say no more.

So!  I decided on a little online spree in lieu of the Miniatura show at the NEC next month. I keep a little show notebook with samples of paint and fabric that I have used in Dalton and photos of my project in its current state, some measurements and, crucially, my shopping list.  Out it came and I was off.

My first stop was at  Jennifers of Walsall's stand.   Jennifer and Andy have always been my go-to place since I started this game for a myriad of things.  My lovely real wood flooring, for example, has always come from them.  

This time it was a quick run through their fabric section as I am still struggling to get something I like even though I have a shoe box crammed full of pieces.  The silk Brodnax fabric was £5.95 a piece not the £10.50 shown on the packs.  I haven't the slightest idea why I bought the very pretty blue piece - really - I don't have a speck of blue in the place. 

😱  

The plaid is a very pretty combination for the sitting room; the colours are spot on for the cherry pattern wallpaper but it is decidedly a bit 'modern' for everything else that is going on in that room; so............ I am still looking.

Fray Stay is a tad pricey but it is the one I really like so, hey it's only money.  I am not convinced that PVA, let down with water, does quite the same job.

You know what it's like when you stop by a stall, your eye lands on something not on your list:  happily for me, it works the same way when I am trawling the net.  I have loved the teeny Phoenix condiment set for many years so that went in my basket and I know I want a tray for sherry or whiskey decanter on one of my huntboards. The cruet is so dainty I had to set it up with tweezers.

Another stall I always check out is Little Trimmings.  They won't be at Miniatura this year and I am pretty sure they are running down their stock, so I grabbed - yes, you guessed it - more fabrics while I can.

Eeeehhh, the lime green stripe is truly lime green.  I was living in hopes it might not be - how mad is that. The next one up in denim and gold has the perfect pair of colours for the music room but it seems too casual for a formal room.  The tiny floral will be lovely for covering some chair seats (I hope).  The next grey and gold piece, right now,  is the best I have for the music room.  I need grey and/or gold or combination of.  Ideally I would like a pale grey and white striped silk...... if anyone knows of one, please, please direct me to it.  The top two cottons are for curtain lining and sheets and pillows for the student bed.

I have also visited Delph Miniatures and Masters Miniatures - as I would at the show and did a bit of buying from them and will share with you when those goodies arrive.

My final bit of ordering is with a company called Proops Brothers Limited - that should keep you guessing.

Bye for now - off to start making a sweet little window seat.  The windows themselves are on guilt-free 😇 hold until Proops Brothers deliver.

House of Miniatures Cellarette (plus windows)

As I have thirteen windows still to do, and I am not really enjoying it, I decided the best approach was do do one floor at a time and then take a break and make up one of the kits that I have waiting for the house.  Well, I managed to do three out of the ten parts needed to complete the top floor of the house before getting fed up and turning to a kit.

Windows

Make paper template for half a window

Cut out (at least) ten for the top floor windows.

Dry fit... one will go on outside window at the top.....

one will go on inside window at the bottom

This is the glue I use for fixing windows.  You need very little, it is super strong and dries absolutely clear if some does 'escape'. 

I managed to complete three half (inner) windows before I got hugely bored.  Pretty ugly right now but they will have window sills added.  I did buy a ton of trims to go around the windows and the realised I would cover them all with curtains so it seems a bit pointless.  Every time I come up with one of these brain waves I discover it has a knock on effect which then creates more jobs.

The Cellarette
Here is the delightful House of Miniatures Hepplewhite cellarette

Check all the parts are there

I have discovered a jolly good glue for any wood that will have a dark finish.  If you stain parts and then glue it doesn't always make for a good strong joint.  If you glue and then stain (my preferred method) you have to be super careful with the glue as the stain will not cover any areas that have the slightest bit of glue on it.  As you can see this is a tinted glue which purports to solve that problem in that the glue will be brown and so not show as a bare patch.

There was a momentary panic when I realised the glue was a silly wishy washy pale colour when it left the pot (see top right blob).  This was soon allayed; as you can see it dries pretty much mahogany coloured.

I had a real issue with the stupid hinges for the lid.  They are teeny tiny and the screws almost microscopic so I realised I was on a challenge with them. 

It began with being instructed to cut out 1/32th inch (!!!!)  grooves to take the hinges in the lid and in the back edge of the box.  Much fiddling around with a couple of different shaped Xacto knives and it was done - not a work of art - but done.  The instructions also stated that the hinges were to be flush with the back of the box, not sticking out.  I spent a jolly half hour screwing the hinges to the lid - four teeny tiny drill holes to give the teenier tinier screws a purchase hole and then moved on to the back of the box.  Quelle horreur! the wood wasn't thick enough to allow me to screw the hinges in.

Three options as far as I could see.  (1) Remove the hinges and make a pair out of ribbon or leather strips, (2) glue a thin batten of wood to the inside top edge to make it wider, (3) set the hinges back so the actual hinge part was outside the box. 

Seemed a shame to go for option one when I had these cute little hinges, if I did option two there was a possibility the screws would land almost between the proper wood and the added batten and wouldn't hold well enough so it looked like option three.

I unscrewed the hinges from the lid, reset it in the new position and put the screws back in...... that was tons and tons of fiddling about and superglue came into play as the wood just wants to splinter here there and everywhere.  This basswood behaves remarkably like balsa.  I then fixed the other half of the hinge in the back of the box which is just about thick enough to allow the screws in without splaying out and splitting every which way too much ....more superglue help here.  OK, I had a fastening - not very good looking by now but probably the best of a bad job.  I closed the box and thought there was movement, this was confirmed when I lifted the lid and the hinges just pulled away, breaking out of the wood and glue easily.

I cut the hinges in half and reglued each half to the original place best I could and made an actual fastening 'hinge' across the back (inside) from a piece of gauze ribbon which has taken the woodstain very well and barely shows.

Here is the built piece.  There is a drawer for any drink implements you might need - wine coasters, corkscrew etc.  There is also a sweet pull out tray at the top for you to stand your glass on when you are pouring the drink.  The internal cabinet measurement is about an inch so it is possible for it to contain wine though this one, for this period, was much more likely to contain 'digestifs' such as fortified wine, brandy, liqueurs etc for the gentlemen after dinner.

 This shows the first staining.  I now use gel stain and am very happy with it.  It goes on nicely, not smelly and is water based so makes for an easy clean up.  I did a fine sanding and a second coat the next day and decided that was enough.

 I always struggle to find a successful top coat to give a subtle polished wood sheen and have used many different silk/gloss products including various acrylic forms and wood finishing varnishes.  They all have varying degree of success.  In the main they don't go on smoothly enough and don't lend themselves to rubbing down and doing a second coat.  I thought I would have a go with this.  I suppose any similar oil would do - we just have this in our real life cleaning cupboard for some natural oak furniture.

It did an OK job; no worse than the other things and at least there are no lumps and bumps with this.  I may add some brown shoe polish some time - we don't have any right now.

I was hugely lucky a couple of years ago to come across these transfers.  They are made for this cellarette.  Basically in England the piece of furniture would have remained plain but the ones in America often sported fine inlay - especially Southern furniture.  I imagine this was to differentiate itself from the English.  By the time of this piece in 1790 the Americas had only just begun to recover from the revolution and, I imagine, were determined to eschew all things English; or, at least, to make it their own.

Sadly, I soon discovered this was a skill beyond me.  I tried just one tiny transfer and gave up.  

Roller blinds on show

Well the 'bit of a breather' (my previous post) seemed to turn into five months but here I am again, hopefully, back in the game.

Part of the procrastination, on the days when I could have cracked on with my project, is that I have reached the 'doing the windows' stage which I always find pretty tedious.  We all have our mini bete noires. .  I have made it even more difficult for myself by deciding to add another dimension to the, already boring, window chore by trying to make them into a more realistic version of sash windows.  This involves adding fifteen pieces of fiddly wood to each of sixteen windows.   Two hundred and forty bits of wood to be carefully measured, cut, some ends shaped, lined up and glued in place..... over the glazing!  Maybe if I stopped doing the maths and just cracked on with it, it would seem less daunting.

The other challenge I have given myself is making roller blinds for these sixteen windows.  Mostly their ends and tops will be hidden by curtain or pelmets so can be simple rod and roll of fabric.

My real life house has ivory blinds (different fabrics) in every single window and we don't, in fact, draw any curtains in the evening - we just roll down the blinds.  They are all one colour because I like the idea of 'uniformity' when viewed from the outside.  A tad OCD probably, especially as I roll then up completely when open and they are never seen from the outside in the daytime.  Generally the fixing part (each end) is hidden by a curtain and they all fit inside the window rebate.

The bathroom, kitchen and workroom ones don't have curtains softening their impact and the blinds can be seen ...fixings and all.

In Dalton House my three apartment windows are pokey and shoved in dormers in a roof and they won't take curtains very easily.  The four basement windows are in my workroom, a mud room and the childrens rec room; so none of those require any curtains either.  This gives me seven windows where the ends and tops of the blinds will not be hidden by curtains or pelmets, so they need to look a bit more realistic than a roll of fabric on a stick - why, you might ask...... and how wise you are.  Off I went on trying to make realistic-looking roller blinds.

Here's how I did it.  If you are as mad as me, enjoy ...... otherwise just skip to the finished picture and I will see you again when seven of these have been made and fitted to their windows.  It might be a while.....hopefully not five months.

Rods
The rods are cut from bamboo skewers.  I discovered they are a pig to cut.  Knife and fine saw worked but not easily then, guess what, I discovered I could cut them with large scissors.😂  Tidy up the ends with sanding and paint just the ends white.  I forgot this and had to do it when I had finished the whole thing.  Make them a tad wider than the finished blind will be as you should be able to glimpse a bit of them between fabric and bracket.

The Fabric
Measure your windows and cut the fabric slightly larger than you are going to need.  I wanted my finished blind to have an eighth of an inch overlap each side of the window: scaled up that would be only be about one and a half inches in real life so you could be a bit more generous with that . 

For the attic windows I needed a strip three inches for the window, plus quarter inch (two lots of one eighth) plus another quarter inch to allow some trimming later.  This gave me a width of three and a half inches.  

The length of your blind is really determined by the fabric you are using.  In real life of course it needs to be longer than the drop from your blind rod to below the window.  Here, though, if your fabric is a bit bulky (and it is best that it isn't!) you won't want to roll a huge amount round your rod, so finding the best length is about trial error or good guessing.

My fabric was too thin for blinds so I cut strips twice the length I needed.  I folded them in half and ironed in a sharp crease.

To stop fraying I mixed 'Fraystop' 50:50 with water and pasted it generously on the inside of one half.  I am pretty sure Mod Podge or any PVA glue will do the same job - but do a small test piece first to make sure it doesn't affect your fabric in any way.

My real blinds have a wooden bar added in the hem at the bottom to give them weight.  I cut a one eighth strip of photographic paper (thin card would do) and pushed that tightly in place and folded over the dry side and carefully rubbed the whole thing down to remove any pockets of air.

Now here comes the hard part.....  leave them alone and let them dry completely. They will be as stiff as a board and no fraying when you cut them.

Next, they need to be squared up perfectly so they don't hang winky wonky.  I use my marked up with guide lines cutting board for this but you could use any right angle and ruler or even make a nice cardboard template exactly the right size.

I am no way a fan of superglue for all sorts of reasons but sometimes it is the go to place.  Put a few dots of superglue along the top edge (I use a toothpick and squeeze small amounts of glue onto a glass tile for easy clear up and good control)

Place your rod carefully along this edge and hold in place until its fixed.  

Roll the blind to where you want it to stop - this takes many flittings in and out of the windows to decide.  Put a few dots of superglue a bit behind the stopping place and roll your blind very tightly and hold in place until its set.

Making the brackets and assembly

I made the brackets by cutting strips of photographic card into three sixteenth inch wide strips and then cutting these into three eighths of an inch long lengths (top left)   

[I chose to use photographic paper because I wanted the outside elements of the fittings to be a bit shiny like the real ones.  I have a feeling I am just proving my 'madness' with everything I write....😊]

The end discs (top centre) were made just using a normal two-hole paper punch.

The bracket arm was stuck to the round end cap; again with superglue just for speed of assembly. (top right)

For the plain end of the roller another cap was stuck on top (bottom left)

For the control end a piece of cord was glued in place and then the cap piece glued on top. (bottom right)  I took a long time finding a cord that was in scale and had some texture.

Bend a little of the bracket end at right angles to create the fixing part to the wall.

Fix each of these finished ends to the ends of the rods - superglue again and hold in place each time.

Et Voila .......

.......... and there we have it one roller blinds that can be seen 

one blind for the use of

inside the apartment sitting room

outside

Only the people reading this will understand the self-satisfied glow of being able to replace the attic flap for its very last time after having the attic rooms exposed and the sloping roof lying on the mansard for five months.  Happy day.  This is what minis do for me.