Tuesday, October 23, 2018

The Windsor Chair



Apologies for not having posted for a while.  I flew to Arizona to visit my mother for a week and came down with a cold. 🤧 Although it was a mild cold, I still had it the weekend of the Good Sam Show, which I really felt that I shouldn't attend under the circumstances.  😢  I spent most of the weekend just resting.  Last week, I was in training all week, learning Java coding for one of the applications I support.  Between recovering from my cold and straining my brain on all that coding, I was pretty exhausted every night, which meant that I really had no energy to work on the library.  This past weekend, though, I finally got to make something.  Yay!

The library has a Windsor chair.



I had originally intended to purchase one here:  https://www.mastersminiatures.com/54-windsor-armchair-121-p.asp, but I feel like I've kind of been on a roll making my own pieces and thought I'd at least like to try to make one myself.


My biggest concern was how to get dowels small enough.  The smallest I could find online were 1/16" in diameter, and those were just way too thick for half scale.  I thought I would have to buy a lathe, and was blanching at the price, but, on a model ship building Web site, I found out that the best way to make super-skinny dowels was with a jeweler's draw plate, which I promptly ordered.  Basically, what you do is take your 1/16" dowel and keep pulling it through successfully smaller holes on the draw plate.  As you do that, the dowel gets shaved down more and more until it's the size you need.  I found that I had to pull the dowel through each hole several times, and it helped to pull from end for a while, then switch to pulling from the other end.  Here you can see how I was able to really shave down my dowel!  The one on the left is what I started with; the one on the right is what I ended up with. The process is actually kind of fun and Zen, but you do get little wood shavings everywhere.  😊


I cut the arms, back and seat from bass wood, and used my little pin vise to drill the holes I needed.  I had to go fairly thick on the chair back, as I needed to be able to drill holes in the edge of the wood.  The dowels did not take stain well, so I ended up using my India ink pens to try to color them to look like my mahogany stain.


On my first try, the dowels looked too skinny to me (although looking at the original chair, they were probably fine).


So I tried again, going a little thicker with my dowels.  I also made even thicker dowels for the legs and did a little carving on the ends, using the same techniques I used on the barley-stick table legs.  It was fiddly as all heck trying to get all the dowels inserted into their correct holes and relatively straight.  That was definitely the hardest part of making it and accounted for the most use of "magic" words.  The outer back dowels must go all the way through the arm rests, and, as you can see on try one, I had difficulty getting the arm rests even.


Here is the little chair I ended up with, next to a match box. I am actually pretty happy with it, although I know it's not an exact match for the one Theodore Roosevelt had.  Below is a picture of it in the room.





14 comments:

  1. So delicate! I'd lose patience and break things. I love how it looks!

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    1. Well, I did break off the end of a dowel (more than once) when I pulled it a bit too forcefully through the draw plate. ;-) Thank you!

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  2. Oh so much patience! But it is fascinating what you learn when you need to! The chair looks amazing, and is even more incredible when you see it next to the match box - so tiny! The room is looking more and more like the original, and you must be soooooo proud of having challenged yourself and done so well!

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    1. Thank you! Yes, this is definitely a learning experience, which is what I wanted. I really appreciate all your kind comments. The comments from my visitors help keep me inspired.

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  3. I missed seeing you at the show, but I'm glad you are feeling better. The chair looks perfect. There is so much satisfaction when you can make something yourself, and great stories to go along with it.

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    1. Thanks, Carrie! I was really sorry I missed it (and you). However, I know how crowded it gets, and I really didn't want to be sharing my cold. Unfortunately, I did share it with my mom, despite obsessive hand washing. :-( Yes, there is enormous satisfaction in being able to say, "I did it myself!" :-)

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  4. It almost seems a shame to have to cover up all of your patient work with a fur throw over those back dowels even so, it doesn't take away from the Beauty of your achievment of applying a Clever model-making solution to your finished Windsor chair- WELL DONE!

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    1. Thank you so much! I know--the fur throw may move around. ;-) I've seen it in different places, depending on the era of the pictures.

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  5. Deborah your attention to detail and try try again attitude is inspiring.. I would surely give up on the first go, as good enough. I see you are still trying to figure out that artwork beside the lamp that you can't find a picture of. Well I was trolling around on youtube today and I typed in Sagamore hill paintings because I was interested in that Bull Moose one and I found this tour. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmm5I-5vynw&t=189s
    Frustratingly the quality is terrible so it is nearly impossible to make out the painting/picture but they clearly film it. It looks to me like someone standing at a podium waving a hat in the air. Perhaps it's a photograph of himself campaigning? Anywhoo.. there may be other better quality video tours out there in web land.. so it's something to keep an eye out for. I hope this little chestnut of information has been somewhat helpful and not just completely frustrating. You are doing such a wonderful and faithful reproduction on this room I really think you should contact the National Park when you finish and send them some pictures. I'm sure they would love to see it. :D

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  6. Samantha, thanks for the suggestion! I saw that video just recently (had never come across it before), and was so excited when I saw the picture, and so frustrated when I couldn't see it clearly. :-( I can't even get a clear enough screen shot of it to feed into Google images. I've searched for pictures of him like that, as well as other generals he might have admired, since the narrator said those were the pictures he hung on that wall, but so far--no success. I actually contacted the park service at Sagamore Hill to ask about the picture, but they haven't responded. I figure either my e-mail didn't go through, they're really busy, or they think it's the weirdest question ever and they're ignoring it. :-) Anyway, thanks so much for passing that information along. I'm sure by now you've found the info on the moose painting, but if not, you can find it here: https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/nQLiVHOCgDXMJA There are a whole series of Google exhibits on Sagamore Hill, but not one of them has that painting!

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    1. I should have known you would have already found it. :) Thanks for the link to the moose painting, what size have you made it in your build. I noted there were no dimensions mentioned in its listing. I’m trying to learn to paint wildlife in miniature but have no idea of sizing on these big majestic wildlife paintings.
      Interesting that they haven’t gotten back to you. I’d email them again. Maybe say your kid is doing a school project :D That might get them to respond. lol... I guess the park service thinks miniaturists are weird haha

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    2. I cheated on the size a bit to fit the frame I already had. :-) Since I don't have your painting skills, I just printed it out. I adjusted it to be 1" x 1 3/8". Had I not adjusted it, it would have been 1" x 1 1/2", which would make it 2" x 3" in 1:12 scale. (Are you going to do a painting to go with that incredible chair you bought?)

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    3. Thanks Deb! Well, I’ve been collecting western style furniture and accessories so I want to build a mountain cabin. Or at least a cabin roombox. It needs artwork, but animals aren’t something I’ve really attempted before. I thought this moose might be a good jumping off point because when you really study him he doesn’t have a bunch of tiny detail and his eye is really just a suggestion. Painting eyes is hard! Lol

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