Adding Character & Experimenting With Hinges

 Sooo...you remember how I hinted at this build having something in common with the WQRC?  Besides the time period of the build and the door?

I really loved the chimney pots on the WQRC and I wanted to do something similar on this build.

I cleaned up the seams and primed five of the plastic dragons with gesso.  It worked really well. The dry time kills me sometimes though because I need to do a couple of layers to prevent any color from the plastic showing through.

But gesso, a layer of black paint and then doing my 'stone' effect with the same shades of grey I used on the stone of the walls and floor of the forge and living quarters.

They don't look terribly friendly do they? But they are working dragons so some solemnity is normal for them.  Some individual shots.

Then it was a matter of attaching them to the forge. Glue and clamps with a strategically placed pin or two for insurance.

In the above picture you can see my bellows as well. Always tricky to figure out the order of assembly with out of the normal builds. 

I let the glue dry overnight and then fed the wires for the forge through the wall and glued everything into place.

As you can imagine there was a lot of wait time involved with the dragons and forge.  So while I was waiting for gesso, paint (and more paint) and glue to dry, I worked on hinges for the shutters.

I started out with an empty tin can and found that it was wonderful for getting interesting shapes. Very easy to cut. 

Too easy. Once I bent the hinges to fit the shutters they tended to break completely at the bending point. So... back to the drawing board.

Part of the reason I need to make the hinges myself is that 'crank' hinges are hard to find and expensive.  And I need them because the shutters are set on the outside of the window frame. So the hinge has to bend around the edge of the shutter and then sit flat on the surface and flat to the wall.  Minimum World has some but as I said, expensive considering I need at least eight hinges.

I thought about paper and bead hinges, because I could bend and shape them easily enough with glue but I worried about how sturdy they'd be.  They need to actually work or there's really no point.

So into my stash of odds and ends to see what I had that would fit the bill. A lot of the dry time was spent looking through boxes.

And then I found them.

I'd almost forgotten I had these.  But they were definitely strong enough and would bend (with some help from my jewelry pliers. 

So far so good. Even if they are brass they still have the look I want. So I glued them onto the shutters.

And even with strongest glue I had, they then fell off. So... I got a nail and hammer (and smashed them to bits; no, not really). I used the point of the nail like a punch to get some holes through the brass for nails (ie cut down straight pins). I'm hoping this will hold better. If they don't, then I'm punching bigger holes and using some of the tiny screws I have. 

The pin for the hinge is a toothpick cut to length. I'm going to see how the nails and glue hold up to movement before I attach the second set of shutters.

But I like how they look on the house.

And now we have the list of things to do:

Anvils

Tools

Whetstone

Finished goods

Forge Roof/ceiling

Bargeboards

Second floor/ceiling beams

Second floor/ceiling

Second floor walls

Second floor fireplace

Bed

Candlestick

Dormer

Windows

Chimney

Roof

Bargeboards

Tree

Landscaping?

Undoubtedly I'll add more to it and revise it a few times but it's a beginning.