Framed dollhouse structure

[CW]

It is.

[Morris Dovey]

| [e-mail] wrote: | | > Hope you're a patient man, because as a builder of stick built | old time > model airplanes, this will take about 4X what you | imagine. But it's a > labor of love! | | You do tickle the cob webs of my memory. | | Spent a lot of time building balsa, stick model airplanes in my | youth. | | Lots of straight pins and quick dry, Testors model airplane glue | gets | the job done. | | Even won a few prizes at the County fair with some of them.

What's even more fun is that there're people building "stick models" with spruce and epoxy and Dacron that when finished, they climb in and fly.

AFAICT from looking, it's the same kind of construction - but they do seem a lot more preoccupied with making everything "just so" than I remember being while putting my old Comet models together...

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

[Charlie Self]

uld like to see

I'm not sure it's going to happen, at least as a framed dollhouse. I spent a day cutting enough wood to frame one end (small) wall. And I mean a day! About seven hours.

I wouldn't live long enough to finish the thing. Scale of whatever design I choose is going to be standard 1"=3D11.

And it's materials, and the requisite techniques, such as wood lath and plaster that are causing the final idea slippage. The wood lath is probably no harder than cutting siding, but the plaster...hell, it's nearly impossible to find someone who knows how to plaster a full sized wall these days. Figuring out what to use and how to use it for a tiny wall is a good way to reduce your entire vocabulary to two or three gibberish words.

[Charlie Self]

Wow! Len, thanks a million. A few hours checking catalogs--the joys of a dial-up modem--and I may change back to doing a stick framed house, if I can manage to convert one scale to another with the materials. It has to be one helluva lot easier to buy planks and siding and framing lumber than to do as I did part of yesterday and too much of today. And basswood is a better choice than yellow poplar, I'm sure, though the poplar I've got here is super dry and straight.

[Morris Dovey]

| I'm not sure it's going to happen, at least as a framed dollhouse. I | spent a day cutting enough wood to frame one end (small) wall. And I | mean a day! About seven hours. | | I wouldn't live long enough to finish the thing. Scale of whatever | design I choose is going to be standard 1"=11. | | And it's materials, and the requisite techniques, such as wood lath | and | plaster that are causing the final idea slippage. The wood lath is | probably no harder than cutting siding, but the plaster...hell, it's | nearly impossible to find someone who knows how to plaster a full | sized | wall these days. Figuring out what to use and how to use it for a | tiny | wall is a good way to reduce your entire vocabulary to two or three | gibberish words.

Hmm - and weren't they still using cut nails in the 1890's?

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

[Max]

Wow! Len, thanks a million. A few hours checking catalogs--the joys of a dial-up modem--and I may change back to doing a stick framed house, if I can manage to convert one scale to another with the materials. It has to be one helluva lot easier to buy planks and siding and framing lumber than to do as I did part of yesterday and too much of today. And basswood is a better choice than yellow poplar, I'm sure, though the poplar I've got here is super dry and straight.

Charlie, If you do go ahead with this project, please take pictures. I (for one, and I'm sure there are plenty of others) would really enjoy seeing the works in progress.

Max

[Len]

Wow! Len, thanks a million. A few hours checking catalogs--the joys of a dial-up modem--and I may change back to doing a stick framed house, if I can manage to convert one scale to another with the materials. It has to be one helluva lot easier to buy planks and siding and framing lumber than to do as I did part of yesterday and too much of today. And basswood is a better choice than yellow poplar, I'm sure, though the poplar I've got here is super dry and straight.

You're more than welcome Charlie.

I think you'll find this web page handy for doing 1:x to 1:y scale conversions:

might also find a "feet/inch and fractions" calculator from the BORG handy.

Len

[Charlie Self]

med dollhouse. I

Oh, yeah. I've forgotten the general cut-off date, but the '90s sounds like an era where there were mixed types.

Another point, too, is I don't really think I want to deal with framing miniature roofs on some of those Victorian tower concepts. Today, you can't hire a slate roofer, in most places, who can deal with the full-sized versions. That's not nearly as difficult as framing the thing.

My wife's cousin, who is a successful upscale building contractor, notes that there's really nothing difficult about building today's homes: they're all based on the 90 deg. angle. As were the Victorian homes, but inside, and out, the square got tossed for the protractor and compass, with lots of round work.

My vestigial math skills went and hid as soon as I considered that.

Maybe Craftsman style?

[Morris Dovey]

| Another point, too, is I don't really think I want to deal with | framing | miniature roofs on some of those Victorian tower concepts. Today, | you | can't hire a slate roofer, in most places, who can deal with the | full-sized versions. That's not nearly as difficult as framing the | thing.

I don't think the framing would be as difficult as you're making it out to be; but a slate roof sounds fairly gruesome - first you'd have to split the slate to scale, then you'd need a slate hammer small enough to tap out the nail holes, ...

How about a copper roof?

| My wife's cousin, who is a successful upscale building contractor, | notes that there's really nothing difficult about building today's | homes: they're all based on the 90 deg. angle. As were the Victorian | homes, but inside, and out, the square got tossed for the protractor | and compass, with lots of round work. | | My vestigial math skills went and hid as soon as I considered that.

Not to worry - just get yourself a CAD package and let it worry about the trig. :-)

| Maybe Craftsman style?

Much overdone. /Everybody's/ done that already - might as well just _buy_ a doll house.

B'sides, just think how much fun it'll be to do all that gingerbread trim. Hmm - I bet John Morehead could help out with that part...

(Speaking of whom, anybody heard from John lately?)

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

[Lew Hodgett]

SFWIW, that's exactly the method used to build the male mold for the boat I'm building.

Started out with 2x12x24ft Doug Fir timber and cut them up to yield

1-1/2W x 5/8 tk x 24 ft long stringers.

Then cut 12:1 scarfs on the end and glued together to get 60 ft strips.

Spend a whole Saturday doing that.

Filled a dumpster with saw dust.

My best guess was I made about 6,000 ft of cuts that day.

Those strips were then attached to the profiles with deck screws. Probably had 10,000 of them screwed in before it was over.

All of that ended up in the landfill once the hull was finished.

Lew

[Charlie Self]

Copper is fine. I'd almost bet that before I'm through looking, I find someone making scale slate slabs for roofing.

Ew. I have to use CAD, but, so far, about 75% of the time when I measure an angle from the CAD, or, rather, when I transfer the measured angle, it is miserably inexact in real life. This may be my ineptness, but it's a great hindrance anyway.

Gingerbread trim is the easiest part--about every bit of it you could desire is available in different scales, from porch posts on to gable end trim.

I dunno. I may work up a replica of a house that no longer exists, my grandmother's place. The farm that surrounded it is a development now, and the house burned down years ago, but...I can still remember a lot of it. Doesn't have to be accurate, sort of a late 19th century Piedmont Virginia farmhouse in a stucco design.

[CW]

Ew. I have to use CAD, but, so far, about 75% of the time when I measure an angle from the CAD, or, rather, when I transfer the measured angle, it is miserably inexact in real life.

If everything was made according to that plan and done accurately, the angles would work. It's inexactness in the work, not the software.

[J T]

OK Charlie. This is for when you get all tired and frustrated from working on it. Take a look at this and thank the Gods you aren't this anal.

Bugrit. Millennium hand AND shrimp.

[Charlie Self]

That Norton engine looks like a full-sized one I helped rebuild too many years ago. The blued pipe makes me think that model actually runs.

These guys are much better at miniaturization than I ever will be. Great stuff there.

[Charlie Self]

5= [e-mail]...

Maybe. But when I spec a 45 degree angle, place it according to the program and come back later to find it's a 44.2 deg. angle, according to the program that set it at 45 deg., I do wonder. Autosketch 8, if you're wondering, and it has been a fairly consistent "feature" of AS for some time now. It does great with 90 degrees. Otherwise, I guess I'm just speccing it incorrectly, eh?

[NuWaveDave]

Maybe. But when I spec a 45 degree angle, place it according to the program and come back later to find it's a 44.2 deg. angle, according to the program that set it at 45 deg., I do wonder. Autosketch 8, if you're wondering, and it has been a fairly consistent "feature" of AS for some time now. It does great with 90 degrees. Otherwise, I guess I'm just speccing it incorrectly, eh?

Check your "snaps" setting. I use TurboCad (still on version 7) and I often forget to release the "snaps" feature from the snaps-to-grid setting. That causes the end result to jump to the nearest grid point vs. my intended point. Just a thought.

[Charlie Self]

Can I bang my head against the desk now, or should I save it for later. Sheest. Stupid, long term mistake. The joys of DIY learning.

Thank you!

[Charlie Self]

8= [e-mail]...

Very handy web site...first glance told me the scales for even the largest model railroads are too small. Way too small, as in O gauge is

1:48, while my needs are 1:12.

I've got one (or more) of those calculators around here. Amongst at least 50,000 other pieces of paper and cardboard. I may just make the

70 mile round trip to the store, though, because looking for needles in haystacks is not my specialty.

[J T]

Mon, Jan 22, 2007, 3:38am (EST-3) [e-mail] (Charlie=A0Self) doth sayeth: That Norton engine looks like a full-sized one I helped rebuild too many years ago. The blued pipe makes me think that model actually runs. These guys are much better at miniaturization than I ever will be. Great stuff there.

I would think it would at least be capable of running anyway. Those guys are pretty serious about stuff like that.

Some where I've got a link stuck away to a V-8 engine - about the size of a shoe box - complete with a couple of MPEGs of it running - with sound. Sounds like a very large, very pissed, bumble bee, in a very big hurry. Very cool.

So, now when you get frustrated, you can look at that page, and decide it maybe isn't so bad after all LOL I don't know if you've ever been to the Smithsonian, but they've got a rather large doll house on exhibit, about 5 stories or so, if I recall right. And, I believe it's all framed, just like a full size house. Last time I was there was about 1972-3 - stationed at the Pentagon, and visited the Smithsonian every 3 months or so. If you decide to visit it, during the cold weather is the best time, loads less visitors then, and you should be able to park just about in front of the doors to each building. In the summer you'd probably be lucyk to park withing 10 blocks of the building. I'd drive and park in the winter; in the summer I'd usually walk over, and take a taxi back - otherwise way too much hassle parking, and I'd wind up walking further in the end. Oh, yeah. Are you gonna scale the dollhouse to a specific size doll? There are rules, charts, dimensions, whatever, for that type of thing. I've seen them on my searching, but never kept anything. Barbie dolls for example. Or, in your case, maybe GI Joe. LMAO

JOAT Bugrit. Millennium hand AND shrimp.

[Len]

messagenews: [e-mail]. ..

though

Very handy web site...first glance told me the scales for even the largest model railroads are too small. Way too small, as in O gauge is

1:48, while my needs are 1:12.

I've got one (or more) of those calculators around here. Amongst at least 50,000 other pieces of paper and cardboard. I may just make the

70 mile round trip to the store, though, because looking for needles in haystacks is not my specialty.

Charlie,

If you're doing 1:12 all you need is a decent architects ruler. It will have a 1" = 1' scale, with the first 'foot' marked off in inches.

Len