1:12 scale Key tutorial

For this tutorial, I will be making a simple key, with an oval head. All the heads were made by wrapping wire around needles. The oval is a more common key head, though you can get keys with circular heads. The fancier key heads are created using finer wire, with some of the loops opened out, by pushing a bigger needle through, to create "C" shapes which were then positioned to create trefoil shapes, etc.

You will need:-

• Gas soldering iron
• Wire
• Solder
• Flux (I used Templers Telux in a tin, the only flux in the local hardware shop :D )
• Pliers
• Tweezers
• Tapestry needles (aka big needles)
• Superglue
• Card
• Cutting blade

Before doing anything, run the wire through some wire wool, or lightly sand it with sandpaper. Bend the wire across the back of the needle as shown. Wrapping the wire around the Eye of the needle will create an oval shape.

Use pliers to gently squeeze the wire ends, so that they cross over, as shown.

Either use the nose of the pliers or your fingertip, to push between the wires so that they cross as close as possible to the eye of the needle 

The way the wires cross will dictate which way to twist the ends. Twist the ends tight and close to the needle, one or two turns is sufficient.

Clamp the wire loop between pliers to secure the bend, and to flatten the loop.

I took this photo before doing the clamping. After you have clamped the loop, snip off the excess as shown.

Finished loop.  Could have snipped that a bit more neatly......

I used a Dremel Gas soldering iron. This one is a Dremel 2000-6 Versatip. I use it without the tips. When I bought mine, I found the instructions a little hard to follow, especially refilling it. So here is a really good video showing it being filled. I was still a bit confused though, as my cigarette lighter fuel can came with lots of nozzles! You don't use any of the nozzles. Just stick the "straw" into the hole at the base of the Dremel.  I think all hobby gas soldering irons require you to use the lighter refill gas, I used Swan universal gas lighter refill, which has a lovely picture of a swan on it :D

Regarding soldering tiny things, here is another good video. My method was quite a bit different, but I did find her explanation useful.

You can also see how I made a bracket, using a gas soldering iron, in this post.

P.s. I am not a soldering expert, far from it. Anything I am doing has been picked up from others on the internet. I still can't solder using a tip, but the gas soldering for me, is working very well, so if you're worried about "not being good at soldering", don't!  And the flux IS important!

I painted a bit of flux onto the back of a baking tin, to help hold the pieces.  I then positioned a piece of straight wire, with the oval at the top. All the wire that you use, must be washed in soapy water and dry before this stage, then use a paint brush to lightly coat with flux. I have a paintbrush that I use for flux. Just set the wire down on the tin, dab the paintbrush with a bit of flux and dab the wire.  I find flux quite difficult to remove from the paint brush, however using an abrasive cleaner or something like Cif removes it from this stainless steel baking tin.

If you have straight wire, use it. If you don't have straight wire, tools will be needed. Awhile ago, I saw a youtube video for straightening wire with a drill and a vice, I have both, so I gave it a go. I used my dremel rotary tool as the drill.  You put one end of the wire in the dremel jaws, and the other end in the vice, pull tight-ish, and switch on, briefly. AND WEAR GOGGLES. The wire occasionally, snaps and flies off somewhere, never to be seen again. If you have neither a drill device or vice, you could probably just straighten the wire with pliers. Such a small piece is required, you could probably get away with it.

Using a sharp cutting knife, slice a tiny bit of solder off the solder wire, about the size of a grain of "granulated" sugar, and carefully place it over the join. This is easier said than done.  I use a needle usually, a bit of a knack to it. You can use your flux paintbrush, but its quite hard to get the solder bit to transer, when you're working this small. It needs to be lightly picked up. Persevere, you'll get the knack! If it drops off in the wrong place or it moves the two pieces, just use a needle to push everything back into place.

Switch the gas soldering iron on at full blast, and come in at the piece slowly. I heated from a short distance, so that the flame wasn't visibly touching the piece, then as soon as I saw the solder "blob", I moved the flame in quite close, until the solder flowed into the join. I also moved the flame about as though I'm using it as a tiny hairdrier. I don't know if that affects anything, but it feels right! :D Once the key body is finished, wash in soapy water and dry, before gluing and painting.


Oh yes! The cautionary tale! Cause of death = Burnt house down whilst making miniature keys.

 Sometimes when soldering, the pieces will move away from each other, so to combat this, I was using a long needle as a tool for pushing them back together, or holding them in place, whilst using the gas flame. It was working fine, until I held it there too long. It doesn't take a genius to know that metal things can get hot! And it got hot....fast. I don't quite remember what happened next, but I know that when I jumped the soldering iron left my hand briefly, and twirled around, how I managed to catch it without burning myself, I have no idea!  I suppose as a lesson for the inexperienced, ACCEPT A FAIL RATE, and don't try to fix it, by coming in with metal tools to poke it about! :D  I am thinking about making a wooden handle for a needle...........non conductive! Anyway, I thought I should mention this, probably nobody would be as daft as I was, but you never know what you might do to save a miniature in the making :D

For the key teeth, I used a strip of card. This one is approximately 3mm high, the measurement is not compulsory at all, but I thought I should mention it, probably the smallest easiest size to work with. Using the tip of your cutting blade, cut two lines, easily done by just pressing the tip into the card.

Er......slightly off centre. Aim to have the tip of the blade in the middle and gently press down, in order to create a tiny cut to remove the excess.

So there are the teeth, looking a bit like a "C", which is fairly simple to achieve, a bit hurriedly done here though. You can make up your own, or just copy the shapes I made for the keys in the photograph at the end of this post. They reminded me of Tetris when I was making them, I even had the theme tune playing in my head when I was cutting them all out.

Dispense a small amount of superglue onto something unimportant...and carefully dip the "red" edge into the glue. It's important not to use too much as you can accidentally make the teeth stick to the tweezers, but enough so that it sticks to the wire. I applied too much and too little quite a few times. If it happens, try again, and again, and again, luckily it's only inexpensive card!

Another fun fiddly bit! Still holding the teeth in the tweezers, attach as shown. You can either try attaching it while the key body is laid on the surface just by sticking it to the wire and then using a needle to gently push it over so that it is flush with the work surface, or you can attach it whilst holding the key body and place the teeth tab roughly in the right place and then set it down on the work surface and gently push down the tab with a needle. There may be a chance it will stick to the table, once it's on the table, push the key body gently to ensure it hasn't stuck. 

Once the glue has set, you can paint the key. I used Humbrol enamel paint. If you want the keys to be rusty, you can use a bit of brown water colour paint on them, before they fully dry. Pastels would probably work too. If the paint is tacky it will hold the pigment. Once the key is dry, you can snip just below the teeth, and use paint to touch up the clean cut.

I made an Oz key for fun. Return to Oz is one of my favourite childhood films, I still enjoy watching it even though I am 30 (still getting used to that!). In the film, Billina the Hen (belonging to Dorothy), finds the key to Oz whilst scratching about in the yard. It had fallen to earth the night previously via a shooting star. Dorothy then uses a twig to poke the soil out of the holes at the top of the key, revealing the OZ monogram, which I always found incredibly satisfying!
My Billina is possibly an old Falcon miniatures hen, all I can be sure of, is that it was made in America.

I wrapped wire around a needle to create a circular loop and then set a tiny bit of wire diagonally, with a bit of solder at either end, to create the OZ monogram.
I made two of these, but I think this is the one that is in the photograph above, its a bit messy around the teeth here, I hadn't noticed the paint blob until later.



If you are really bored, you can play "Spot the Oz key" below :D

1:12 scale Conservatory update

Finally, back to the conservatory. 

Almost everything here, was made using card, and some jewellery findings. About a year ago, I would have been considering making these out of metal, clay, etc. I have now decided, you can't beat card! :D Easy, cheap and fast.

This is a Chinese Evergreen plant, with leaf patterns from a real one, I have put the leaves for this onto a free printable sheet here.  Seal the ink before cutting out, either with hairspray or an appropriate sealer. There are enough leaves to make a few of the size shown here.

I only found out this plant's name last week, after spending a long time searching for it online, despite having had this plant for many years..... It turns out it likes damp, dark corners, which is lucky, because that is where it was living in real life.

 I photographed a few of the leaves, holding white paper behind each one.

 I uploaded each photo to MS paint, and used the white paint bucket tool on the white page part, so that the leaf, would hopefully, be isolated from the page, then I could resize them. Though I only did that so they would be clearer to cut around, it probably wasn't necessary. I had about four good photos, and each image was flipped using Ms Paint, to give the illusion of having eight different leaf patterns.

I cut them out with nail scissors, and lightly scored down the middle of each leaf. I overdid the stylus tool cupping.... the leaves should be flatter than these ones....then each leaf was glued onto short lengths of pre-painted silk wrapped wire, and to add sheen, I painted slightly watery PVA glue onto each leaf. I put the wires into bundles of 12 - 14 leaves, wrapped some pre-glued tissue paper around the base of the bundle, and then used tweezers to manipulate the leaves into shape.
My real Chinese Evergreen, doesn't follow natures tradition of newest leaves smallest and oldest largest, and just seems to send them out in all sizes, whatever it feels like.  I hope it's alright. Following its plan, which is so convenient, I just bundled all the sizes together randomly. 

All of these were made using 220gsm card. I used the cone making generator from this great site, Template Maker, to make the various patterns for each object, which I was then able to print onto card.  The wire handles are thread, and the funnel spouts are tubing, the watering can "arm" is a piece of plastic tubing from a cotton bud. I painted all of them with Humbrol silver paint, then before they were fully dry, I painted over them with watercolour paint, to give them a slightly rusty, old finish.

A very verdigris copper watering can, and three pitchers, again, made using 220gsm card. The watering can has a spout made using brass tubing, which also makes it topple, I had to use tacky wax to hold it in this position. It didn't even occur to me that the tubing would be too heavy for it.... I had some copper leaf which I covered it with, and it was ridiculously shiny, and it was a bit messy, so I dabbed white primer paint over most of it, and used a wet paint brush on a verdigris green chalk pastel, and painted over the white.

The three pitchers, are made from a pattern and tutorial from the blog Bricolages and Compagnie. If you click on the first photograph there, that will take you to the PDF file. I made mine rather small.. I didn't realise pitchers were quite big in real life until afterwards :D

The Candelabra was made using lots of bits and pieces. The candle holding parts are from the top down, bead, paper punched card circle, 3mm flower bead cap, crimp bead, then wire, which are all glued (with Araldite) into a fluted bead. The column from the top down, is a model boat column, another bead, earring bullet and the base is a funnel (from miniature marvel).  I dropped it a few times, by accident, which has bashed it out of alignment slightly, not that it was ever aligned perfectly, in the first place. There was rubber inside the earring bullet, which was taking up the space needed for the funnel end to go into, so after trying to drill it out, I lost patience, and burnt it out, which worked perfectly. I just held the bullet with tweezers over a flame and all that annoying rubber oozed out.  I bent the wire for the arms all at the same time. I took four pieces of wire, bent them around the handle of an exacto knife, then held the "ends" in pliers to create the bend that goes into the bead, and trimmed the ends at either end so they would all be exactly the same in length.

I am so pleased with the brackets. They were made using wire and brass strip.  I copied these from some that I saw on Pinterest, here. 

The brackets were painted with white primer paint, and then I used a fine paint brush, to dab spots of reddish brown watercolour paint to create little rust patches.

Making miniature brackets. The finished one here, is a fluke, and neither of these are the finished ones. Originally, I tried using the ends of  paper fasteners to create the bracket, but I couldn't get a good 90 degree angle, so maybe these ones not working out was a good thing.

I ended up using a thin strip of brass, bent into a perfect angle. The wires for the scrolling had to be bent into shape, individually, using needle nosed tweezers and thumbs and fingers. It was boring and more than a few of those curly, whirly bits went into the bin. I had drawn up an actual scale template (not shown here) to work from.
Before cutting and bending the wire, I took the long length of wire to be used and ran wire wool up and down it a few times, which helps the solder "grip" onto it later. After the pieces were formed I washed them in hot soapy water, dried them, and handled with tweezers from then on, and painted them with a light coat of flux.

 I arranged them as shown onto something metal, I think this is aluminium, with a 90 degree angle. I painted a bit of flux onto the surface first to help hold the pieces in place. After carefully using tweezers to place each piece so that they were touching each other, or as close as possible, I used a scalpel to cut tiny pieces of solder which were then placed onto the "join" of each piece.

Then the fun bit.

Switch the gas blow torch on, and torch it. I started off heating it slowly from a distance, before moving the flame in, I saw someone in a fine jewellery making video do it like that. To be honest, I don't really know what I am doing, I think I might have overtorched it, I am sure the wires were close to burning, but since they were being painted, I didn't worry so much. To attach the ornate swirly piece to the bracket, I did something slightly unconventional.... I used masking tape to hold the bracket onto the edge of this metal corner thing in the photo, positioned so that this ornate section would be attached right down the centre of the bracket. I lightly sanded the inside of the bracket, and washed etc. as for the swirly bits. I again used tiny bits of solder anywhere where the wires would be touching the bracket. Then torched it. The cellotape does burn. But it holds out long enough to get the job done, and open a window and keep a glass of water nearby :D Everything must be supported in some way or another when using this method of soldering, otherwise, you will end up with a mangled mess, as the torch melts all the joins made previously.  I had been using pliers to hold the ornate section in place, the first one worked, the second one crumbled....the brackets that worked where the ones that were supported at all times.

 I also used the back of a baking tin as a working surface, this one is stainless steel. It does heat up a bit, wherever you are working the flame, but it is a cheaper and easier alternative to obtaining a fire brick.

Many thanks to Pepper of Mitchy Moo Miniatures for her advice about getting one of these gas powered soldering irons and her video tutorial for using it as a torch. I still  CANNOT SOLDER via soldering tips, I have killed many soldering tips.... However, I can torch things! Believe me, if you can't solder, you can torch. And it is fun and I can think of so many things I can now make with it. An iron bench, is my big project for it.

FINALLY THE CEILING IS FINISHED! :D I added Tie bars, which in reality, would not be affixed as shown. I think I would get a demolition order for this whole build actually, if it were full sized, because those rafters aren't in the right place either. But since this is fantasy land, we can do what we like here :D Because space is limited, I want to be able to hang things from these overhead rods, and my old Falcon miniature parrot needs a perch too, for when he moves in. The "outside" is a picture in a garden book...the perspective is just slightly off :D

Pretty much the same photo again, this time with my real back garden outside, the top of a box plant looking very conveniently like a hedge, just by the window. The candelabra fell over because my crazy cat ran past to fight with my other cat, I hadn't noticed it had been knocked over, during her rampage. Must be all this sunlight making her crazy. Thanks Lisa, for ruining my scene!
The brick wall was made using pieces of card cut into Victorian sized bricks (in 1:12 scale, 1.8cm Length, 0.6cm Height, 0.85cm Depth ) each piece was stuck onto card that was cut to fit the wall. I left a gap of about a mm, for grouting. I used Unibond Quick fix and grout, to grout the bricks, using my finger tip to work it into all the gaps. This made the card warp slightly, so I placed it under a heavy book. I then used a small round wood file, to score grout lines. I put a piece of  heavy duty sandpaper face down onto the bricks and used a hammer on the back of the sandpaper to put some texture onto the bricks, admittedly it is very subtle, but I am happy with it.  I was going to have this as a red brick wall with lime wash, but it looked too fussy and closed in next to this tiled floor, and was much more convincing painted white too. The brick pattern is English Double Cross bond.

I also used the Unibond (similar to Polyfilla) on the terracotta pots, which are also made with card. I first painted the card pots, with thick watercolour, then smeared slightly watery grout onto them, you can use a paint brush to paint it onto the inside. Once the grout sets, you can lightly sand the rough finish off. This method also makes them quite tough too, and very convincing as terracotta.

My against building regulation tie bars and the blue sky, not seen for months, viewed through the roof. MUST PAINT THAT BRASS HINGE! The tie bar boss is a circle cut from wood, using a jewellers saw, with a 3mm bead cap stuck on for detail, the rods are 3mm brass tubing, with beads at either end. All held in place with drilled holes and pins.  Note to self, always paint things first, before sticking them into awkward places. What you can't see, is a very bad paint job! :D

1:12 scale opening Suitcase tutorial Part 1

The template in this tutorial is for the suitcase size and shape on the right (the one emblazoned with travel stickers, which I didn't include in the printable, due to the nicking from the internet nature of them, sorry...)

I have divided this tutorial into 3 parts, so that anybody visiting my blog, does not suffer a browser crash caused by picture and word overload :D 

The main part of the suitcase, is in this part which is Part 1, Parts 2 and 3 are embellishments, such as handles and straps, etc.

1:12 scale basketry and other things.

Today was a sunny day, the first in a long time, too sunny, my camera couldn't cope with the light after about ten minutes and slightly malfunctioned, but finally, I could take photos!! :D And auto enhance fixed the malfunction! 

Laundry basket and log basket. The log basket was made the same way as the laundry basket, using a wooden base to drive the rods into, which was then hidden by gluing twisted thread onto. I don't know what the wood in the laundry basket is, I picked it up in a forest park, a few years ago, it is possibly of the pine variety, but to be honest, I haven't a clue :D The space between the rods, changes the weave appearance dramatically, despite using the same gauge of thread and rod. As you can see, I don't bother with staining the rods :D I am not sure what I am doing with the baskets yet, paint, stain, leave as is..

The button on the laundry basket is a French knot, Giac of englishmanordollhouse.blogspot.com/‎ posted a link to a great French knot video tutorial here. Thanks to Giac finding that video, I can finally do French knots, before I was hopeless at them, but that video for some reason, worked a charm.

All of the basketry was made using tutorials found easily online, there are a quite a few. I used this one, in particular for the detail in the weave on the laundry basket, No.3, Fantaisie. The baskets are very special for me, because they were made with thread that came from a now derelict Victorian factory nearby, Barbour threads. I grew up around that place, and I remember the thread lying all over the roads when it fell off the lorries. I sneaked into the factory a few times too, when I was a child, shhhh! :D

Basket tips TRIED AND TESTED

(skip if you want, I was looking for this info, maybe somebody else is too :D)

I used Hamilworth floral wire No28. and Crawford Linen thread no.25. colour Drab.

Oval basket -  I recommend 5 x 7 rods, if using similar gauge of rod.  I originally tried 5 x 11, but when the base was complete, and I bent the rods to begin weaving the walls, I realised the weave would be too narrow at the front in comparison to the sides. So I had to snip the excess rods down to 7. The base of this oval basket is 30mm x 18mm, and I used the base of an oval glasses case as a guide. (There probably is a rule for oval basket rod numbers, but I don't know what it is :D ) The diagram below is just a rough layout of how the rods should cross. Again, if using rods of a similar gauge the gap between the red rods should be about 2mm, with the exception of the two rods at either end, they should be flush.

If weaving a square shape, do not pull the thread too tight as you turn the corners, check that everything is square, or over time, the corners will begin to draw inwards. You can see this happening near the base of the laundry basket. P.s. I have no idea if I even turned the corners properly, I just went with the flow, and it all worked out ok.

Keep your rods as straight as possible.

If you use this site http://jicolin.free.fr/techvannerie.htm for weaving techniques, the first one "simple" only works on an uneven number of rods.

For the basket trim, I ran two lengths of thread through glue, twisted them together and left to dry, until the twist was set, before gluing onto the basket.

The handle ends are florist wire, bent into shape and pushed into the weave. I, can't think of a better word, smooshed, some glue through the weave on the inside of the basket, to secure the handles.

That is all I can think of right now.

Paper minis! I LOVE MY PRINTER! I found images of flattened out boxes on flickr, though the owner of the account, Jason Liebig, amazing collector of packaging, mostly sweet tooth stuff though, has disabled downloading images, probably not for this reason though, I would imagine folk wanting to stock up their miniature kitchens was the last thing he was worried about. :D. So I sneakily used screen print and then fixed them up in MsPaint. The resolution wasn't great, but I think they turned out very well. Free advertising? Artistic interpretation? Personal use? I just had to have those boxes, look at retro Tony! If Jason finds out, sorry, and thank you. I don't want to bother him with miniature grocery permission seeking, to be honest. :D Will a link suffice? (As you can tell, I am slightly nervous around permissions). The sizes are guesstimates, I just went with what looked right, as best I could. Ms paint is slightly nightmarish for resizing, and my Word trial is finished, and I didn't realise Word had an annual fee! I set the properties on MsPaint to cm, so I would have a rough idea of what size they would print at.

After I saw Moniques' miniatures at Fabulously Small, more specifically, the belt and the jeans, I wanted a belt too! :D I have had these buckles for well over a year now, I bought them from the The Dolls House Mall. The black one is real leather, from a strap I had. I had to shave it down with a razor, as it was quite thick. The buckle pin is wire. The stripey one, is made from woven fabric, the same fabric I used for the seat cushion in the kitchen. I smeared PVA glue onto the fabric and left it to dry before cutting it, which stops it from fraying.

These take no time to make, that is why there are four :D. The buckle part is fiddly though. My choice of fabric was limited, so the new two,  I am not so keen on. These are for a wardrobe, that isn't quite ready yet.

I have wanted to make a suitcase for a long time now! I scanned a section of my leather jacket, and then resized that scan, lightened the colour, and printed the result onto paper. Although the grain is not visible, the print is made up of many pixels of brown tones, which gives it a bit of depth, rather than just one solid brown. I found finding free large images of leather online impossible, so if you need it, I have uploaded it here.  I am contemplating, (almost certain) there will be a tutorial on this one, as there don't seem to be any opening suitcase tutorials online. Obviously, it is obvious how it is made, ie. two open boxes stuck together, but the techniques to make it neat, etc. might be of use to somebody. Plus, I need to refine a few things and I need a larger suitcase, to set my smaller suitcase on, so I might as well take photos along the way :D 

The buckles are silver wire, bent around, round nosed pliers. The brass on the handle was made using the heads of miniature nails. The brass on the straps, are gold no hole beads.

And it opens! That was a slight challenge. The lid came off completely during construction, so I had to make some alterations, and now, for now, it is fully working again. The lining paper is a resized version of this vintage design, which had to be copied and pasted in paint over a large area, laid over each other, a bit like a jigsaw, to make it large enough to resize to a nice scale, unfortunately the detail was lost, but I liked the pattern anyway. 

The family album is full of tiny photographs from our real family photo album. The black corners are drawn on. They aren't as crisp as I wanted them to be because my ultra fine nibbed pen dried up, so I had to use a Pilot pen instead! I must stop leaving caps and lids off of things! The "photos" are glued onto pastel paper (nothing special about that, it was the only suitable paper I had). The pattern of the endpaper is a resized version of this.  My mum is the little girl with the bob haircut, upper right.

I LOVE MY PRINTER!

No doubt these two will have starring roles in all future scenes :D Donkey is as expressive as ever, thankfully Teddy is poseable, so it won't get THAT boring. The bed linen is lace from Little trimmings, and I have forgotten where the rug came from, but I bought it on etsy.

Where did I set those buckles? Definitely, not time for a workshop photo. This shows the mess made when creating four belts and an album, this photo is a tiny section of the mess.  I found the buckles eventually. They were nowhere near here :D

Many thanks for the lovely comments on the last few posts, I have not had time to reply with thanks, just those with specific questions, as I have been trying to catch up with everyone's blogs, which is increasingly difficult to do, I might add, we all know what I am talking about, I added a few more to my list recently too, but very well worth it!! :D

1:12 scale Woodturning

I think, the sofa is almost finished! Since I last posted about it, it has had the sides ripped off and replaced, as one side had an edge that hung too low. That side is now almost perfect. However the other side, is now a bit bumpy. But I think it has got to the stage where the phrase "Shabby chic" comes in really useful. Every mistake can be dismissed with the excuse "shabby chic", "old" or "antique" or my favourite, "rustic". Also it is supposed to be 100 years old anyway....

I wanted turned feet on this sofa, as it was based on a late Victorian, early Edwardian Howard and Sons sofa, so I bought a lathe. I really needed a lathe :D I got a Proxxon one, DB250, and the Proxxon lathe tool set. I bought those quite some time ago,  and I watched quite a few lathe videos on youtube, mostly miniature related ones, but my first attempt was disastrous, mostly because I was afraid of it. Then about a week ago, I tried again. 

The only major problem I have with the sofa is the height of the seat, it is at the maximum, but only at the the edges. A seat height, is usually between 16 and 18 inches, and the sofa seat would be at the maximum, near the sides, but because of the puffy padding, it is sitting at 4.5 cm in the middle, that is 21 inches in lifesize! I could have left out the castors, but that was an absolute NO! For the time being, I am content with it as is.

Slightly wonky, but hey, it's an antique :D The castors are by Houseworks, and they are topped with a brass ring, that was cut from the brass tubing left over from the bed.

The first turning was the darning mushroom, then I turned a few more things, then I built up the nerve to have a go at making the sofa feet. I made the first one freestyle. When I tried to make the second one, the daunting task of a copy, I tried to do this by eye, and a few measurements, and it wasn't happening. I knew there was a tool for doing that kind of thing, I can't remember what it is called, but it works with the same principle as this crude needle contraption. 

So, this is the needle contraption against the copy, and those needles have the profile of the first foot, as you can see, it isn't fitting, but it was close enough for me :D I spent most of the afternoon on it, and IT'S FINISHED :D They are now sitting at 13.5cm apart, no one will ever know they are not the same at that distance! 

My first successful wood turning. And to celebrate, I had to take a photo. Then I got out some wire wool, to sand it as it spinned, and the wire wool wrapped around it, and broke it off, which is why the finished (brown stained one) doesn't have the little ball on the end. I don't think I have ever switched a machine off so quickly. It was terrifying, my hair was tied back, I had my goggles on, there were no sleeves near the machine, but when you are working with a lathe, it lulls you into thinking it is perfectly safe. Once you have found the true centre of the dowel you can no longer see the spinning, so the object you are turning looks static, so when something fast and unexpected happens it is a bit alarming. The machine is switched off in this photo, I could just imagine the camera cord getting wrapped up in those jaws to the left :D Am I selling the lathe? :D

Despite the fact that the lathe is TERRIFYING, you can make all sorts of great stuff, and you feel very proud of your perfectly symmetric objects at the end of it all. Each object took about half an hour to an hour to turn. I used wood files and sandpaper strips, to do the final shaping. It is incredibly satisfying. Though I will need to get a dust mask....*cough*

And at the end of the photo shoot, the sun came out........

There are many things you could make for a miniature house with a lathe, so despite it being a bit pricey, I highly recommend it. Once you get used to it, and take ALL safety precautions seriously :D, I think it is a great little investment. I am going to make a guard for the jaws though, with a plastic cup or something, as I tend to daydream......... :D I used various sizes of Birch dowel rods, which I bought from Cornwall model boats, which were used for all of the turnings.

One thing not to do when turning, is to remove an unfinished piece, as you would lose the true centre. If you were to put the dowel back in, the turned section would waggle. In order to make a symmetrical turning, there must be no visible waggling as the rod rotates, the piece should look static as you work. That is also when you start to shape the piece. I noticed the smaller dowels waggled a lot on the lathe, which meant I had to remove quite a bit of wood, thus making the diameter a lot smaller. The larger dowels waggled less so. I also had to work quite closely to the jaw end as well, less waggling down at that end, hence why I want to make a guard, and completely avoid the possibility of a tool bit sticking out of my head :D There is a device that holds the rod at the other end, which prevents the waggling, but I preferred to work without that. On the whole though, I think it is a great little lathe and I wouldn't be without it, I have a long list of what I can make using it.