Thick decals

I've done a little more on the two Defender slot cars I have been working on.

I've created a decal sheet but instead of using the water slide paper, I have deliberately used normal paper.

Number plates and the aluminium checker plate used on Andy's Defender 'Joe' 90 have a visible thickness. The idea is that the slightly heavier paper will look like the thin sheets that are attached to the surface of the car bodywork.

I've fixed the paper to the model using PVA type white wood glue.

The curious morning at the steampunk fair

The Museum of Power at Langford near Maldon was host to a steampunk fair.

There were lots of people dressed up and a few traders selling various things that could be related to or used for gaslamp fantasy.

The museum, with it's numerous steam engines was an ideal location for this.

The smaller engines were running on compressed air for demonstration purposes.

Late in the morning was the tea duel. A curious competition involving the dunking of biscuits until they fell apart. Last biscuit standing was the winner.

It was a fun event and has left us wanting to go to another.

Repair a split belt

I had worn one belt so much that it split along the inner and outer layers of leather in two places. I hadn't worn it for ages because of that.

I had a few minutes yesterday and decided to try to repair it.

It has a cardboard inner layer, so I re-attached that first to one side and added a patch where some of it was missing. I then glued the other side to that.

I used Evostick contact adhesive as that seamed the most obvious glue to use.
Applied to each side then left for a couple of minutes until touch dry.

I used a roller to get it as flat as possible before clamping. It's instant adhesive but I left it for nearly a day before wearing the belt.

I needed to clean a little of the adhesive off the outer surfaces and from inside the holes. I just used a spike for the holes and rubbed the glue off with my fingers.

So far so good.

Offcut side table

Having moved the study round to fit the haberdashery cupboard I no longer had a place for my cup of tea while playing games on the Xbox.

I decided to make a small side table from some offcuts of timber.

I think the rails are beech but the rest is oak which I scrounged when we had a kitchen table made several years ago by Country Ways Oak.

I sketched up a design based on the bits I had. The size is so that I can store magazines on the bottom shelf.

I wanted to retain as much of the bark as possible. Like anything you make using the bits to hand, it was necessary to adjust the plan slightly as I went.

It was a quick build on Sunday afternoon. Deliberately very little cleaning up so all but the surfaces of the shelf and top are left rough sawn. Everything is screwed together from the underside.

The only tricky bit was because the front and back edges are deliberately left natural. Lining up the rails felt odd because they always looked out of alignment even after carefully positioning them with a square.

I am not sure how secure the bark is. It is rare to see any bark on timber furniture so I assume it is likely to fall off over time. To minimise this I have used two thick layers of floor varnish to finish the table. I use this varnish for everything because it is touch dry in 20 minutes and can be re-coated within 2 hours. It makes jobs a lot quicker and I get good results from it.

Repaired haberdashery cupboard

Following on from my post about starting to repair this cupboard, I have now finished the repair of the haberdashery cupboard that was formerly used in my shed.

The chipboard sides of the cupboard had been weakened where they had sat on the ground in the damp.

They had puffed out and crumbled along the bottom 4 inches. Most of the veneer on the outside was still intact but it had separated from the body of the chipboard on one side just along that lower 4 inch band.

The first job was to pull the outer edges back in alignment with the frame. I drilled and carved out a channel next to the biscuit joint and then glued and clamped the edges in to place. I put paper between the batten used to protect the cupboard from the clamp. The paper was to avoid the batten getting stuck to the outside of the cupboard.

The next task was to stabilise the edges. I rubbed off the worst of the loose chips and then coated the inside faces with lots of watered down PVA type white wood glue. 50:50 water and PVA plus a dash of dishwasher rinse aid as a surfactant to break the surface tension so it flows more easily.

I left it a few days to ensure it was thoroughly dry. The chipboard was then stable enough to glue a plank of timber on the inside of each edge to give it strength to stand on. As the sides were very uneven I used lots of 'No More Nails' from a mastic gun as the adhesive and filler.

Again that was left for a few days to go off.

I thought about cutting away the outside veneer and chipboard and insetting some timber but it was looking more stable than I expected and as this edge is barely seen I decided to carry on with stabilising the chipboard.

Lots more 50:50 water and white glue brushed as far in to the chipboard as possible and some neat glue under the veneer and in the worse gaps. I clamped that lot tightly in place with some battens, again with a layer of paper between the surface and the batten.

I used some clamps to pull the sides as close to level as I could.

Much to my surprise when I released the clamps a few days later the puffy bottoms had been held nearly flush.

One side needed some filling with Isopon P38 which once sanded I disguised by painting a black band along the bottom on both sides to match the black inset panel that it already had on the front and which I had cleaned up and repainted.

 

The back panel did not need any essential repairs but I gave it some white glue where the plywood was coming apart just to stop it getting worse. As I was doing that I found the timber along the back edge was crumbling. As that was out of sight I simply cut that back to good timber coated with my watered down glue mix and filled with Isopon P38.

I had filled a few holes in the sides which I now sanded before wax polishing.

Shelley and I carried it in to the study. Our house is not very big and the cupboard is taller than all of our doors! There was only one possible route, that was, in the back door, through the kitchen, a three point turn in the living room to align it with the door to the study and then straight across the hall in to the study.

Once in the study that room needed a complete re-arrange to have the haberdashery cupboard where it looked best and did not block everything else!

Last job was to clean up the glass on each drawer and fit the handles and label holders which I had previously sprayed gloss black.

I filled the drawers as I took them in to the study to make space to move in the room.

Another job I am pleased with.