The First Shrine #2

I am learning to think in layers of tiny lumber, like Basswood trimmed in skewers on the inside and outside of this shrine. The "studs" are Balsa wood, 1/16x1/4 inch. When I first started the project, I slathered Elmer's glue on everything and waited for it to dry overnight before going on to the...

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The first shrine

When I started this tiny construction project, I thought I was building a tea house. That's all. But, in my inimitable fashion, learning all about tiny construction while building tiny shrines has become a bit of a passion. My world of tiny construction opened up with a video of a contractor building...

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Making Stuff - Planning a Shaman's Tipi

 These plans for a Plains Indian tipi are printed across twelve 8.5x11 sheets of paper to make the tipi below at 1/24 scale. The interior is about 10 inches in diameter and the cone top is at about 15 inches. Notice how the front slopes, which is part of the elegant design to keep the smoke (emanating...

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Getting the scale right....

 On the right are different sizes of paper tipis constructed while finding the proper scale dimensions. 1/24 means two feet per inch. I said this in an earlier post, but it's worth repeating that when we built Faerie Junction a year ago, the motto was, "Scale? Haha. Who cares? It's faeries!...

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Tiny Double Wall Construction #3

 When cutting the siding for this little model, I overlapped the edge about 1/4 inch to make the siding meet at the edges of the box. The windows are trimmed inside and out. I added a tidy and stabilizing trim to each corner. The trim boards are 1/4 inch taller than the walls in order to...

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Tiny Double Wall Construction #2

I traced out the wall covering on quilters' cotton fabric and glued it to all the posts, covering the individual walls. I added interior window frames before gluing the box together. I continually amuse myself by the mix and match of cultures and materials as I study this project, trying to make...

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Tiny Double Wall Contruction

This weekend, I learned how to do tiny double wall construction by watching a You Tube video of a man building a complete replica of his home. This little model has everything but wiring and insulation, I used balsa wood trim pieces, although the ends are so soft the saw cuts look like a squirrel...

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Learning to be an architect and builder

 In the last post, I made the statement that everything I learned about tiny construction came from the YouTube tutorial I watched 25 times about building a Japanese Tea House. This is not true. Here are three photos from 1988 when I studied scale models with an architect in Sausalito. I did...

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