Nearly two years at sea...

February 19th 2008 was the first blog post. Wow time flies.

It looks like we are about to wrap up this little trip under the sea. Just a couple more items to do, but they are fairly busy ones.

Pictured are the gauges I was referring too previously. This was a fun little project that let me use some of my Adobe Photoshop skills. The inclinometer on top is from a real ship somewhere and I bought it last year at a nautical shop in Galveston which has really bounced back from the hurricane by the way. Some Brasso cleaned up the old brass and made it all shiny like. I had the opposite problem with the barometers I used for the other two. They were TOO shiny so I took some light grit sandpaper and a hobby product called "Patina-It" to them to tarnish them up a bit. Now they and the inclinometer look pretty close.

I started on the inside of the door too but I way way over-thought it at first. I tried using thick sheet plastic and silicone adhesive to cover the whole thing and give me a nice flat surface with the intention of hiding the wood grain. It laid out fine but as the glue dried it shrank causing all these bubbles to form (just like my map fiasco earlier). I was able to rip it off and remove the glue with mineral spirits and start over. A couple coats of primer will more than hide that grain I have since concluded. Point is, great ideas don't always work and in fact "great ideas" can end up just being plain stupid upon execution. That said, I still learned from the event and Plan B is working out fine. Not everything works right out the gate.

I have to make more rivets to finish the door. I also have to begin work on the painting booth and its hose that will exhaust outdoors. With a little decent weather, (current temp is 18 with the wind chill), I should make great strides on this in the coming week and THAT my friends will end up being the final big project for the room though there will still be some remaining tweaks here and there before I call it done.

Genuine imitation wood paneling at no extra charge

These are posts are coming quicker now...

Just a quick down and dirty one this time. My workbench is done and as you can see has certainly gotten a makeover from its stark whiteness. The legs are painted the same aged copper as the other "fittings" around the room. The side panels were too. The design is a decorative resin decor thing from Hobby Lobby, and the corner pieces are a couple wood pieces from the Home Depot. Sometimes you just gotta poke around these places fending off the "May I help you"s until something clicks in your head.

The front is some more of our old friends the rivets, and the top... the top is a stroke of genius. (well inspiration maybe) That beat up white top was just something I thought I'd have to live with but then I saw wood grained shelf paper at Wal-E-World and that saved the day. Just a last minute idea but it really will help catch glue and paint spills when I get to modeling again and be very easy to replace when it gets too mucky.

I am working on those brass gauges I mentioned in an earlier post now. I have the inclinometer cleaned up and am preparing fairly passable Engine Order Telegraph, an Seawater Depth gauges to go with it from a couple of surplus barometers. Should be ready in a day or two.

Only two major projects remain. The painting booth that you can see in the background here and the inside of the bedroom door. Thats got to be made to look metal like the walls. How am I going to make that hollow core wood door with all that grain look metal? Stay tuned!

Biggles! Put her in the Comfy Chair!

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

It turns out it wasn't the torture I'd feared, but "restored" may be too strong of a word for what I have wrought here. Whatever else you can say about my skills though, it IS a functioning chair again. I have learned that I am neither naturally gifted at upholstery work or that I could ever make a living at it either for that matter.

Originally it was stuffed with grass and horsehair or something but I just went with some seat cushion foam cut to size for the bottom. I used the old seat as a pattern and just cut everything a bit long around the edge. I pulled it tight with clamps and worked around the edge tacking it into place hoping for as few wrinkles as possible.

I used patterns to make the exact and symmetrical shapes for the chair top front and back and tacked them taut around the edges as well. Once I started it got easier as I went along. For the final touch I used some fancy looking upholstery nails and a gold trim around all the edges.

The chair itself is somewhat shorter than the computer desk chair it replaces so a lap keyboard pillow is going to be in order for any kind of typing. All in all though a nice compliment to the room.

I will be starting on my workbench project next. It is getting repainted and disguised a bit but nothing too exotic going on. The weather looks decent for the next couple of days so I should get a lot done. Things are clipping along nicely now.

Is that a light I see at the end of the tunnel?

Steam valves O' light

While waiting for what I believe will be a no-show satellite dish repairman I fiddled in the room a bit and actually got most of the track lighting project done today.

The track lighting cord has been hidden under this coppery colored cord run. Hopefully it looks a bit like steam piping but it don't look like white power cord which is the point I'm trying to make.

The track lighting just plugs into a wall socket but I wanted a way to turn it on and off, well a COOL way, and decided to use a dimmer switch with what appears to be a steam valve or something on it. Once I figured out where to plug it in making the switch box came next. I just built up around a standard fixture to try to get it looking a little more squarish. Made a lid to match it, lined up the screw holes, and bada-bing, instant steam box thingy. Painting this and the cord runs outside was troublesome in the current arctic conditions but we got there.

The dimmer switch instructions were in every language but Merican so I had to set up a test board and try out different configurations of wires till the light came on. Eureka! After that installation was straightforward and now the overhead floods and the hanging chandelier are both working off these dimmers.

Next up. Probably the chair. Scary scary chair...

A light in da pipe

Hah! I love it when a plan comes together...

I did get held up a bit trying to figure out how to cut the tubes to fit. You see one end is at a 45 degree angle because of the false wall and the all other cuts would need to be straight up and down. What I came up with was a cutting "jig" that I could set to any angle I wanted and would hold the tube still while I sawed it in half. It worked like a champ. Sometimes if you don't already have the right tool, you can make it.

The "pipe" is up there and its working now. I still have a few touch ups here and there. The main one will be covering all those screw holes with some same painted rivets. You can also still see the white from the track lighting unit itself so a little camouflage in the form of some carefully applied paint will be in order once the current blizzard passes. Stupid winter.

The cord and switch will be handled next. The switch will be a dimmer with one of the wheels I cast way back mounted on it. The cord will be in a run painted a brass color. This should be a cool way of turning on those overheads.

But right now I'd like to bring it down a little. Mellow out our groove some. And sincerely wish you all a joyous Christmas and a great New Year! Make it count!

And thanks for the support you have all given me over the years. Peace.

Nook of Armaments, Chapter 2, verses 9-21

Sorry no Holy Hand Grenades in there...

Christmas season and the weather have slowed down my progress. The track lighting itself is up but the "ventilation" tubing is not since it requires painting. Which requires outside. Which requires good weather. Etc etc.

We turn then to a quick little project to hide my utilitarian looking gun cabinet which certainly does not look the Nautilus part. It is simply a half box made from masonite, a couple long hinges, and some more of the ubiquitous rivets to form a door to hide and give access to the locker. Its been painted the same three part scheme as the surrounding wall and topped with some spare molding. Simple. Boring.

What you WILL see on the face of this thing though down the road is a number of aged looking brass gauges with depth and speed indicator needles and everything. One of the gauges will actually be functional. It is a real working inclinometer that ,when on a ship, shows the degree of roll the vessel has as it moves through the sea. Clearly the house won't be rolling or pitching but still, a neat nautical touch I thought.

Next post-I swear- will be the whole overhead track lighting tableau installed. Its going to be tricky to do but will look O' so cool.

Station the track (light)ing party

Sub talk..Ha ha

Anyhow, we are back at work in the room. We? Me, myself and and Buddy-Lee. We have spent the last couple of weeks un-halloweening the house and getting parts prepared for the overhead track lighting.

We can't just have a klunky looking track screwed to the ceiling but I need more light for the worktable and the painting booth. So what I am doing is trying to disguise the whole thing as rusty ventilation or seawater piping to blend in and look more subby.

The tube is a concrete form normally used for making patio deck footings and the other aluminum bits are actual home heating ventilation parts. The aluminum bits needed beefed up a bit to look like steel plates instead of the thin flashing they are. I glued on some painted foam core to do just that. The tubes themselves only come in 4 foot sections so I needed the better part of three of them to go across the room. Only the middle one will actually have the lights. Brackets were needed on the ends to hold them up and the far ends will connect to the walls with the beefed up aluminum bits. Hopefully the whole thing when done will look cool and be functional.

Which is what I hope to present in the next episode.
Plus! Where did I put that darn gun cabinet again?