Back Aboard The Coach!

The last time I posted anything about my Epic Stagecoach project was...  Almost 6 years ago.  I have not touched it since then.

Well, that's not entirely true.

Last year, it made its live show debut.  How??  In the awesome Big Dreams class at The Jennifer Show, where it was the biggest dream - by footprint anyhow.  It, and all it's paraphernalia, took up an entire table. 

After that, it was all packed away again.  

Recently, I've made an effort in my "new" studio room (been in there for over a year, but it still feels new and not moved into) to set up a work station just for the Stagecoach.

Last night, I randomly sat down in the spot, cleared a few things out of the way, and got back to work.

In my last post about the project, I shared how one of the wheels had been shattered.  My plan has always been to use that as an "opportunity" to redo the wheels, having learned MUCH more about actual wheelwrighting since making them.  However, last night I made the decision to repair the broken wheel and move forward... with a footnote.  I will be making sure the wheels are removeable.  That way I can backtrack and do the upgrades at a later date if I want to (and I do).

Before deciding to fix the wheel, I ended up peeling off the "tire", intending to break the rim apart and start the from scratch rebuild.  After deciding to repair the wheel "as is", I decided that this removal was fine to do, it gave me an idea how hard or easy it would be to tear down the wheel later.  It wasn't too hard, but did require some patience.

I called it a night last night, after repairing the (long) broken wheel.  Four wheels with spokes again, for the first time in yeeeears.

Tonight's task ended up a simple one, but crucial.  It was also something that had had me stuck - bigly.  

For such a high end kit, the wheel hubs are quite poorly made.  To the point that the center holes aren't even big enough (or round enough) for the axle shafts to go through!  For years - okay, not constantly, but several times - I'd debated how best to fix this.  Tonight I just did it.  

The fix ended up being hand drilling; starting with a bit that would go through - 4.5mm for 3 of them, a tight fit for the 4th - then 4.8mm, then the 5mm that they needed.  I had been hesitant to use power tools on these and was glad that hand drilling worked.  Thanks to Jeff for suggesting the start small and work up gradually technique.  

I really wanted to work on the project tonight, to keep up the momentum unexpectedly started last night.  I decided to stop for tonight once I saw this:

A confession - I'm not *quite* ready to be at this point.  A few other things need to be put on the chassis before the axles are attached.  However, I could not wait any longer to see the "rolling chassis".

I'm taking it slow, I'd like to work on this a bit every day (if possible).  Maybe I'll finally finish it, THIS decade?

Of course there's also the harnesses and horses and...  

(crazy laughter fades into the distance)

Stagecoach Setbacks

It's been quite a while since I have blogged about my epic Stagecoach project.  I've been quietly collecting more reference materials and thinking over things for the team, such as poses and harnesses.  I've also been learning about other things, like that there is a larger space allowance in live showing for a "multi-horse hitch".  (yay!) 

There have been a few setbacks along the way, particularly with the wheels.  They were a lot of fun to make and were the first real step in getting this amazing, scary, huge project underway.  I was really happy with how they turned out, in fact they are still the cover photo on my Facebook page (in their unpainted phase). 

I did have some setbacks though, mainly just learning that I could have added even MORE detail to them by following how real wheels are made - and not just the instructions for the kit.  Yes, these things might have been crazy (unnecessary?) details to include, but with the amount of detail in this kit, I thought it would have been perfectly fine to do - and fun.  Alas, I had assembled the wheels the way I was told by the kit instructions.  But I've been considering redoing them ever since I learned more about real wheelwrighting.

A side note here:  An incredible resource for horse-drawn wagons, coaches, and carriages is Hansen Wheel and Wagon, right here in South Dakota.  They had a booth at our Stock Show a couple of years ago and it was wonderful to see.  I spent quite a bit of time there, oogling the books, posters, and original blueprints, and I ended up buying two reference books.  Doug Hansen himself was there and I must have asked him 50 questions on stagecoaches and the horses that pulled them.  He is a wealth of knowledge and was a great guy to talk to.

After learning of things I wanted to re-do (early on in the project) and wondering how many other inaccuracies I might be about to commit... I stopped work altogether for some time.  It's silly I suppose, but with the amount of work and fine detail there is in this kit, I really want to do it right.  I did eventually resume work and as it stands now, I'm very close to having a rolling chassis.  Pretty much all that's left to do is install the brake bar, build the suspension, and mount the wheels.

Then comes another setback on the wheels...

When we were away visiting Jeff's family back in October, a stray cat that we sometimes let in, and out, and back in the house, somehow got stuck inside for a few days in between times when our house sitter coming by.  She somehow got into the Studio room, which is always kept closed, and caused one heck of a mess in there.  All of the plants in the window were knocked over, there was potting soil, plants, and pots everywhere.  One of the pots had fallen off the windowsill and landed right on a Stagecoach wheel, crushing it. 

Ugh.

Jeff pointed out that now I could rebuild it, and the others, the way I wished I'd had done earlier and I may end up doing that.  It will make an already lengthy project even more so, but I always joke that I may not have this thing done before I'm 80 anyway, so why not??

Many of the wooden parts in the kit, including the wheel rims, were laser-cut and of course we have a laser cutter now, so....  Hopefully that will make it easier for me to rebuild the wheels, if that's the direction I go in.  I won't have to stress too much about breaking something; if I do, I should be able to laser out something similar to go forward with.

This concludes the State of the Stagecoach address.  (haha)  ;)

Farewell 2014 - Year of the Horse

I could probably sum everything up by saying that this year started on a low note, but is going out on a high one.

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The year started with Jeff in Afghanistan and me just starting to learn how badly I'd injured my shoulder in late 2013.  A lot of things I was doing at the time had to be shelved, because of the injury - belly dancing lessons, dressage lessons, even taking care of Bo.  I had to have someone do that for me for a while.  It was hard to take, I'd wanted to do the dance and dressage lessons for many years and they were going well, then I had to stop everything.  But I started PT and, slowly, my shoulder started to come back.

Though off to a slow start, I did manage to have a few good crafty days early in the year.  I made more greeting cards and started back to work on a bunch of custom horses, some old, some new.

Then Jeff came home and everything was a lot better.

Joy and relief.

I worked on a couple of big projects during the year.  In March I started on my tatting entry for the Fair.  It would be a tatted American flag.

The flag ended up winning first place, Best in Show, and Best in Class at the Fair in August.  I was SO thrilled and what made it even better was that Jeff was there with me this time when I found out the results.   

I also put some time in on the Stagecoach project during the year, finishing up the front axle/5th wheel assembly...

... and the rear axle/chassis frame.  (all painted parts here, but it is assembled now)

 

I did quite a bit of cross-stitching this year, mainly on saddle pads.  I finished several new ones.   

In early October, we went on a trip to visit Jeff's family in PA/NY.  It was a working vacation of sorts, since we took our laser with us and I took a bunch of custom horses and supplies to work on.  The trip ended up being a turning point in my creative journey.  A change of scenery and people resulted in big strides for some of my projects, one in particular.  While there, I finished this horse.  This was a huge, terrifying step in the journey back, now it's behind me:

I returned to live showing, attending two shows this fall - the Black Hills Model Horse Show and the Mid-Ark Model Horse Expo.

I was brave and finally put several of my cross-stitch saddle pads up for sale at the Mid-Ark Expo.  I sold two of them there and one went on to be part of a Western Performance Championship entry that day!  It was so wonderful to see one of my little creations in action and I was honored to have been part of such a beautiful entry.

I met a lot of great people at both shows, made some new friends, had a lot of fun, and left very inspired to continue on with my journey.

The shows also marked the Grand Opening of our laser business.  They were the first places that we offered our laser cut and engraved items for sale at an event.  We had dog and horse signs and ornaments, and a brand new line of model horse inspired pieces too.  They were a big hit!

As the year wound down, I took part in just one "Black Friday" sale this year, at Tandy Leather.  I  stocked up on goods that I'll be using to start my adventure into tack making - and later...  I hope to finally get into performance showing.  *gasp!*


Of course throughout the year I spent a lot of time with Bo, including many early mornings where he and I had the whole barn to ourselves.  We had several great rides around the area, I even used him to run some errands - something I'd always thought would be fun to do.  We also did get back into doing some lessons and clinics toward the end of year and it was good to try and pick up where we left off a year ago.

Also, on the real horse front, I was able to audit a Buck Brannaman clinic.  He came to our area for a 4 day clinic and I was there every day from start to finish, taking a ton of notes and pictures.  It was a magical time and I loved listening to him.  I had the chance to talk to him a couple of times and he was a great guy.

All around, it has been a good year.  I had high hopes for this, The Year of the Horse, and I'm happy with how everything went.  Though it wasn't off to a great start, I'm thrilled with the events of particularly the last few months and I'm looking forward to 2015! 

Remember...

A Bit of Catch Up

The biggest piece of news is that my husband made it safely home, it is SO good to have him back! 

(A rare picture of us.  Neither of us like having our picture taken, but this was real happiness.  I'm so glad that one of our friends captured this moment):

 

I have been busy around the house: crafting, and also getting the garden started.  Every year I start several seed trays a couple of months early.  These are brand new baby tomatoes!  The ones in this picture are all cherries.  They are started from seed I saved last year.  This is my 5th year using saved seeds:

In the crafting department, I've been doing quite a bit of work on the epic stagecoach project.  I'll be writing (much more) on that later.  For now, here is a sneak peak of a piece of it that I've now completed.  It is the front axle and steering assembly:

The end is in sight - well, as far as having a rolling chassis.  (which I've long considered the first major milestone)  I'm looking forward to that!

I've been trying to figure out what to make for the Fair this year.  Last year was my first time ever entering and my tatted Barbie wedding dress won first place and Best of Show in tatting!  I'm not sure how I could top that, but I have definitely been planning to enter again this year.  The problem was that the fair is in August and I had NO idea what to make. 

After thinking it over and talking to my Granny recently, I've decided to make a tatted American flag.  This is another pattern than Granny gave me, it's another one she had made.  I believe she also entered it in a fair and won 1st place.  (same as the Barbie dress pattern I'd used - Granny has won lots of ribbons for her tatting!)

I started on the flag just a few days ago.  It looks like it will be a pretty good size, this is the width of the blue, but the blue part will be 3-1/2 times taller than what I have so far:

It dawned on me that, with my current project, there is a whole lot of blue going on!:

Blue is my favorite color, but I do have different colored scissors and tatting shuttles...  It just so happened I have all of the blue tools and thread going on right now.

My husband and I are also quietly working behind the scenes, working on getting our laser business up and running.  We did a bit of preliminary work online recently, setting up some accounts and checking in on ones I'd set up before (Etsy, ArtFire, e-mail, and the like).  We've also been working together with the software used to design things for the laser to cut or etch.  It's looking like an exciting year to come!

Dusting off the cobwebs

Well... It has turned into a BUSY year here.  I've been slowly crafting away, sporadically.  I've been very busy with our garden.  This year was the most ambitious garden yet, we built an 8 foot tall "T-Rex fence", as I called it, for my cherry tomatoes to climb.  We did it by putting in 10-foot T-posts and then double stacking 4-foot heavy duty hog panels.  In summers past, our attempts at building fencing for the tomatoes to climb has resulted in saggy wire fences by the end of the year...  Not this time!!  We have tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, and peas all over the panels out there and our massive structures are still going strong!

I decided to skip the farmer's market this year and keep everything we grow.  We bought a large food dehydrator and between that and canning I've had a lot going on the last couple of months.

Back in July, I had surgery for a mystery abdominal pain that started up last October and had been plaguing me ever since.  No one could find the cause.  I went to specialists and had a bunch of tests done.  Finally it came down to going in there and looking around.  They found some endometriosis and removed it.  They also removed my appendix.  I do not recommend having surgery in the middle of summer.  It messed up a lot of plans: gardening, horse shows, and so on.  The good news is that the pain seems to finally be gone.  They bad news is that endometriosis tends to come back, so I may be looking at more surgery in the future.  For now though, all is well.

On the Studio front, I actually ceased all work on the Stagecoach back in late January.  I found some mistakes in historical accuracy with what I had done so far (the wheels) and me being the perfectionist that I am, I let it get me down.  I really want this thing to be PERFECT, but in all reality, it'll probably take me years to make it, flaws and all, so I've recently decided I better get back to work on it! 

The good news is that I found out I shouldn't put the 200 tiny nails into the wheel rims, BFORE I did it.  The timing was so close, I was just about ready to start nailing.  It turns out this type of stagecoach is a "Concord" and they didn't have the bolts in the sides of the wheels.  That was something done in heavier vehicles, used for cargo, and for another type of stagecoach, less fancy, called a "mud wagon".  I'm glad I learned all of that, before nailing away.

The big, and most recent news on the Stagecoach, is that just yesterday the rest of what will be "The Team" arrived.  They have a long way to go as well.  Each horse will be remodeled, resculpted, painting, and then harnessed up.  For fun, after unpacking them, I set this up.  Behind the horses is the 1:1 scale poster that came with the kit.  I had thrown around the figure of 4-feet long for the whole rig before even having horses to put in front of it.  As they stood in this picture, with approximate spacing, the whole thing was exactly 4 feet long.  I still have a LONG way to go on this project, but I'm getting excited about it again!

Stagecoach - Wheels are done! Sorta...

This will be a bit of a catch up post on the Stagecoach.  I've been chipping away at the wheels over the last month or so.  They are mostly finished, with a few more steps to go.

After the rims, where we left off in December, the next step was to cut the spokes and shape them. 

The spokes as they started:

Then, once the spokes were cut (48 in all) two sides of each one had to be sanded flat.  The directions said to sand down the sides of the long pieces before cutting, but I didn't have a way to make sure they stayed even all the way down, so I chose to sand after cutting.  This might have made more work for me, but it turned out okay.

Here is how I flattened the sides - a jeweler's vise and an emery board:

Here are 12 of the spokes, cut and shaped:

Around the time I had cut all of the spokes to the specified lengths, I started watching some online videos about wagon wheel making.  It was then that I wished I'd done that sort of research first as I would have loved to add another layer of realism to this project by building the wheels just like real ones are made.  (such as doweling the ends of the spokes to fit them into the rim pieces, rather than building the rim and then cutting the spokes to fit in between the rim and hub) 

Ah well, there wasn't much that could be done about it after the fact.  However, I ended up having so much fun making these wheels that I'd really like to make more in the future.  I would like to try and make them the way full-size wheels are made.

In the meantime, for this project...

This will be a wheel!:

Once again, I broke out my block of foam, T-pins, glue, and set off to work. 

Four spokes on: 

All spokes on:

The first finished wheel, a front one, released from the foam.  Wow, this turned out quite a bit better than I had hoped!:

A fun shot to show the size, next to a trusty coffee cup:

Fast forward a few days and I had all four wheels completed:

Again, here with a coffee cup:

Although Jeff and I both liked the wooden look quite a bit (all the more incentive to build more minature wheels in the future!) the directions call for a paint job.  So I've spent several sessions applying a few coats of paint on the wheels - save for the inside, flat edges of the spokes.

The painted wheels:

In what seemed to be a departure from the amazing realism of the model kit, the wheel treads are to be made from thin strips of... wood.  We were disappointed at first, why aren't they metal, as a real wheel tread would be?  I have a theory.  I think wood is used to better simulate the texture of the outer metal band after it has seen use.  I can imagine it would be hard to replicate that look with minature strips of actual metal.  That's my theory anyway.

The strips that are to be the treads have to be stained/painted.  The directions call for using a mixture of "shoe polish and solvant".  That was a bit of a mystery to solve, as I'd never heard of such a thing - and neither of those items have found their way into my life in the past! 

Oh boy... Ok, here we go!:

The tread strips with their first application of stain.  I think they are looking good and my theory of using stained wood for the texture seems to work.  To me, they do look like scratched up strips of metal:

In addition to the tread being needed to fully finish the wheels, I also need to put in some nails...  lots of nails...  Itty bitty nails...

Here we have 48 - Five millimeter brass nails:

But wait, they aren't small enough.  They will be nailed in on the front AND back of the wheels, which are 5mm wide.  So the directions say to cut the 5mm nails in half.  My first reaction was:  You can't be serious...  Then I realized that they were.  So it was needlenose pliers and cutters to the rescue:

Here are 48 - Five millimeter brass nails, that were cut off to be - approximately - half as long.

The process turned out to be much easier than I thought, although a little time consuming.


So, there you have it!  We are all caught up on the Project Stagecoach.  (I just finished staining wheel tread and cutting some of the nails a few hours ago - so those pictures are about as fresh as it gets - haha)

All together I'm having a lot of fun, though I am still intimidated by this whole project - it is so full of things I've never done before.  It is a challenge, but that will make it all the more rewarding with this thing is "rolling"! 

Slow Start Here, But Busy!

A much belated Happy New Year to my readers!  I hope you all had a great Holiday season and that your 2013 is off to a good start!

The year has been off to a slow start as far as blogging and such (obviously!) but I have been very busy "behind the scenes".  I have several new greeting cards that will be on ArtFire very soon.  I've also gotten back to work on Project Stagecoach, after taking a bit of an intimidated hiatus.  I had to build the wheels and I was very nervous about that.  However, it went MUCH better than I had expected.  In fact, I had so much fun that I've given serious consideration to going into a side business of making miniature wagon wheels!  Yet another iron in the fire I suppose...  First it'd be nice to finish the leviathon stagecoach project.

I will be catching up on Stagecoach posts here soon; I've been continuing to take pictures every step along the way.  In the meantime, here's a bit of a teaser photo - the finished wheels:

"Finished" is a loose term, because after this they had to be sanded, painted, wheel tread applied, and itty bitty nails put in around the rim.  I'm in the midst of all of that now.  So in that picture, they were finished as far as the rim, spokes, and hub all being in place.  I think they looked pretty sharp as plain wood.  I hope I can get some more wheels made from scratch in the future for different projects or maybe just to try selling on their own. 

I've also been tatting away.  I made several bookmarks and gave a few out as Christmas presents.  I also finished my first doily, using a two color thread technique that my Granny explained over the phone.  I'm now working on a pattern Granny sent me that is a wedding dress for a Barbie doll.  She told me that she won a blue ribbon at the county fair with the dress.  I'm hoping to enter one of my own in our fair - in August.  I hope I'll be done with it by then!  So far it's been slow going.

I guess that's it for an update.  There is a lot more to talk about, but I don't suppose anyone would really want to read 20 pages of my ramblings in one stretch!  So, until next time - stay crafty my friends.

Stagecoach hits a bump in the road

Very shortly after beginning my oh so ambitious Stagecoach project, I encountered a snag...

The wheel rim pieces are one of the few parts that are pre-cut from the piece of wood they are on.

Except...  the front wheel pieces weren't cut all the way through.

The piece that held the parts for the back wheels (after I popped them out), front:

...and back...

Moving onto the piece that held the front wheel rim parts.  Front...

..and... back?   Uh-oh...

My husband and I tried and tried to figure out how to cut them out.  In the end, it took my Dremel drill, a teeny tiny wood saw bit that he had for his, and a fair bit of time.  Below are four of the pieces rough cut and four above that had been sanded down. 

Once I had each part hacked out of the backing, I set off with a sanding wheel and carved out the shape of each piece, stopping when I saw the partial burn marks where they had been cut partway out.  Whatever wood these pieces are made out of is HARD stuff.  I joked with my husband that it might be the wood that real stagecoach wheels are made from!

For a comparison, here are the 8 pieces of the back wheels, and the 8 pieces of the front wheels.  You can see the clean burn marks all the way along the back wheel pieces, while only 1/3 or 1/2 of the depth for the front wheel parts had been cut out.

Here are the parts for one front wheel and one back wheel set together.  It was quite an unexpected journey to get to this (FIRST!) step in the process of building the model.  Ah well, like I've bee saying, I know that real stagecoach wheel parts aren't exactly popped out of a backing, pre-formed and cut.

 All of the above pictures were taken a few weeks ago, prior to our trip out of town to visit family for Thanksgiving.  It took a bit of time to get back into "stagecoach mode" but I finally got back to it a couple of nights ago.  Here are the wheel rims now, pinned down and glued together.

A front wheel...

A back wheel...

Now the next step is to finish making the spokes and then work on setting the hubs and spokes into the rims.  I have the spokes cut out already - and will be making another post on that - but they need to be shaped. 

I watched some videos on real wagon wheel making and it made me wish I would have done that research first, before cutting the spokes.  It would have been really neat to actually make these wheels true to how the full size ones are done.  Alas, the spokes have all been cut without enough length to form and dowel the ends to pop into the rims.  I suppose there will be plenty more realistic detail on this little beast to where I shouldn't worry about the wheels being perfectly accurate, but I still think it would have been neat to go all the way with it. 

Next time will be a post on the spokes and then hopefully I'll have some finished wheels to show!