Work has continued on the lighthouse, to the point where it's actually starting to resemble one!
It has almost entirely been covered in a thin layer of clay, and I'm still on the fence about whether to sand it down a bit as it is perhaps a little uneven. Anyway, that clay covering was left to dry fully overnight, and the next morning it was time to start on the more interesting parts. Firstly, the stone walkway surround was simply made from rolling clay into a long sausage shape; the join was then lapped to make it stronger. This will need to be allowed to harden and then smoothed and tidied up before work continues.
Below: So, whilst that was drying, I could begin on the next task; the stepped lower section. This turned out to be a long process - so long in fact, that I'm only half-way through after 2 days! My initial idea was to use this mini-vice and craft knife to scribe a horizontal line. It would've been a good idea, had it not been for the fact that the bottom of the lighthouse is not flat! So whilst it was technically level, in reality, the line was not parallel to the doors and windows. I only realised this when I had done 2 complete levels of the stepped section. I soon had to tear it all up and come back to it with fresh ideas this morning!
In the end I decided to align it all by eye, which turned out much better. I would've tried to sand the bottom of the lighthouse flat, but the belt sander just wasn't powerful enough; I would've been there all day!
Below: So, this is how the stepped section was produced in the end:
Clay was rolled out (I now know I have enough to finish the lighthouse, so I didn't have to be quite so stingy this time!), then cut into 5mm strips. Care was taken to do this slowly, over several passes of the craft knife. The blocks could then be scribed to form individual blocks. Note that they were only scribed, not cut all the way through. The photo below shows exactly why I prefer to scribe clay when dry - you can see how scribing whilst wet distorts the blocks. As this has only happened on one side, it doesn't matter as the distorted side will be hidden by the next layers of stone.
Below: After much deliberation, this is the method I chose to make the stepped sections.
In total, 4 layers were done in a few hours today. As you can see, each layer will need increasing amounts of supporting clay blocks underneath. As there will be about 9 layers, that will be a lot of clay bricks to make. The final layer will need 72 single blocks for the supports alone! Hopefully the method of construction will result in a strong enough structure, although it would have been far easier and stronger if the wooden former was stepped using the lathe... oh well!
Below: Another little job I did today was to fill in the window and door surrounds with more clay. Eventually I'll add windows (with a near-black bit of card on the back to hopefully hide the fact the interior is solid wood!) and scribe the stone detailing around the opening.
Below: I remembered to take a photo of the lighthouse just before the sun set, although I've since added a fourth stepped layer. I think you'll agree, it's finally starting to look like a lighthouse!
Tomorrow will hopefully see the rest of the stepped levels done, and the stone balcony edging finished (the underside will have clay added to form a smooth curve from the tower to the balcony).
Something else I'd like to mention this post is the backscene. I realised that the original backscene from Calshot was actually taken at Hurst Spit, not Calshot as I originally thought. Hopefully, in the next few days (weather permitting) I will be able to make a visit to Hurst and take photos ready for a new backdrop. Preferably I'd get one looking inland across the mudflats/saltmarsh (to suit the location better), but I know there's a road on the edge, and also a lot of modern boats, so I'd have to be very lucky to get something that doesn't look out of place!
Anyway, I'm fairly happy with progress, but I'm really feeling the tight deadline...
Comments
Post a Comment