Monday 24 March 2014

Tudor Apothecary Shop Brick Foundations Are In



Well, that went faster than I expected! The foundations are bricked, with voids where the two sets of steps will fit. Once the clay is completely dry, these voids will be painted terra-cotta. The small set of steps screws on to the foundation, but the larger one will just sit in the base. Once dry, the clay will be trimmed to fit the steps.


Here's hoping the corners don't crack too badly, there is always a little bit of shrinkage with cellulose or paper clay. It was well below freezing today, which meant the heating was working away, and that meant that the clay dried out faster than I wanted while I was working on it. The foundations went well, but the chimney cap for the workshop needs to dry to see if I will keep it - I had to texture the bricks with the Xacto knife as the clay was really drying out. It's the first time I tried to brick a chimney cap, and I am not sure if I did it correctly; there just aren't any photos that show a bird's eye view of the tops of chimneys!

Next is making the stone finishes for the steps, which means digging through magazines; that sometimes leads to my attention being diverted.... However, I need to start on the roof construction, my carpenter-in-chief is really looking forward (NOT!) to making two dormer windows. It is now less than two weeks until the April show in Halifax-Dartmouth, and I would really like this building as nearly finished as possible.

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