Motorcycles and Cinderella: You can get very nice Harleys at stores such as K-Mart, Wal-Mart or Target in the area of the hot wheels and matchbox cars and they don't cost as much as the Hallmark or the dealer ones and they look very nice and realistic (some even have tiny batteries and they "vroom" if you press the handlebars).. They have several different scales to choose from. For your Cinderella - they have them in the toy sections with the other Disney characters, or you can try a Hallmark store to see if they still have the Cinderella ornament. The Beauty doll from the Beauty and the Beast movie would also be interchangeable.

Kathy

Motorcycles: Anyone looking for a small Harley Should visit a Harley dealership. They have all kinds of them pretty close to the size you need, they have several models to choose from and are under $10.00, very good detail from full baggers to low riders and several colors too. I just finishes a roombox for my sons birthday and it turned out very well, Don't have a web site but could scan a picture to you if you if you want to see the scale.

Sandra

"Jail" names: If the exterior of the jail is finished with stone (or not) "Rock House Jail" (take off of Jail House Rock)…………………………………………………….CRWhidbee
Little Lockup, Petite Pokey, Small Slammer, The Bee Hind Bars and Happy Hoosegow came to mind! Perhaps something in line with the name of the town………….Alice Zinn
Since jails are run by the county, they aren't actually *named* anything (other than, say, Yavapai County Jail)……………………………………..………………….Molly/StormBorn
Sing Sing……………………………………………………………………………….Michelle
"(your last name)'s Penalty Box", "The Final Time Out", "Time Out for the Big Boys", "There Ain't No E-mail Jail". …………………………………….Shirley in Bakersfield, Calif.
The Slammer Resort, A. Gaoler and Company, 20 Year Holiday Inc, Shackles and Chains Corp………………………………………………………………………June Simpson
Brig-a-doom (City, County, Regional) Jail. ………………………………………...Mel in Ma.
The Graybar Hotel……………………………………………………………………..Vicki
The Lock Up, Jailhouse Rock (with a bow to Elvis), The Slammer, The Stockade, Town Brig …………………………………………………………………………………..Marilyn, MI
"Hoosegow" ………………………………………………………………………Paulette in IN
"The Greybar Hotel", "Hoosecow", "Pokey", "Big House" , "The Joint", and "the pen". (Hmm, far too many old gangster movies?) Then there is the variation of jail spelled "Gaol". ………………………………………………………………………...Kim from Canada,
There is a jail in England called Strangeways (I kid you not) ----Hardcase Hilton or what about so and so State Penitentiary, didn't they used to be called state pens? ……..Julia

Jail House Names: I read with great interest some of the suggested names for a jail to a fellow miniaturist enthusiast at 6 AM this morning. It immediately brought to my LITTLE mind....the potential name....."Hokey Pokey"....Afterall, if you show any cellmates in your display....you can have them stick their right foot in, stick their right foot out, etc. Afterall, "That's what it's all about".

Kathy in Dayton, Ohio

Cinder Blocks: All of the talk about boys & mini's as well as the suggestions re: jails
brought back a long forgotten memory. Thin sheet of Styrofoam cut into cubes with a serrated knife. Toothpick inserted into each piece for a handle. Each cube dipped into a thin mixture of plaster of paris that had been tinted with black acrylic paint to look gray. Pieces hung on a line with wood clothespins attached to the toothpicks. When dry and picks removed, they made very realistic cinder blocks. Inexpensive, quick, and easy to build with. My son simply stacked them, like blocks. He used spackle for his mortar. The interior and exterior walls were built with the same brick. I can see a smaller version of this technique for bricks needed for a garden wall, a bar-b-q-pit.

Becky Holliday

Microbrushes: "Microbrush. Very, very fine plastic applicators with a minute bit of fuzz on the ends. "

I love mine to pieces. Got them from Sandra Wall (I think) at a mini show. They come in "fine" with a red handle and "even finer" with a gray handle. They can be easily cleaned and used over and over, and when they are finally totally worn out, the handle itself can be used for any number of purposes. Did the original posting mention that they can be bent so that the brush head is at right angles to the handle? This is sometimes very useful. They provide so much more control than a fine paint brush, and they hold onto the paint so that it doesn't drip.

Janet in Baltimore

Microbrush: Someone mentioned the Microbrush applicator the other day. I emailed Betty from Designs by Dann and she carries the product. If anyone is interested you can email her at desgnbyDan@aol.com

Josie in PR

Glass/Plexiglas Adhesive: I have done a fair amount of glass and acrylic assembly in my fish hobby and want to STRONGLY recommend aquarium-grade silicone sealer. It is the least toxic, by far, of any silicone sealer, dries clear, and outgasses completely in a couple of days. This is the stuff they use to build those all-glass fish tanks, so you can go to a pet store and check out the corners of the tanks to see if the look will suit your project.

Pet Warehouse at http://www.petwarehouse.com carries it in three sizes, 1 oz. and 3 oz tubes, plus a 10 oz. tube that fits a standard caulking gun. All the sizes have graduated plastic tips you can cut to establish the diameter of the output. I recommend the 10 oz. It's a LOT cheaper per ounce and once you have this stuff, you'll find a lot of uses for it. (E.g., quick and easy bathroom tile repair!)

The main thing I've found is that you CAN'T muck around with this material while its wet. It is really, really easy to peel or scrape this stuff off AFTER it sets up in a glob, but if you mess with it while its wet, you get these places where there's a very thin film in the wrong place and THAT is very hard to remove, especially from acrylic, which scratches. (Ask me how I know all this!) The stuff is also TERRIBLE to get off your hands and the fresh fumes are like very strong vinegar ... eye stinging and headachy if you stay there and keep on breathing it.

So, have your pieces clean, dry and ready to be stabilized in some kind of jig before you even open the tube. Carefully and evenly apply the silicone line, press the sides of your project together correctly the FIRST time! and stabilize it in your jig set up. To make the inside of the seam smooth and concave, the way the fish tanks are, have a tongue depressor ready and CAREFULLY run it up the wet seam right before you LEAVE the piece to set up. For the stuff that gloops out the other side, wait 24 hours. It cuts off very cleanly with a sharp blade after it's dry, but if you try to wipe it off when it's wet, it ends up EVERYWHERE.

Chrissy

Rusty tools: Here is what I do for rust and its' prevention. To remove the rust I use fine steel wool and follow it with any liquid metal cleaner of car compounding goop. Then I coat the tool with a fine film of oil. Any oil will do. I.E. 3 in 1 or what is left in the oil can when you put oil in he car. Problem is I tend to wipe the oil film off when I use the tool so I reapply when finished. Suggestion for humid areas that produce a musty odor in the tool chest. I place a few pieces of Bounce in the tool box and also a few charcoal briquettes to absorb odors.

Dr Bob

Cleaning off rust: your hardware store will have a product for this. Something wipe on wipe off which will not add to the trauma of rust damage. Keeping off the rust: your hardware store will have a product for this. Probably something with a bit of oil to seal the metal from the air.

Also to help keep tools clean: Clean them as soon as you notice rust developing. Keep tools you aren't using sealed in Ziplock bags with a small packet of desiccant in each bag.

Desiccant is the stuff labeled "don't eat this" in pill bottles and sometimes in shoe boxes. If you don't have this, in my former life as an Army Wife, we would put dried coffee grounds in nylon stockings, tied tightly and packed several into our refrigerators as giant desiccants to remove moisture and keep mold from forming during shipment from one post to another. (Things you never thought anyone would need to know.) So small packets of dried coffee grounds wrapped in old scraps of pantyhose will work wonders.

Laurie Sisson