Picture Frame/Molding Source: For picture molding, instead of getting the basswood molding handled by Dee's and most miniature shops, try S.H. Goode & Sons, 8830 San Gabriel Road, Atascadero, CA 93422. They handle several kinds of wood, and if you get their catalog, you will see the wonderful selection of woods and styles of molding. It costs a little more, depending on the kind of wood, but I got maple, walnut, cherry, and rosewood. They make up into very nice frames. Their email address is wood2scale@thegrid.net. Also, their Just-a-Clamp is excellent for making frames, too. Take it from one who has made hundreds of frames.

Olivia Wassmer

Lumber Resource: I have the following info on S. H. Goode & Sons. Address is 8830 San Gabriel Rd., Atascadero, CA 93422. Their email address is wood2scale@thegrid.net

Barb Jones

Lightweight Garden Walls: Have you thought about constructing them from polystyrene? You could cut each individually or make grooves in the polystyrene to simulate a wall. Painted with a variety of greys or browns it could look quite realistic, yet remain really lightweight.

Diana in New Zealand

Lightweight: I made an entire dilapidated camp site toilet block which had been condemned by the Federal Department of Health. It was designed to look like the standard toilet blocks that most of us use in desperation but would rather not. It looked like it was built from the grey Besser blocks (Americans would know Besser blocks as cinder blocks or cement blocks), with the cut-out pattern in the front walls, and solid Besser blocks on the other walls. I used EXPANDED POLYURATHANE (EP) to make the walls, base and cubicle walls. I managed to buy my EP from the fiberglass supplies joint down the road. EP can be cut with an exacto knife, carved with anything - even fingernails - it has a gritty texture a bit like sand but is very light and the texture is great for walls. It came in a hideous shade of 'pus' green but with a coat of gunmetal grey paint it came up a treat. It glues with hot glue but it does make a gritty dust before being sealed so you probably need to cut it OUTSIDE!

My toilet block had missing cubicle doors, rusted pipes and blocked toilets, sinks with water in them and paper towels clogging them up, overflowing waste bins and rubbish in the corners. The paper towels were all over the floor and there was some vomit on the floor in the corner. Not one cubicle had any toilet paper,(naturally). EP is used as a lightweight base to make fiberglass components, primarily being coated in sheet fiberglass and resin - it is a specialized material and will not be available at your local hardware store.

Trace

Rooftop garden: How about supporting your roof with beams on the ceiling underneath, in the Snow White room? Or if the dollhouse is finished, put beams on the roof of the dollhouse, stretching from one outer wall to the other, then lay a new floor on the roof or conceal the beams with ground cover. Another idea is to construct your "brick wall" with Styrofoam to cut down on the weight. Good luck on whatever you do.

Joan Linville

Stucco: I was very pleased with the stucco I used on the Stephanie dollhouse. I used latex paint and plaster of Paris applied in a VERY thin layer. A 3/4 inch paint knife should work to get the texture. This idea is from the BonusPac at www.DollHouseDesigns.COM<\p>

Jon

Bricks: I cut up popsicle sticks and used a combo of red-orange and grey paint mixed with sand and some glue to make the color I wanted. To add the finishing touch, I used a black wash to make them look old (a trick I learned from a friend.) To my surprise, when you add the bricks to a thick wood putty base which has been painted with grey or white paint, you have a pretty realistic brick wall.

Cheap roombox - IKEA is selling unfinished frames for 3D pictures, named BAS. They come in two sizes

Small 6 ½ x 4 3/4 x 3 inches deep

Big 11 ½ x 7 ½ x 3 inches deep

The smaller one has a fixed glass front, and one fills the frame from the back. But the larger one has a sliding glass panel for the front. What this means is that if you buy 2 (they retail for £6 ea in GB), bash out the back of one, remove the glass from the other, and glue the empty back of one to the glassless front of the other - voila, your roombox is suddenly 6 inches deep, so you have a decent sized room box for £12. It also means that you can reinsert the glass panel you removed, so you could etch a ghost on it and/or stick things to the surface of the glass, giving great "depth" to the roombox. The potential is so great.

Helen of York, England

Plywood: The Home Depots in this area only sell 3/8" fir in different grades. One of the problems is these tend to be 3 ply, plywood, which warps if you just look at it askance. You want 5 or more plies to help the stability. The grain of fir, also "telegraphs" through wallpaper and most other treatments. This can be alleviated to some degree by sealing and sanding before assembly. Given the choice, I would pick MDF before fir plywood for a dollhouse.

Tom Berkner

Plywood: Most Home Depots (if not all) sell birch and oak plywood, but not in 3/8" thick. They usually handle 1/4" (in an AC or AD - one good face) and 3/4".

My Daily Diatribe on Plywood - Best to just skip by, unless you are a real glutton for punishment or just need to pay penance for something!

The Baltic birch (or Russian, or Finnish, or European) is 9mm (very close to 3/8").It is commonly available in B, BB, BBB grades. Typically used by cabinet makers for drawer sides and bottoms and for the backs of cabinets that won't be seen. so dollhouse manufacturers use it. Seems to work well. I find the 5' x 5' size to be annoying. Difficult to handle, and most plans are laid out to fit 4' x 8' sheets. 3/8" nominal plywood today will vary from 11/32" to 3/8" which means you really need to make allowances for this when cutting. I measure the thickness of each lift (84 sheets of 3/8") and vary my plans to accommodate. That 1/32" in thickness isn't much until you add it up over the 3 floors in your dollhouse, and suddenly the attic partitions are 3/32 of inch too tall (that's why some manufacturers don't include attic partitions) or the length of the roof is 1/16" too short (or long) because of the thickness of the end walls (most manufacturers overhang the roofs - even though it's incorrect for a colonial home; just so they avoid this problem.)

As you may have noticed, the price of plywood is quite variable. So far, I haven't seen any two prices on this digest which are talking about the same sheet of plywood. There are A1, A2, BB, AC, domestic Birch, Baltic Birch, Fir, etc. We haven't even bothered to mention the cores (except # of plies) which can vary drastically in the allowable knots, voids, splits, and type of woods (seldom is the core of the same hardwood as the faces) except in Baltic birch or the method of making the face veneers.

Personally, I find that an A1 domestic birch with a J or K core works very well. I use both rotary cut and flat sliced. For my less expensive series of houses, I use 9mm, 7 ply obechee with an obechee core.

A typical wall in an older house will be a 3-5/8" (or larger) stud, covered with 3/8" lath on each side and 3/8" plaster over that, giving a final thickness of 5-1/8" (newer homes are 4 1/2") 1/4" plywood gives a scale thickness of 3", while 3/8" plywood equal 4 1/2". 1/2" plywood would be 6". Floors would typically run 9 1/2" joists, 3/4" lath & plaster ceiling, 3/4" subfloor and 3/4" hardwood floor. In scale, you would need 1" plywood (might be a little heavy) so we cheat and use 3/8".

Tom Berkner

Plywood: I have found that the 1/4" plywood from HD does not seem to warp (at least for me) if I cut it up as soon as I can. Do not lean it against a wall and leave for any amount of time and expect it to be straight. As for the 3/8" plywood, our local HD carries a luan plywood that is really smooth on both sides and doesn't seem to warp no matter what. It is rather splintery on the edges, so be careful handling it. Also, if you are cutting cross grain (usually the width) make sure your saw blade is SHARP. It will eliminate a lot of splintering.

Ron Gill

Speaker boxes: I used an old speaker for a scene last year, and liked it enough to buy more. The ones I've gotten so far are quite sturdy, but pose a couple of design challenges. They have reinforcing blocks on the inside corners that you have to fit your inner walls around, and if you want to keep the nice finished front edge, you pretty much have to put the glass in first, then assemble your scene from the back. If somebody has solved this one, I'd love to know how! (And if you figure out some cool stuff to do with the speaker innards, too. They're starting to pile up.)

Lee Menconi

As for removing labels on Midwest wood, we don't have a problem. We carefully remove the label with an X-acto knife or fingernail, allow the residue to air dry and them simply rub it off. If the wood is old, then it takes a bit of sanding. Very seldom do we get a piece that is a problem.

Sharon Stockton

MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard) is stable and paints wonderfully on unmachined surfaces. It is quite heavy, has little tensile strength and doesn't hold fasteners very well. It also has a tendency to get furry when cut or sanded. I don't think the toxicity is any worse than plywood. If you can figure out how to cut the openings cleanly and don't mind the weight, it will work fine.

Pete Boorum

MDF stands for Medium Density Fibreboard - that brown stuff not unlike super fine chipboard in its construction. It's really smooth on the surface and looks for all the world like big sheets of compressed sawdust. I find it really good for dollshouse construction and I've never had any of the problems with end nailing and stuff but I do rout a groove to sit floors and the like in prior to nailing.

Tracey Joy

Bending Wood For a Spiral Staircase Handrail: Steam the wood and wrap it around a piece of plastic pipe (maybe 4" drain pipe) and hold it in place until cold. To be more precise, take a piece of plastic pipe, and make a form on the outside of it for the handrail. You can glue and screw thin pieces of veneer onto the pipe, above and below where you want the hand rail. Steam the wooden handrail for about 10 to 15 minutes. Working quickly (with gloves, remember the wood is hot) position the handrail into the form and clamp it into place. Let it cool for a couple of hours.

It is best if the pipe is smaller in diameter than you want, since the wood will relax some when you unclamp it.

Tom Berkner

Bending Wood: I use bending plywood (also called crazy plywood). The 1/8" (3mm) will bend around a 4" pipe.

Tom Berkner

Bending Wood: I used to work for Timber Turn, who make all the craftwood items for folk art that you get from places like Lincraft Spotlight. You know - the round boxes, trays, wooden hair clips etc. and that sort of thing. Well they steam the wood, shape it for whatever they want and clamp it with bulldog clips. If you use single ply this bends quite easily and your idea of wetting the wood and clamping should work OK.

Tom Berkner

Bendable or crazy plywood bends much better than any solid wood. I have found it in 1/8", 1/4" and 3/8" thicknesses. The 1/8" is what I use. The particular ones I buy have a birch face veneer (about 1/100" thick) and the other layers are luan. All the layer run in the same direction, except the face. I have taken a 4" diameter plastic drain pipe, and wrapped the plywood around it without breaking. No, there is no boiling, steaming or special treatment necessary; just bend it. It only bends in ONE direction. The only place I found to buy it is from my plywood wholesaler. I would be happy to sell partial sheets to anyone that would like to try it. Shipping is not a major problem, since I can roll it up and put it in a box. The cost of 1/8" will be $1.50 per square foot.

Tom Berkner

Bending Wood Idea: How about using foamcore? Try the scoring technique on one side, glue or secure with tape, then face the curve with some thin veneer of your choice. You could match your curve to that of ready-made arches, etc.

Susan E. Wise