Wiring Over Wallpaper: I cannot see a single reason why tape wiring over one wallpaper and then adding wallpaper over it should be a problem. If your first wallpaper does not stick well, that's a problem, but other than that I can see no reason not to do what you want to do. Just be sure to test the wiring as you go along through the rooms, don't wait until the very end.

Barb Jones

For those of you considering recovering wallpaper, think again because results are uncertain. It can be done, though; I used Kilz (a great primer. Use in an open area) to keep the pattern from showing through. But scratch is best. Just soak off the paper and scrape. If you are going to do it anyway, just be sure there are no wire thingees under the old paper if you are going to also rewire. You may be causing short circuits and dangerous conditions that could start a fire. That means staples, nails or any other metallic piece.

Deanna from beautiful downtown Thiensville

Wonderunder-foamcore: Here's a tip using Wonder-under. I have been ironing it to the reverse side of print or plain fabric, and then ironing it right on to the foam-core that forms the outer box for the projects that use a picture mat and forms inner and outer boxes for a framed scene, like the ones that Cat Wingler (One of my favorite Artists) taught at the Nationals in Ky. last Summer. It works great, just don't hold the iron in one place too long, and make sure it is pressed to the fabric before you iron it to the foam-core. I iron it completely around the box, and make it look like a gift package, and any loose edges, I add some Bond-Grip glue.

Jan

What do you do between floors: I use channel molding. That also hides the tapewire that I run up the back of the house. Make sure that the width of the channel is wide enough.

Carol

Strobe: Not sure if this is exactly what you want, but I just saw an "electronic beacon flasher" in Micro-Mark Catalog. You might check their website http://www.micromark.com or call them 1-800-225-1066.

Grace Shaw

Hiding the transformer. How about making a hollow 'bush' out of styrofoam and covering it with that shredded foam? Or, you could use a garden or potting shed to hide your transformer.

Alice Zinn- Pt. St. Lucie FL

Plugs for Lamps: Brooke Tucker's lamps come wired, with lots of generous wire length, and no plugs. That's fine with me! Because I cut off those ugly out of scale plugs anyway. Some people replace them with the special small ones that are closer to scale (but still not IMO). I just hard wire mine to the tape wire after I feed them through two carefully positioned eyelet- rimmed holes in my wallpapered matboard-covered wall. Brooke's lamps also have two insulated wires the whole way, from fixture to the ends. No hassle to split them like I have to do with the ones that have plugs.

Anne Gerdes

Test a lamp: You should be able to test if an old lamp works by putting the wires up to a 9 volt battery!

Isabel Allen

Support for bead Lamp: you would be better off to use a small piece of brass tube that is the width of the holes. If you use super glue like Zap or Duco Gel you can align the beads and glue them. If you feel you need a support and can't get tubing then try a painted round toothpick. Another way to get a type of tubing is to open up used ball-point pens and remove the tube inside. If it is really a use pen then you should have the ink to deal with.

Deanna Spanjar

BEAD LAMP STURDINESS: Why remove the pin if you're not electrifying? I just leave them in place in non-working lamps made from stacked beads and findings. If the pin sticks out of one end, before you glue the last piece into the stack, use wire cutters (often part of needlenose pliers if you have any of those) to snip off the pointy end and leave just enough sticking up to hold the last piece in place, then glue that on and leave the pin in to stabilize the pieces.

Loretta.Sniarowski

Wiring. For houses that have a flat back I never use the tape method as I find the wire method with just the transformer, the outside sockets and of course the   lamps with wire much easier and faster for this type of houses. All wires of all   lamps meet at the back of the house. Great advantage of this method: no out of scale sockets in the house, plus you can replace (re-arrange) the lamps to your liking later on! Also you can have lights on places NOT on walls e.g.   above fire places, on the piano, outside the house in the garden etc. etc.

Wilga, Netherlands

Lights:    Chandelier in dining room would usually be central, and the table would usually be centrally placed under it. The 'chandelier' was often a large gas or oil lamp, and often 'telescopic' i.e. rise and fall, so it could be lowered over the table at mealtimes.

All 'fuel burning' lamps, oil or gas or candle, make a lot of heat and water vapor. This rises, hits the ceiling and some of the water condenses. Dust is often carried in the column, from open fires, as well as any soot the lamp might make and gradually fouls the ceiling.

A consumer or shield is a glass 'plate' hanging on a ring , near the ceiling and above the lamp. This catches the 'brunt' of the muck, and can be wiped. Also spreads out the ascending air, i.e. whole ceiling gets equally dirty and it is less obvious. Some lamps have a 'consumer or bell,' hung much nearer the chimney, these are better at spreading the flow long   before the ceiling is reached, and they don't need a hook in the ceiling.

This has given me some ideas for my real ceiling smoke marks!   Smoke marks around lights are a big problem. When my dolls house gets smoked damaged it will really look authentic.

Pauline UK

Tape Wiring: I work in a dollshouse shop in Worthing, West Sussex. We don’t have the lovely Fairbanks in stock but the other Emporium houses & other makes are very simply wired with the copper tape. Even to me, a complete novice in tape wiring is tempted to have a go. The central lights are run with their wires through a hole in the ceiling onto the above floor& along a channel to the back wall. If you take some measurements this should coincide with the tape on the back of the house. The wires are then taken through a hole in the back wall ,the plastic cover is stripped back & each wire is then soldered to each tape, making sure the wires don’t cross. Each set of lights can be put onto this tape circuit without having to run tape into the house, keeping it all on the back. This will eventually be papered over. At the base of the house once you have finished adding all the lights you can then solder a wire from each tape & connect this into one side of a household size connector (the plastic snap off type). This will then have the wires from your transformer connected to it in the other side. Doing the wiring this way means there is only one wire seen from the house & less to be tangled when it's on the turntable. A good illustration is in this months offers sheet from Dolls House Emporium. If you have any problems though give the company a call, they are always very helpful. They have apparently just won an award for their customer care!

If you need any more help I am available at Ginny’s Attic, South Farm Road, Worthing,as are my colleagues Ginny (the boss!) & Kim.

Liz Taylor, Worthing UK

Tape Wiring: I have just found a complete & detailed description for tape wiring on the Dolls House Emporium website.   http://www.dollshouse.com  It's just what you need & probably a lot clearer than my waffling!!

Liz Taylor

Electric Problems: I would like to caution the people who are having problems with the electricity in their dollhouses to please unplug the transformers from the wall when not working on the dollhouse. If they aren't working properly, they could start a fire. I'm sure you know that, but just in case. I think sometimes we think those little tiny lights are harmless, but they can start a fire.

Linda

Round Wiring: I use round wire in construction. I design a wiring diagram for the most efficient and least obvious paths for the wires. I then route grooves in 3/8 inch plywood with a Dremel router before putting the shell together. For example, a small groove in the ceiling close to the back wall is very difficult to see when the room is enclosed with walls, so are grooves in the back edges of side walls (in the corners). At every opportunity, I wire to run where window and door trim will be installed (sometimes routing the trim too). The router grooves often hold more than one wire. I then construct the shell, run my wiring and spackle the grooves over, sand, and finish the walls. Make sure that all the wiring is tested before filling the grooves. For the small "plug in" connectors, I hide in or under furnishings, sometimes building a "step" or "built-in" that hides connections. If you have any other questions let me know.

Sharon Blake, Wasilla, Alaska

Round Wiring: round wiring works very much like tape wiring. If your transformer is going to be in the lower left area of the house (inside or out, does not matter), then start in the upper right of the house with the wiring. From the first fixture you will have 2 wires. You can call them A and B, black and white, green and purple. Take those 2 wires to somewhere near the next fixture (in those grooves that are already there) and solder the black wire from fixtures 1 and 2 and an extra piece of black long enough to reach to the next place. Solder the white wire from fixtures 1 and 2 and an extra piece of white wire long enough to reach to the next place. Now you have 2 fixtures wired, and still have only 2 wires to contend with. Do this throughout the house, making sure that black goes only to black and white goes only to white and there will be no short circuits. With good soldering joints there will also be no flickering or partial failures. NOTE: When doing this in grooves in the wall, you do not need to insulate the solder joints if the black wire solder joint is an inch or two away from the white wire solder joint in the groove. They won't be able to touch each other and therefore will not short circuit. Make liberal use of a pencil to mark what you are doing, and plan ahead! When you have reached the lower left (or whatever) corner of the house, I would anchor the two wires to a small "terminal block" so that if the transformer cord is ever yanked it won't yank the wiring that is in the dollhouse. Then just connect one connection on the transformer to the black wire and one to the white wire and you are done. If you are using a transformer that does not have a fuse or circuit breaker, please wire one into either the black or the white line. Radio Shack carries them, and they are cheap insurance against a fire. For details on types or sizes of transformers to use, depending upon how many bulbs you will have, please email me privately so I can address your particular needs. Round wiring is actually easier than tape wiring, according to every single student I ever taught both methods to. I no longer teach tape wiring. If anyone does choose tape wiring, please buy and use Tom's insertion tool, it is the only way to go with tape wiring. I know of many failures with tape wiring, but I also know of many successes. Round wiring fails eventually if the joints are not soldered. There is no free lunch.

Barbara Jones

ROUND WIRE: May I commit major social blunder and offer a rather unpopular view on dollhouse lighting? My hope is that some of my dollhouses and or rooms will be preserved into the far distant future. This in mind, I don't feel that miniature fixtures with grain of rice or grain of wheat light bulbs are likely to survive THAT long. Some mini fixtures would be very difficult to replace the bulbs in IF such bulbs are still offered say 100 years from now. Likewise with tape or ribbon wire. Unless run as a continuous, unbroken, single piece- - -circuit breaking tarnish at a joint or a break in some obscure corner is probable given enough time. For myself, I prefer reflective, concealed lighting that uses widely available incandescent aquarium style light bulbs in ordinary sockets fed by 16 or 18 gauge stranded WIRE run through routed grooves at wall to wall or wall to floor/ceiling joints. Route walls/floors wide but shallow to receive walls then route slightly deeper and narrower for a groove to conceal wires which are laid in place as part of the shell assembly process. In half scale I use 6 Watt, Nightlight style bulbs. For 1/4" scale I use 12 volt automotive lamps but still with round wire. Whenever possible, I run the two leads to a single bulb by separate routes to prevent shorts even if the insulation deteriorates completely. I also try to run completely separatecircuits for each fixture. These aren't "rules" or necessarily even popular "standards". For me, they are long considered decisions that I try to follow but even then, there are always exceptions.

Mel K. in Las Vegas

Tape Wiring: I have used tape wire throughout my houses and have not had a problem after over 7 years. When I first started I tried the folding method but didn't like it and went to making cuts and bradding them together. There is an easy way to insert the brass brads which will also make sure that they are inserted properly. Make a small starter hole with a pushpin. I know they sell a special tool for this but a pushpin works just as well. Place the head of the brad in the end of needle nosed pliers and then push the brad into the hole and bang in with a small brass hammer making sure that the brad goes in straight. I use 2 brads on each side of the tape wire so you are using a total of 4 at each junction. You might want to practice this technique first. I find that I do periodically have problems with plug receptacles, they seem to loosen up a bit, but I just bang them in gently and they're fine. Wiring tip for outdoor lighting. I have installed outdoor lighting. My dollhouses are on plywood because 1) it will make them easier to move if we ever decide to move, and 2) I landscape directly on the plywood. The plywood is larger than the dollhouses and is covered with "grass paper". For outdoor lighting I ran tape wire on the underside of the plywood, ran the wires from the outdoor lights under the grass paper, and then connected it to the tape wire under the plywood. I have a separate transformer for theselights.

Carol

DC Adapter vs. Transformer: A DC adapter consists of a transformer (to lower the voltage to 12 volts) and a rectifier (to convert from AC to DC). It may also have a regulator in it to help control the voltage level. For light bulbs, it really doesn't matter which you use. Your 1 amp adapter is about 12 watts, which means you can light about 18 light bulbs before you overpower the device. Read the adapter careful, and see if it says anything about "circuit breaker protected" or "thermal (overload) protected". If it doesn't say one of these things, then make sure you place a 1 amp fuse in your lead-in wire, to help prevent fires.

Tom Berkner