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| My Desk currently |
Last Summer while I was on vacation RJ and I went to the "The Great American Dollhouse Museum" in Danville Ky. I love miniatures of all kinds, including doll houses even though the 1:12 Scale isn't the typical scale I work in.
I loved it. It was amazing!! Here are a few (or you know.. a lot) photos from there:
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| This girl is getting a halter. Already have it made! |
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| IF anyone wants to donate a nice harness or two, there are several horses that need them. One, that I remember is a dr's buggy horse. Wish I had a photo! |
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| Above one of the Cases there were actual, beautiful historic clothes. |
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| mine and Rj's faces! |
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| in the back there is a wonderous fairy village! |
While I was there I talked to Lori Moore about my work and about maybe making some donations to her wonderful museum! We need places like this to get out of the house, and out of our heads and for inspiration and I want her museum to succeed! (this was before Covid so it still applies. Right now the museum is closed but please, if you're in Kentucky within 2 hours of Danville and the museum is open GO!)
In the back room when I was there, Lori showed me a three level castle that she obtained from a legendary store in Florida that she was going to put on display! Of course, immediately I thought horse armor! I have never made amour in miniature before but as always I'm game for new things.
(bottom picture on this page: https://www.thedollhousemuseum.com/friends.htm )
So after finishing a trade with Ann Bilon (that she was incredibly patient for) I am moving onto this new project.
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| Ann's Saddlseat Set |
I have been having some trouble sleeping so I haven't had a ton of energy to throw into the amour project, until TODAY. TODAY I am able to sit and do whatever I want and really mentally dig into the armor project.
On my Facebook Page I've been blurbing and talking about some of my process but I am going to try to open up and let folks into what I'm currently doing to research.
I watched these two videos today and they taught me so much!!
This first video is a 1920's silent video where the MET Museum showed off some of their armor and how it was actually used. (I found out about this video from the second video I listed below)This video taught me the differences between Jousting Armor and regular fighting armor. There isn't a lot of horse armor shown but by seeing how "People" armor was made I can guess how the horse armor was made.
This second video is from https://philamuseum.academia.edu/DirkBreiding
Where he entertainingly puts to rest some of the popular myths about armor.
Lastly In watching these videos i'm coming to realize that the 36 gauge of aluminum I have may be too soft for anything other than display. I have delusions of actually articulating the neck armor with tiny watch screws. That is currently just a thought and not remotely a reality yet.. Also horse armor has hinges on it and I don't know if that thin aluminum can handle hinges. I have found a place where I can get thicker aluminum Here: http://www.whimsie.com/aluminumsheetmetal.html
Contemplating 34 or 32 or even 30 gague aluminum instead.
Turns out Home Depot and lowes carries "Aluminum Flashing" which looks to be similar so maybe I can go there and look and touch on some gauges of aluminum and figure this out 
Welcome to the last 3 hours in my head... LOLOLOL!!
Wow Heather, so glad to see you pursuing stuff like this! We could talk mini museums... pieces of mine are in Mini Time Machine in Tucson...
ReplyDeleteBut what I want to say here is that to make metal harder and stiffer, just hammer it flat a bit. That might help your hinge-making.
Thank you sue! I didn't know that!!
ReplyDelete