The Custom Order Continues...

Not much in the way of content for this week's post (a relief to some, I am sure, lol!). With limited mini time, I just continued the work designing architectural elements to be 3D printed for the Park Avenue Dollhouse. Last week, I completed the main doorway pediment and trims. That left a large window cornice and it's sill with corbels, seven small window cornices and their sills with corbels, eleven roof corbels and finally pediments and trim for the main and basement doors.

Large window, mock-up door and roof corbel.

The customer mailed both doors, the large window and one of the slim windows to me. This way, I can test fit the 3D printed pieces for a perfect fit. These elements are included in the Park Avenue kit.

If you recall, the customer wants to pay homage to the brownstone's facade from the movie Breakfast At Tiffany's. Because the Park Avenue kit is not an exact replica in scale or layout, some adjustments had to be made.

Park Avenue Kit Left, Breakfast At Tiffany's Façade Right.

By making rounded cornices for the tops of the square window frames, I think the look has been achieved and, once installed, will be recognized as the BAT facade in spite of the structural differences.

For the sill with corbels, the customer will just remove the sill and trim piece from the bottom of the kit's window and replace them with the 3D printed upgrade. 

From beneath, you can see that there is a recess that will fit down over the top of the original kit window's frame for easy installation. 

The six windows that go in the bay protrusion of the facade will have simple rounded pediments for the tops and bottom sills with corbels. I made 3 designs, and the customer picked design C.

The basement window will be much the same.

There was not enough space above the door frames to create a rounded cornice for them. Instead, I took the lintel feature from the doorway pediment and made that into a decorative piece that can be attached to the top of each door frame. In addition to the corbels that hold the pediment up, there are pedestal pieces which attach to the bottoms of each of the door frames. They are also based on the design from the pilasters that frame the main doorway's pediment piece. The doors themselves are going to be much closer to the BAT inspiration door, but for those, I'll be cutting them with the Cricut Maker. I can create them in Tinkercad, then just export them in the file format used by the Maker - .svg. 

For the corbels that will support the roof cornice, I used the same acanthus leaf bracket to comprise the details. They are the exact measurements as the more simple brackets that came with the kit, just fancier.

Kit's corbels:

Now, the real test will begin. Finding the right combination of settings in the slicer program will be the next hurtle. I've got five separate files to print, two of them twice. What I need most now is all the prayers, finger crossing and luck I can get! Hopefully, by next week's post, I'll have actual, physical pieces to share with you!

The corbel file in the slicer program.

After two hours of printing. Still 6 hours and 50 minutes to go. This file gets printed twice!

In the meantime, I finally got the 1/8" x 1/8" oak and maple in the mail from Bill and Walt's. That means I can start on the butcher block countertops for the Beachside Bungalow, time permitting. With an application of wood wax, the depth of color and richness should really come out!

So much exciting work to do, so few spare hours in the day! Happy October everyone!!!

xo xo,

Jodi