Saturday, February 1, 2014

Cheateau project: 1:6 scale French doors- Part 2 & a tutorial


Previously, in my post about 1:6 scale French doors  I showed you how I cut french doors to scale out of foamcore.  I have skipped over the laborious part of covering the edges with white contact paper to give the doors a 'smooth' look and not like they are carved out of foamcore. Today I show you the finished doors, hinged, within the 1/2 inch foamcore wall. 
Today was a great day for me as it was warm- all the snow is melting, and I finally finally had time to go and buy the supplies to finish this part of the diorama. I went to my local dollhouse shop Belle's Exclusives- they have been great people and always have a variety of items. I purchased the doorknobs and hinges from them, as well as some other items that will show up later as this diorama comes along. For those of you with a local dollhouse shop nearby- please remember to patronize these tiny specialty shops. Many 1:12 scale components can be used in 1:6 scale and the owners do this for a living, so they can usually advise you for the larger scales. I found many items for this diorama, but will be going back later after I get some things figured out.
Then I went onto Michael's for more foamcore- 2 sheets of 1/2 inch and 2 sheets of 3/16ths ...be sure to use your 40% off coupon. I also purchased some $1 picture frames and wood embellishments as well. Now onto the tutorial!
1st- after your doors are cut out- recap measurements- 15 inches high, 5 1/2 inches wide. Cutout your windows, at 2 inches high 1 1/2 inch wide on each one. 
Cover the edges of every window with contact paper cut to fit. Then cover the sides, and the top, then the middle with strips. You want clean lines.
2nd- Onto the 1/2 inch foamcore for your wall. First, glue your doorknobs to the doors. Use a doll to figure out where their hand would hit on their height.
Place the doors in the center and draw around them.

3- Now you are going to carefully cut out the door part you have drawn. Do this as evenly as possible. Afterwards, there will be some shards of that foamcore innards that come out all over the floor. Sand them off, and then cover all three cut sides with white contact paper so no innards bleed out or through.
After that- you are going to do your hinge placements. I placed my hinges on the doors and doorframe after the door part was cutout, and drew little holes in the hinge part where the screws go. I then took my exacto knife and 'drilled' holes for the screws to go into.





I glued the hinges down when I put them onto the foamcore, then pushed the screws into the holes. You may have to watch, as the doors are thin -3/16th foamcore, so the points may slightly come through if the screws are too long. I used regular tacky glue for this. I also used scrap pieces of foamcore underneath the doors to give them some height while I adhered the hinges, due to the difference in the thicknesses of the two foamcores used for this project, it really helps. 
Now onto some photos as Marie Antoinette enjoys her new doors!









Here is a quick picture to show that the doors work with the Fashion Royalty hommes too!
Enjoy the tutorial and I hope you have fun with these doors!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Hello from Spain: French doors are very elegant. Your doing a great job. Nice pictures .. Keep in touch

Muff said...

Ooh, la la! I agree with Marta, they are quite elegant.

Lisa Neault said...

thank you both! they are time consuming but fun to make!

Ms. Leo said...

I really like how you did the doors! Are there knobs on both sides of the doors?

Lisa Neault said...

hi Mrs. Leo. Yes, the miniature doorknobs come in sets. You can order these from a dollhouse miniature shop or find them on ebay. a popular one is www.miniatures.com or hobby builders supply