April 29, 2009

1:12 fireplace from real stone




You can click on the photos to enlarge them.

Here are the promised photos of a fireplace I built for a dollhouse. The stone was gathered from a leftover stone pile from a real life chimney in Carmel by the Sea, California. I am able to work this soft limestone with a hammer, chisel and tile nippers. I do cut down larger chunks on a water cooled diamond tile saw although they could be split up by hand just about as easily. There is a hollow plywood box as a form under the stones for the chimney and interior for the fireplace. I hope you enjoy seeing it. Real stone looks so grand and yes so very real. I love the crisp, sharp, broken edges. That would be very difficult to achieve with paper-mache.

As you can tell by the interior scene this is a Christmas themed dollhouse. The elves are busy cooking in the kitchen. More photos of the project below.












4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That fireplace is fantastic. It looks so real. I love this house and can't wait to see more of it.

George the Miniguy said...

Karin, I'm curious about your windows. The mullions don't look like precise little pieces of wood, giving them an older window look. Did you use wood and glass for your windows or something else? They look very real!

George

Karin Corbin said...

Hi George, I very much enjoyed your blog and will visit again.

The windows were made from hand poured glass from France, it has waves and bubbles in it giving it that authentic hand crafted look. The window panes are individually cut and wrapped with copper foil and soldered together. I then surround the outside with pieces of brass channel from K&S engineering. Solid brass hinges are soldered onto the brass frame and screwed into the wood framing around the window opening. The brass and solder are darkened with a chemical patina I purchase at a jewelery supply store. Some day I will post a tutorial on this process.

Unknown said...

Karin I am so in awe!! You are so incredibly talented, My God!!!