Howard,

Now you have me doing more geometry than I've done since high school (which was many years ago). I am drawing chords on circles, marking their midpoints, then drawing perpendicular lines to find the center of a circle. Then I'm trying to divide a circle into 3 equal parts without a protractor or a compass (my protractor is too big and my compass is cheap and doesn't hold a circle very well). Then I'm trying to drill a hole in the center with the drill bit wandering out of the center. Challenge after challenge. But fun.

Still working on flying witches.
Lucy

Here is a rough prototype of the flying witches. I tried to make it look like witches hat and then balance it on the stick, but I couldn't do that so I modified it to make a automata to make the witches rotate. Even if an automata is a simple machine, it's not really simple to make it work. So this is the VERY rough prototype. I am still going to make a pivot balance flying witch one, I just need to go to my brother's shop so I can center the drill or use a nail punch or something.

I hope you don't mind looking a rough attempts at making stuff to go along with the cardboard houses.

Lucy

Lucy, as you may have seen on this forum, showing the in-between steps and the experiments is what gives other putzers courage to try new things What did you use for the motor?

I was afraid that I might be overdoing it as a new member. Thank you for your encouragement.

As for the motor - that would be me, twirling the dowel sticking out of the sides of the bottom tube. With your expertise in railroad set-ups, I'm sure you could devise a real motor.

Motorwise, I dunno. What about one of those AA-powered clock mechanisms you can buy at craft stores or rescue from banged-up wall clocks? If you could glue a straw or something to JUST the second-hand axis, the thing would rotate for months on single battery. Haven't tried this myself. For big train stuff like waterwheels, etc, I used to scrounge motors out of old fans and turntables etc. myself, but they'd be WAY overkill for this.

Anyone else!

Lucy, you don't HAVE to have a motor. I'm afraid our little "project brains" can't help coming up with "one more enhancement."

More steps in the Black Hat Inn:
1. Unpainted base showing where the LED tea light goes
2. Hat with unpainted base
3. First coat of painting on the base with the door temporarily in place, hat in place. I was very happy at this point that the tree roots are starting to look like tree roots. I will put the entire set-up on a larger base of cardboard so I can make some signs for the Black Hat Inn and a fence for parking on one side (there will be a sign saying "Free Parking" and have a bunch of brooms leaned up against the fence).





Lucy

The roots look cool.

Thanks for sharing the progress.

Steve

Rolled newspaper roots?...they look real!...I can tell you're enjoying this project...note...be sure to check your local dollar store soon...their Halloween figurines should be available before you know it!...perhaps you can find a "friendly ghost" doorman!...my very best regards...Howard...

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Yes, I am having lots of fun with this project. Howard, did you see the variation on the flying witches? That was fun to build as well.

Now you got me started on a ghost doorman.

Lucy