I had been putting off completing my diner because of my apprehension in bending the aluminum tube. This tube would serve the purpose as a footrest for the diner patrons sitting at the counter. Earlier this year I blogged about my tube bender issues, and this weekend finally got up enough courage to use it.
I decided to take small steps in getting it bent. The tube bender instructions mentioned heating the tube and then bending it. Once the tube is bent to meet your specifications you’re to submerge it in cold water. I filled a large tub that I use for hand washing with cold water. Then plugged in my hair dryer. With the tube inside the tube bender, I aimed the hair dryer at the specific point where I wanted to bend it. I tried bending it many times, but was unsuccessful in getting it bent. My husband suggested heating the tube with the hair dryer and then bending it against the kitchen counter. This didn’t work, so my husband very kindly took over. At last, we resorted to heating the tube sans tube bender over the gas burner of our stove. Heating it over fire turned out to work better than the hair dryer. My husband was then able to bend the tube with the tube bender while wearing winter gloves, to protect his hands from the heat.
There was still more bending to be done, and I suggested using vice grips on the tube encased in the tube bender, which worked out really well. When the tube was bent to the proper curvature, it needed to be cut down to fit around the counter.
My husband and I discussed what to cut the tube with. We came to the conclusion to use my dremel with one of its cutting wheels. Then came the task of finding a way to mount the tube to safely cut it. Neither one of us owns a vice, which would’ve been really useful in cutting the tube. My husband went through his pieces of scrap wood and found some large pieces that could be clamped together with the tube sandwiched in between. It seemed like a great idea but it had one minor flaw, our largest clamp was just a hair too small to fit around the tube and wood scraps. Another search through the wood scraps turned up two thinner pieces that could be successfully clamped with the tube in between. We rested this on top of a large block of wood on our kitchen floor. I tried cutting the tube while my husband stood on our make shift vice, but was only successful in making a few dents in the tube that seemed to resemble small scars rather than anything else. Just a note for those of you sitting in the comfort of your home reading this post-yes, I was wearing safety goggles. The torque of the dremel was too much for me to successfully cut through the tube, so my husband took control of cutting the tube. He wore safety goggles while cutting and I waited in the next room.
Installing the tube on the counter
The next day, was the day to finish up the diner project. I cut up and glued small pieces of foam core board to the reverse side of the counter so that it would have shelves.
I already had wire that would be used to affix the tube to the sides of the counter. Kath Dalmeny’s, Dollhouse Style mentions using thin pieces of silver cardboard or strips of aluminum. I didn’t have the aluminum strip and didn’t want to deal with the hassle of trying to superglue tiny pieces of cardboard to the tubing, so I opted for using gray colored wire instead.
I twisted a small part of the wire securely around the tube and then cut away the excess. Then I repeated this process in increments along the piece of tubing. In total there were 5 pieces of wire that were twisted around the tube. Next came attaching it to the counter. The directions in the book never say how far from the bottom of the counter to affix the tubing, so I had to make a guess. Hopefully, if the publishers of Ms. Dalmeny’s book decide to make another edition or printing, the instructions for installing the tubing around the base of the counter will be more specific.
At first, I poked holes in the sides of the counter about 5-10mm from the bottom of the counter with the pointed part of a safety pin. I tried to poke the twisted wire through the hole made with the safety pin, but couldn’t get the wire through. I tried widening the hole with the pin, but to no avail. I have a very small hand drill that I used to increase the hole made with the pin. This made a larger hole and the twisted wire fit through it. At each point where the wire would go through the sides of the counter, I used the safety pin and then the small drill to make the hole large enough for the other pieces of wire.
When I had it all attached to the counter, I discovered that my tube was a bit too long at the curved end of the counter. I considered removing the tube to cut it, but really didn’t want to deal with the hassle. Instead, I opted to take a pair of vice grips to the overhanging end and bent it back around the counter. This wound up working really well, I did have to realign the tube—but it wasn’t a crisis. I glued the pieces of wire some more on the backside of the counter and then let it dry for a bit.
Signage Creation
While waiting for the counter to dry, I made signage for the diner. I had painted the surface of an oval shaped sign with white acrylic paint. There are 3 trim pieces that fit in between the top edge of the walls and the top section or roof of the diner. A couple of these trim pieces had square area that I could envision painted white and have the diner’s name on them. I painted a square of white acrylic paint to these sections. The smaller third trim section would have a clock face on it. When I was planning the diner, I bought a small clock face from my local miniature store. I glued pieces of Velcro to this trim and to the back of the clock face. The clock runs on a battery and I wanted to be able to easily change the battery, attaching the clock with Velcro seemed to be my best option.
Previously, I had experimented with different fonts on my word processor. I found one that would work really well for my diner. Several years ago, I had made a sign for another miniature store by printing the shop’s name on a clear label that I cut down to fit the sign and stuck onto the sign. This time I did pretty much the same thing. I tested out different sizes of the diner’s name in the font I had chosen before printing it on the labels. After printing out the labels, I set them aside to dry and returned to other aspects of completing my diner.
Once the counter was dry, I glued it to the floor with tacky glue. Then I noticed that the stools were too tall for the counter. I used my easy cutter tool to cut the stool legs so that they would be shorter and more to scale. To test out and make sure that I had the stools were the proper height, I set a miniature doll on the stool. She seemed to be the right height for the counter, and so I knew that I had cut the stool’s legs correctly.
With the counter glued down and the stools now the correct height, I returned to creating my diner signage. I cut out around the diner’s name from the clear label. Then I separated the paper backing from the label and stuck it onto my sign. I did this for each of my signs.
At last, I put the roof on my diner and then inserted each of the trim pieces around it to hold everything in place. I set on a shelf and then plugged it in and sat back to enjoy my hard work.
