ColinBird.co.uk
Title
Colin Bird, Miniature Furniture: Contents
Description
My furniture is constructed as near as possible to full size practice, and my aim is to make it look as realistic as possible. Most of it is copied from full size furniture or from photographs and details supplied by customers. Many of the chairs are copied from those on display at the High Wycombe Chair Museum, where with their kind permission I have been able to take detailed photographs and measurements.
For the seats of the chairs I use mainly laburnum or cherry as this gives a very good imitation of scaled down elm, which is what the full size seats were made of. The grain of real elm would be much too coarse and open for miniatures. For the rest of the chair I use mainly Yew, this being fairly hard, close grained, easy to work and the right colour. They are both stained using a mahogany stain which gives a warm reddy brown colour fairly typical of the real thing. This also means they should match most mahogany furniture. They are then given several coats of thinned French polish applied with a brush, rubbed down gently with very fine steel wool and wax polish, and finally buffed to give a well used sheen. I also have various other woods and stains available and I have started making some items in apple, stained a light oak colour. This gives a very attractive golden honey oak finish which is also typical of many real chairs. If you would like something in a particular finish, please let me know.
All the turning is done on a Unimat 3 model making lathe, (Now the Unimat 4), using various home made turning tools and miniature files, and all other parts are cut out and shaped mainly by hand. Where parts need bending they are boiled in a saucepan for about half an hour, clamped in a mould cut to the required shape, and then left to dry in a warm place.
