House Number Plaque

Hi all,
It is a couple of years now since we moved into our present house and I'm pleased to let you know that most of the renovation work is now completed. However, there was one last job that needed attending to. The house number plaque on the front of our house was in a sorry state. It was made of ceramic and had a very faded painting of a badger on it. Anyway, my wife said it needed to be replaced with a new one which she suggested we made ourselves.

She went on to tell me that she thought that she could make one from air drying clay. I said I had my doubts that anything thing made from such materials could be expected to last in our climate, but she insisted it would be alright with a couple of coats of exterior varnish. Seeing as she was going to be making it herself, I didn't want to discourage her too much and let her get on with it.

The following day, she got on with the job and produced a lovely little plaque complete with acorns and oak leaves. It's very nice I said, I just hope it doesn't come a cropper and break. At this point she accused me of being the world greatest pessimist and I was sent forthwith to buy some strong varnish. I purchased a tin of yacht varnish from B & Q and gave it three good coats.

Once the varnish was dried, she stuck the plaque to the front wall of the house with some exterior sticky pads we'd used before to stick tiles to an outside wall. The were still stuck to the wall outside when we left our previous home, so she said they would be alright.

Two days later, when I was taking some rubbish out to the wheelie, I found the plaque face down on the paving slabs and it was found to be damaged beyond repair. It looked like it had committed suicide. She wasn't best pleased when I showed her the sad sight, but before I could even thing of saying, "I told you so" she said I would now have to make her one from wood.

I cut some oak leaves from plywood with my scroll saw and carved a couple of acorns with my Dremel and then set about it with my pyrography iron.

The best thing about my plaque is that I could drill a couple of holes and screw it to the wall. My wife said she liked it, but something about it was slightly askew and offended the eye. She was right of course, so I said that I'd take it down and see if I could level it up, but I haven't bothered yet and I thing she has gotten used to it.

On a completely different subject, I mentioned getting a lathe in my last post, so I bet you are wondering how I'm getting on. Here are some spindles I've turned in an effort to get control over the tools.

The piece of wood I used are pine and actually came from the legs of my mother -in-laws bed. Her bed was too high she said, and asked me to cut a foot off each leg. I saved them because you never know when a wooden leg will come in handy and I'm glad I did because they provided for some great practice. They look good to me even though I do say so myself.

I'll let you know more about my wood turning efforts in my next post.