Working With Wood:

The number of pieces of balsa wood required for a piece of miniature furniture varies from project to project. Most of this site's projects call for 10 to 20 pieces of wood.

This page discusses how to handle those pieces of balsa from before theyre cut out until after they've been assembled and are ready to be moved into your dollhouse.

Cutting:

Don't try to cut all the balsa wood pieces for a furniture project at one time, because you can get confused and even lose some pieces. Instead, cut pieces for one section of the project before proceeding to the next.

You need an X-acto knife for cutting pieces of wood with curved edges, and an X-acto knife and metal-edged rooler for cutting pieces of wood with straight edges. Make sure the X-acto knife blade is sharp (the thicker the wood, the sharper the blade must be.)

Draw the knife through the wood two or three times to make the cut. Be careful because balsa wood is very soft.

Sanding:

Although sanding is the most importantand time-consuming activity in making miniature furniture, it is also one of the easiest.

Sand with the grain of the wood.

Save yourself time by sanding with an emery board on the smaller pieces.

Staining:

If you do not use Minwax stain on your wood, you must first apply a wood stabilizer or sealer. This process helps to seal the wood's pores stabilizing the texture and allowing the stin to be absorbed smoothly and evenly.

Assembling:

Assembling is the gluing together of all the carefully cut, sanded, and stined pieces of wood to make a whole piece of furniture.

Before you begin gluing together the pieces, make sure that youre-measure them to be sure they are the correct sizes, thus ensuring a proper fit.

Apply the glue to the edges with a toothpick. It is easier.

Finishing:

The two finishing procedures of shellacking and varnishing endow your piece of furniture with durability and beauty; on a more practical note, they prevent fading.

Disregard any directions on the container of shellac and simply mix the shellac with an equal amount of denatured alcohol in a clean can or jar.

Paint on the shellac with a clean artist's brush. Let it dry 10 to 15 minutes at room temperature or if in a hurry, under the eat of a light bulb. Don't put it in the oven. Trust us.

Now rub the piece well in the same direction with 0000 steel wool, Being careful of corners because even light pressure can rub off the color of stain.

Varnishing gives a piece of miniature furniture the patina or luster of real furniture.

Apply varnish directly from the can without mixing it first. Let it dry in a cool place for about 12 hours. Heat will keep it sticky so, seriously, put it somewhere cool.