I have recently developed the useful and somewhat surprising facility for making my own serviceable 1:6 scale stuff. I go through the following process, demonstrated for example’s sake with an electric wheelchair:

1. I want a 1:6 scale electric wheelchair.
2. Let me search for a commercially produced one.
3. There are no commercially produced ones, or they are too expensive.
4. I’ll have to make one.
5. Let’s break down the electric wheelchair into its simplest components, which I may be more likely to find in 1:6 scale.
6. An electric wheelchair looks like an office chair on top of a lawn mower.
7. I have procured an office chair, but I can’t find a lawn mower.
8. I will have to use a 1:18 scale ForTwo Smart Car instead.
9. [Construction ensues.]

The key steps, I think, are 5 and 6. I’m currently planning to scratch-build two 1:6 scale things, not necessarily because I need them, but because I want to see if I can.

The first is a tape dispenser, which is basically a block with a channel down the center and a roll of tape half-submerged in the channel. I know exactly how I want to make this; I just need to sit down and actually do it.

The second is a grandfather clock. I started coveting a functioning 1:6 scale grandfather clock on the Doll Page Show and Sell site, but $33.00 for something I don’t really neeeeeeed seemed too rich to me. Even when I got the idea that the dead version of Isabel could come and go in Isabel’s room through the door in the clock, I still couldn’t bring myself to spend north of $30.00 for one.

I’m perfectly willing to make one, however. A grandfather clock is basically a clock face on top of a locker, so, once I find the appropriate 1:6 scale locker/narrow cupboard with working door, I have the base for a modern grandfather clock!

This entry was originally posted at http://modernwizard.dreamwidth.org/1521675.html. You can comment here, but I’d prefer it if you’d comment on my DW using OpenID.