This week we are starting out making the balls for the pool table. I know the toy did come with some but they were very large and way out of scale. I went through my stash and pulled out my bag of Seed beads that I purchased at Walmart many years ago. I measured them and they are approximately 4 mm in diameter and at leas to me look to be a good scale.
I did the painting on the beads/balls in two sets. I started with the cue ball and all 7 of the striped balls. The first step was to firmly stick each bead onto a round toothpick. This gives us a handle making painting and finishing them a lot easier. It will also fill the hole in the bead so that won’t show.
Once they were on the toothpick I simply coated all 8 of them with white paint. I did use my finger to help make sure the paint coat was fairly even. Place these in a safe place to dry where they won’t bump into each other or anything else.
Once the white paint dried I added the stripe to each of the 7 balls. I decided to use some of the disposable micro brushes I purchased on eBay a while back. Those have a really nice firm tiny tip and it really made getting the strip onto the balls pretty easy.
Once those have dried set them aside and put 8 more of the beads onto round toothpicks. This time we will be painting the solid color balls using the same colors of paint we used for the stripes as well as black. This time I just dipped them like I did with the white and used my fingertip to smooth the paint on each one.
Once the paint dries use a micro brush (or the end of a paint brush handle) to add a white dot to each of the balls.
If you want to add numbers to the balls you can do that once the white dots are dry. I decided that I don’t need to have numbers on mine. That tiny of a detail is not something I really want to tackle but if you do go for it.
Now it is time to add a nice shiny clear finish and I decided to use clear nail polish for this step. I chose this step because it was easy to apply and I know it will dry to a nice hard shiny finish that will not be sticky. I am using just a cheap clear polish from dollar tree.
Once the clear coat is dry it is time to safely remove the excess portion of the toothpicks. For this I like to use pet claw trimmers. They are designed to cut things that are round(ish) and hard. I love that I never have issues with round items getting misshapen when using these. Cut as close to the bead as possible.
Now since I am going to be gluing all but the cue ball (the white one) into the triangle rack I am not going to finish off the cut area. If are planning to display yours in a different way you will need to touch up the paint and clear finish where you cut them away from the toothpicks.
Now onto the triangle shaped rack. I decided to make my balls a permanent part of the rack so mine has a bottom that matches the outside of the rack and also then forms the slight rim at the bottom. I picked a light tan color card-stock for mine.
I started by drawing a short pencil line (less than 1” long) to line up the first row of balls against. I looked through my glues and decided that from the ones I have on hand that a CA type super glue was my best bet. I know it is not the best for paper but I think it will be my best choice to hold the plastic beads/balls in place.
I simply added the glue to a small area and using tweezers I added the balls to one row at a time. I then let each row sit for a minute or two to allow the glue to set up before adding the next row. Do your best to get the rows of balls tight against each other and make sure that the area where they were cut free from the toothpicks is hidden.
Once the super glue is dry cut a strip of the same paper you glued the balls to that is 1/8” wide by around 4” long. Then wrap the strip around the balls to form the triangle rack. Trim as needed so that the there is an overlap at the bottom of the rack.
I added a tiny drop of super glue to the 3 corner balls where they will touch the strip of paper then I added a coat of Tacky glue to one side of the paper strip and to one edge. Then with the glue against the bead/balls and the glued edge against the sheet of paper wrap the strip in place to for the rack. Allow the glue to dry.
Now carefully cut the rack with the balls away from the rest of the paper leaving just a tiny bit of paper past the sides of the rack.
And that is all there is to that part of the project.
And after last week’s video where we made the pool sticks one of you pointed out that I had missed something. And I am so glad to be able to fix that. I missed the little bit of a blue end where the cue stick has been chalked. So I looked online and found some photos of the ends of cue sticks and this week we are fixing that.
So since a lot of the photos of the high end cue sticks looked like they had a bit of a gold metal part at the end then the bit that is chalked at the end of that I decided to first dip the end of each one into my gold paint and allow that to dry. You just want a very tiny bit of the gold to show maybe a 1/16” or so.
Once dry I then spread some blue paint out on a scrap of paper to make just a thin layer and dipped the end of each one in this to make just the very tip blue. I wasn’t really sure exactly what color blue to use I just picked the one that looked closest to what I was seeing online.
And there have the project. I think this is one of my favorite things I have made lately because I needed to do some research and I learned a lot of new things which is what brought me to the miniature world in the first place.
I think the dolls look like they are having a lot of fun around the pool table don’t you?
As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.
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