The Transformation of a Dollhouse: A Photo Journal

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   The "Battery Box"

I work at a battery store and we sometimes get fake sample batteries from vendors to promote their products. This one was going to be thrown away since we do not have a contract with that vendor. Of course, a light bulb snapped on above my head when I thought about the possibilities this could have! So, I took it home....

Much to my surprise (and consternation!) the battery, while fake, still had the 6 cell compartments. These took all day to cut out...I used a dremel tool to do most of the cutting after I broke a pair of scissors when I made the first attempt....I thought that, since it was fake, the battery would be just empty inside and all I would have to do was cut out the front and have a nice empty box...but nooo, of course I always end up doing things the hard way.

In this pic there was still a lot of work to be done to even out the rough spots. The thing about the dremel tool is, it gets really hot and melts plastic. I saw this as a disadvantage at first, but in the end I created a "new" technique by sweeping the hot dremel along the rough spots and basically just melting them away. Of course, I wore safety glasses, since bits of plastic were flying everywhere!

I installed these lights through one of the holes in the cap. I had to fashion a battery pack that would fit inside the limited space I had in the top, and added a switch to turn the lights on from the top of the battery.

Here is the power pack I made for the lights. This took all evening to get working right. Nothing like playing with a soldering iron on a Sunday evening! And, I assure you, this is NOT a bomb!

This is what the battery box currently looks like. It is not a very good picture at all...hopefully I will have some better ones as I progress!

Okay, I haven't made much more progress this week, but here is the new tire center! I made it from scraps from a model car set...I used the frames that the little pieces are attached to, cut off all the nubs, cut all the pieces to fit and then glued it together and painted it twice. The tires are from the same model car set.