Last Friday we visited Malmesbury Abbey and I discovered something I never knew - it contains the tomb of King Athelstan, the first king of all England.
Malmesbury Abbey, the home of William of Malmesbury, a 12th century historian considered by many to be the best since Bede, was dissolved by Henry VIII, who sold it off to one of his mates for a few bob, as he was short of cash at the time.
Anyway, in the gift shop we spotted some wooden mice for a tenner, which I thought I could use to decorate something.
It was photographing them on the ash slab table I made that gave me the idea of emulating Robert (Mouseman) Thompson, a Yorkshire furniture maker (now dead) who incorporated a mouse into all his furniture. I first learned about Mouseman from a Yorkshire friend of mine (now also dead - had a heart attack and couldn't get to the phone, which could have saved him) who owned a Mouseman table for which he'd paid a small fortune.
You can see one on the leg of the Robert Thompson table above. Now I can't carve a mouse into the legs of the ash slab table, but I can put these mice on the legs with glue; however, to ensure they're not knocked off, I wanted to pin them in place with steel pins - but what on earth could I use as the pins?
As it happens, I was doing some work on the GT6 bonnet and decided to pin the headlamp cowls and bonnet stiffener together with pop rivets, just to get the positioning right before exposing the metal at the joins and spot wenling the whole caboodle together before offering the complete sections up to the bonnet top.
Bingo! The waste pop rivet mandrels were perfect for what I wanted.
Two pins per mouse. I drilled the mice, secured a couple of pins into them and then drilled corresponding holes into the table leg, glueing them on for a permanent fix.
Nothing will knock them off now. Nice little feature.
1 comment:
" Henry VIII, who sold it off to one of his mates for a few bob, as he was short of cash at the time."
Sounds like Thatcher!
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