Tuesday 15 September 2009

Tuesday 2

 


Been busy this afternoon with the tiny brass casket illustrated. It is 7/8 of an inch long. It contains a complete set (double six) of small brass dominoes. Well, it does now. When I bought it the set was a few short. So I made the missing ones from old brass sheet to match the originals. That was the easy bit. The hard part was fitting them all into the box. All done now but it took a while to work out the one way they would all fit in. Considering that it was almost certainly made by Napoleonic prisoners of war early in the nineteenth century, it is an amazing piece of work.
Ready for bed now. Goodnight all.

Sorry about the blurred photo. Partly focussing down to that size. Partly that my hands were a bit shaky. I think I must be tired. Goodnight.
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3 comments:

Crowbard said...

Please could we have a close up of the dominoes and their approximate size, when Lethe sleep has brightened the dimmed eye and steadied the palsied hand? That box is tempting enough to persuade me to get out the planishing hammer and soldering iron.

Crowbard said...

Post Scriptae.
1.Is the handle rigid or does it swivel?
2.Is that a sprung button release or a keyhole in the box?

Unknown said...

The dominoes (under magnification) are not particularly well made. End to end, three would make up a good inch.
The handle swivels. What you can see is an engraved (non functional)keyhole. The box does not open in the usual way; the base slides out like the old fashioned pencil box lid. I have had the dominoes out this morning to see if there's a better way of packing them. There isn't, and it took me another half hour to find the original way that does work (just). However, they're now all back in situ, and I shan't be taking them out again -well, not today anyway. Take an older brother's advice, and don't even try to make a copy of it. Do you want to end up as grey as I am?????
Kind regards, Mike.