Watch the video here.

  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.