Working Ceiling Fan Tutorial

In an earlier post I shared the ceiling fan I made for the Quilt Shop Room Box and told you I wanted to make a working version. Later I posted a short (poor) video of the working fan. Here is a much better video of the fan in motion. I think the black bars in the earlier one were from the LED lights in the box. This time I didn't turn them on.

In response to several requests for a tutorial, here goes:

Here are the basic components of the fan itself. For a photo of the origins of the fan blade hardware, look at the earlier post. The clear plastic star is a mirror fastener that was replaced by a plain disc as the build evolved. The fan blades are cut from a sheet of frosted Mylar. I chose the Mylar because it was thinner than a credit card (so more to scale), wouldn't warp like paper/card stock might, and has a "tooth" surface that takes paint well. Note the tiny hole in the end of the eighth-inch wooden dowel that became the shaft. The translucent red bead serves as the motor. Because of the variety of materials that had to be glued together, I went straight for the E-6000.

You may have noticed the gloss black paint in the previous photo. I didn't use it. The matte finish looked more like "old fan" to me, so I used it exclusively. I gave the small end of the hardware bits a slight twist before gluing them to the center flat bead, so the blades are canted slightly, as in a real fan.

My apologies for the out-of-focus picture of the loop at the end of the shaft. I have a new camera and haven't yet figured out the close-up settings. I stripped the paper from a twist-tie to get a pliable wire to make the hook. I ran the two ends through the hole in the shaft from opposite sides and then did some simple twisting to get the loop you see. That slight bulge at the top of the shaft is a narrow strip of tape covering the hole. I'm not sure it was necessary, but the wire was a bit rough in that area and I didn't want it to get hung up while threading it through the base cap and ceiling.

This is a view of the ceiling cap. The clear star that you saw above was replaced by a plastic pull-seal from a carton of half-and-half. I cut off the ring part and cut a hole in the center. That is a wooden bead glued in place to form a bit of a sleeve for the shaft to keep it from wobbling. If you look carefully, you can see that the hole in the bead and the hole in the ceiling don't quite match up. I had problems with the shaft sticking when I tried to thread it through. As luck would have it, I had some plastic drinking straws that just fit into the space. A snip from the end of a straw became a smooth lining for the sleeve. Wobble cured.

There's no magic formula for the length of shaft or ceiling base. I eye-balled it and made several small trims to get it to the point where it all worked together.

This is the twirler that I ended up using. It is battery operated and came with an extra battery from Christmas in Prescott.  It is sitting over the hole that I drilled in the room box roof. The scrap bits of angle molding are glued in place to keep the spinner from moving from the vibrations. (You're right -- I don't throw anything away!)

Here's how it goes together. The fan shaft is passed up through the ceiling cap and the spinner hooks onto the loop. I wanted the fan to be removable to spar it from jarring in the event the box needs to be moved an appreciable distance.

When the shaft is hooked, the fan looks like this.

What would I do differently next time? I'd be sure I have hardware for both sides of the blades. It's not noticeable to the casual viewer, but I know it's missing.

So Close to Finished ...

A miniature is hardly ever finished. There's always some tweaking that can be done. The quilt shop room box is at that stage. More can be done, but it can wait. I spent a good bit of today inhaling rubber cement fumes as I arranged the quilts and sample blocks on the walls. 

The photos are a bit dark on the outside, as daylight was fading as I took these. The LED lights make the interior bright and cheerful. The bricks on the outside are printed cotton fabric. The raw wood box was primed with gesso. The fabric was glued in place with diluted white glue (two parts glue, one part water). When that dried thoroughly, it got two coats of satin finish clear polyacrylic. Although the bricks are a bit large for 1:12 scale, it makes a satisfying finish to the outside.

Inside, the  shop is shaping up. I discovered a nice open spot in the middle of the shop that is crying out for a round table heaped with sale or seasonal items. The customer with the shopping bag is waiting patiently!

Back in the corner, I found room for a wastebasket. Check the scene out the window in this and other pictures. Notice the shadow of the window on the sky? Bad news. Am thinking about putting translucent plastic on the window, as I did on the door. It will indicate light outside, but it won't be possible to see through it. Hate to lose the view, but shadows on the sky are annoying.

There is a channel that runs across the bottom of the box and up the two sides to hold a piece of Plexiglas. A fourth piece of channel slips over the top to complete the frame. I have no plans to do much dusting in this cluttered scene!

Now for the big reveal -- the working fan! I used Casey's idea for the ornament twirler. It rotates slowly, just as one would want. Wouldn't care to have bits of fabric blowing all over! For some reason, the camera kept adding rolling black bars to the picture, only while filming the fan, but I think you'll get the idea. Update: See a better video here.

So, still tweaking to be done, but for now, all is well in the quilt shop.

Ceiling Fan

It's not a working fan, but still, I like what it adds to the room. I thought you might like to see the process. The first photo shows the jewelry finding that was cannibalized to make the hardware for the fan blades. As it was straightened, bits of the silver coating chipped off. That was okay, because I planned to paint it. Actually, it would have helped if all of the silver had chipped off, but it didn't.

Here's all it took. The five fan blades were cut from a piece of frosted mylar. The round beads are spacers. The big red bead is the motor assembly, and the star is a mirror fastener. The stick has a hole drilled cross-wise at the top end. The stick goes through a hole in the ceiling and a jewelry pin slips through the hole to keep it from falling back down.

It turned out I used only the flat black and gold paint. Saw no need for the shiny black.

I painted the motor bead and then scratched some lines around it. You can see the clear red bead inside in the photo, not so much in real life. I'm hoping that when the lights are on it, the scratched lines may look a bit like the copper windings that would be inside a real motor.

And here it is in place. The star is a bit showy, I think. I need to find a plain housing. In real life, it would be about 48" in diameter. It was hard to take a photo, but you get the idea. And remember, this is just temporary, until I figure out how to make one with a real motor.

Update: I did it! See the moving fan here.