My Haunted Miniature Carousel: This Project Nearly Defeated Me 🎠👻
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I have finally finished my haunted miniature carousel project from Haunted Miniatures by Ashley Voortman, and let me tell you, this one was an adventure.
Actually, calling it an adventure might be a little generous. There were broken pieces, a burned-out motor, failed gears, a broken crank, questionable engineering decisions, and an impressive amount of hot glue involved. 😂
But somehow, I ended up with two working carousels!
I Decided Mine Needed to Actually Move
The project in the book is a miniature carousel, but of course I decided I wanted mine to actually function. Because apparently making a miniature carousel wasn’t enough. I needed to make things harder for myself. LOL. I started by drilling holes in the wooden circle and a tuna can. My husband helped with the soldering because I am not exactly a soldering-iron expert.
The original plan involved a motor, and at first everything seemed promising. The empty platform spun fast and beautifully. Then I added the horses. And that is when things got interesting.
The Horses Were the Problem
Getting the holes drilled in the horses was a struggle, and once they were attached, the motor suddenly had a lot more work to do.
The platform would spin fine by hand, but once the motor was running, it struggled. I tried different ways of attaching the motor and disk, including cork and a pill bottle lid. At one point, I actually got the disk working. Then I broke it. Because why wouldn’t I? 🤦♀️
I tried another piece of cork, which worked, although the motor sounded louder than before. I started wondering if I had already worked that poor little motor too hard. And then…I burned out the motor. Luckily, I had more motors, but I was starting to think the original setup just wasn’t going to work.
Enter the Gears
My husband suggested trying gears and possibly a crank to turn the carousel manually. The first gear setup didn’t work. Then I broke the crank. 🤦♀️
So I found some different gears, printed them, and prepared to try again. At this point, this carousel was definitely living up to the haunted part of Haunted Miniatures.
George, the Engineer, Has Entered the Chat
I talked to George, the engineer in the family, and he had another idea for getting the motorized version working. His suggestion was to put a small gear on the motor and use the other gears on the part that turns. The gearing would slow the carousel down and hopefully give the motor a better chance of handling the load. The big question was whether the weight of the horses would still be too much. I decided to make things a little easier on the motor and use two horses instead of three.
And guess what? It worked! The motorized version was finally moving. It was also moving SUPER FAST. 😂 But hey, after everything I had been through, I was calling that a win.
Decorating the Motorized Version
Once I had the motorized carousel working, I painted it red and black. And then I immediately realized I wasn’t thrilled with it. I should have waited until I had another tuna can. Instead, I used a plastic dog treat jar, and honestly, it is pretty flimsy and just looks a little odd.
The good news is that it works. The bad news is that I think the container choice made the finished piece look different than what I had pictured in my head. That happens with crafting. Sometimes the thing in your head and the thing sitting on your table are definitely not the same thing. 😂
Then There Was the Manual Version
While waiting to get my drill back from my daughter, I worked on the manual version. I eventually got everything together and, after a whole lot of hot glue, I had something that actually worked. Not exactly the way I wanted it to. But it worked. You have to turn it from the top to make the carousel move, but the horses actually rotate, so I decided that was good enough.
At that point, I was ready to call it a day, finish the final touches, and take pictures. Sometimes you just have to know when to stop fighting the project. 😂
And Here They Are!
So after all that trial and error, I ended up with two finished haunted miniature carousels. One is motorized and one is manually operated.
They aren’t perfect. They aren’t exactly what I originally imagined. And one of them is definitely a little more structurally questionable than I would like to admit. But they work!
And honestly, that’s what I love about these kinds of projects. I don’t need everything to come out perfect. I want to experiment, mess things up, figure out how to fix them, and occasionally wonder why I thought something was a good idea in the first place. 😂 This one definitely gave me plenty of opportunities for all of that.
I think I’ll call that a successful project.
