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By GLIC2000 - Dec. 31, 1969 I made this tower not for myself, but for someone else who asked me if I could build a large, complex tower which was at least two feet high. Initially, I started building the lowest and uppermost sections of this project at the same time. I laid out floor tiles for the tower's lowest section, which was basically a square with two three-quarter round towers attached. Then I added more layers of blocks. I'd planned to keep the design asymmetrical throughout, so I turned one of the round towers into a balcony, and covered the other with a dome. The first major challenge was getting the opening onto the lowest balcony to line up with the staircase that led to the bottom of the tower. Beyond that, the stairs also had to continue up through the entire interior of the tower (not shown in the photos, unfortunately) so that the entire tower would be connected. All of the stairs were made with the Prison Tower mold. In another, smaller, project I made before this one, I began using the Small Brick mold to create railings for balconies. I like working with the small bricks, because they provide an option for creating extra details with blocks that are a lot less "chunky" than the other blocks. I used these blocks extensively to create all of the tower's railings. The lowest balcony was problematic in this way, because I wanted a "round" railing to cover the top of the tower. I ended up placing the arches at angles to each other, sanding them to fit and filling in the spaces with the tiny wedge-shaped blocks on the Small Brick mold. I also used the tiny wedges to help support these narrow railings. At the same time as I was designing the lowest section, I also started on what would become the tower's highest point. I wanted something unique and distinctive-looking to finish it off, so I used the Turret Mold extensively for this section. Basically, I had a square "core" with partial 3" towers attached to it. I used Prison Tower stairs and supports to create the staircase wrapping itself around this area. An archway leads inside this section, and the large staircase inside leads down... But down onto what? That was the problem. I had created the highest, and lowest sections but hadn't any idea how to actually join them together into one coherent structure. I expanded the central square core of the highest section, and expanded the lower section upwards into a simple rectangle. Finally, I decided to just create the one, large balcony which is the prominent feature in the middle of the tower. I placed this balcony on top of the large, lower rectangular section and then sat the upper section on top. Since the upper section had that large staircase, I needed somewhere for it to "spill out" onto and the large balcony was the answer. It was a rather inelegant solution...but at least it finished it off! Needless to say, I did quite a lot of the usual sanding of blocks. The only slightly unusual building technique I used for the tower was a sort of "precision block removal." Since I really did not have much of a plan when I started out building the tower, there were often times when I had to revise part of what I had constructed. Rather than soak the entire section in water and disassemble it, I used a small eyedropper bottle full of water. When I needed to remove a block, I would drip water on all of the seams around the block, until I could push the block out. Naturally, I was using tacky glue for the entire construction to make this possible. Molds used: Bell Tower Wizard's Tower Prison Tower Small Brick Turret Floor Tile Dimensions: 26x8x8"
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