Father's Day Project: Grandfather Clock

I won a small grandfather clock on e-bay for $12 or so.  It actually works and it's pretty cool.  It's not quite tall enough for Evangeline scale so its been hanging out in the doll room waiting for it's moment in the sun.  In honor of Father's Day I thought I would tackle the clock and give it to Mortimer for his study, which is a diorama that I am starting for him.

Here he is next to the clock before I did anything to it:

As you can see, it's not quite tall enough for him.  It need about 5 more inches.  So I've been throwing this one around for a while trying to figure out how I would make it taller.  Yesterday I was cleaning my attic and I found a box filled with cigar boxes.  No I don't smoke.  I used to do altered cigar boxes so I have a stash of them.  There was a cigar store next to our place in the city when we lived there and the guy who worked there used to save the empty boxes for me.  I could never bring myself to throw them away because I like the smell of them.  I'm so glad I didn't!  I found one that would make a perfect new base for this clock.

To start, I had to remove the original legs to the clock.  This was easily accomplished with a good whack from a hammer:

Here's a pic of the clock with it's soon-to-be-new base.  The finish on the box is very similar to that on the clock although in this pic it looks very different:

The one problem was that the cord to the clock needed the elevation from the legs.  I could have just cut the cord but I didn't want to lose the ability to have the clock work, which is a very cool detail so I had to drill some holes in the cigar box so the cord could pass through.  :

I glued the box shut.  Then I glued the clock to the box:

And here's Mortimer with his new grandfather clock:

Once I build his study (hint, hint, of what's to come) and get this in place, you won't ever be able to tell it was a cigar box!  As a side bonus the box still smells of fresh cigars so it scents the diorama with a very masculine smell.  Let's peek in to Mortimer's study but we can't stay long.  With this recent bout of Spanish flu going around, he's very busy indeed.