Pulled up and printed this topic from November, 1999, but no pictures are shown--the dreaded red x in a box has replaced all the photographs from that thread.

What was the correct lantern door position? Looking at the back of the house where the two entry doors are located (the back being where the circular wreath is hanging between two upstairs windows), my sculpture's gray lantern door looks out over the back right corner of the tower roof and the right chimney (the snowman is below and to the left of that chimney). Starting from the gray door and moving right, the 1st panel has a porthole window, the 2nd panel is empty, the 3rd panel has a porthole window, the 4th panel is empty, the 5th panel has a porthole window, the 6th panel is empty, the 7th panel has a porthole window, and the 8th panel has the gray door.

The whole tower appears to be skewed to my eye. A "seam" adjoining the panels is centered on the back's center chimney. If this is a mistake in assembly, were any made that were correct? If so, any idea as to where the correction was made?

Thanks,

Sandy

P.S. I've edited this post--boldfaced type added after initial post made.

Sandy,

As far as I can tell, my Big Bay is the same as yours -- I think.

But looking at the 2 doors, the snowman IS TOWARDS THE LEFT. The rest of your description matches perfectly to what I have.

bobo

Sandy,
Mine is exactly like your description, including the snowman location, but I do not discern any obvious skewing of the tower that you mention. If I look directly down at the back center chimney it does appear to be rotated very slightly to the right (clockwise)but that is all.

Jim

Mine matches your description, too, Sandy. However, if what you are calling the "seam" is the same as what I am calling the seam, it appears to be rotated to the right (counterclockwise) slightly more than it should be.

I will search and see if I still have the images and reload them.. I would re-shoot them but I don't still have both versions, I helped out a friend who didn't have a Big Bay and wanted one..

This picture shows what I'm calling the back of the piece. Grace's description of the seam between the left blank panel and the first porthole window on the right panel showing the chimney to be skewed is correct. However, I think the lantern room door placement is off by at least one panel and maybe even two panels. It's located on the panel next to the porthole window (moving right) and is just viewable in this picture:



This picture shows a close-up of the seam between the blank panel and the porthole window panel and the door placement:




Pictures on the web don't provide close-ups of the lantern room door--at least none that I've been able to find. Does anybody have a picture of the actual lighthouse that shows the lantern room door's placement?

I have a ton of images of Big Bay as it is one of my favorite lighthouses to photograph.. I used it as an example of how to shoot and tell a story when you photograph a lighthouse at the Baltimore Reunion in a seminar.. So I should have one or two that shows the position. Since the Christmas Big Bay Lighthouses aren't numbered there wasn't any way to tell when or why the variation of the tower took place..

The picture shown in this link indicates the assembly was wrong, as it shows a porthole window aligned with the center chimney. It does not show the door, but definitely shows the window, not a seam or a blank panel.

Does anyone have a correctly aligned piece? Everyone who's posted here appears to have one like mine and I'm assuming they were all wrong--the sculptures, not the people.

Hmmmmm. . . .

Sandy

http://www.photography-plus.com/image_pages/big_bay.htm

If I remember correctly there is a porthole window facing four different directions.. the following image link shows door location..

I appears that thanks to Sandy's keen eye, we might have an entire production line that is incorrect. Looking at Paul's picture, the four portals on the piece should be facing four directions -- let's say north, south, east and west. The door faces the corner.

Nice going Sandy. I don't believe anyone ever picked this up before -- or if someone did, I never heard of it. The entire top appears to be skewed to the right by one panel.

Did you ever work in Quality Control?

bobo

Bob,

Nope, no QC experience. But I'm a stickler for detail--drives my family bonkers!!

Sandy

P.S. Anybody notice the color variation? All pictures of the real McCoy appear to be red brick; HL's piece is tan. Curious as to why.

This image pretty well shows the locations..


This is the same image but wide to show that this is the front doors side of the lighthouse not the tower side..


This shows why I love going to, staying in and shooting images of this lighthous..

It may take a while to find the comparison shots of the HL towers of two variations that I posted in December of 1999.. I have probably gone through three different computers since then and the only place I have a copy is on a CD someplace.. I have over 500 CD's with images stored on them.

I am going to buy another external hard drive and transfer all of them to it.. I have everything back to 2001 on an external hard drive now, I just need to go further back and also use one of the new cataloging programs that i now have available..

It may be easier to get the second lighthouse back to re-shoot the images..

Any thoughts on color variation? Same problem as with Beavertail, RI? Nice picture, wrong time of day?

Sandy

The Big Bay lighthouse is one of two lighthouses that I have seen over the years that really can't take being in sunlight.. They fade rapidly, the other being Currituck. The Big Bay that I still have is fairly close to the real lighthouse, just a little less of a red shade in the bricks..

Paul,

Were the production pieces red or brown/tan? Even the catalogue picture on the HL site is more brown/tan than it is red. Are you saying the production run was red and they've faded to the brown/tan, or am I not reading your response correctly?

Sandy

What I'm trying to say is that the real lighthouse has a little more red in the brown than the HL's version, but that a lot of the ones I have seen have faded from the sunlight.. I saw one in a store one time that was sitting in the front window of the store and the side away from the window was about six shades darker than the front side was toward the outside window..

The one they had at Big Bay lighthouse was so faded that I thought at first glance it wasn't Harbour Lights Big Bay lighthouse..