A while ago I had my eye on this resin wishing well from Miniatures.com. At $28 it’s pretty pricey, but I thought it wouldn’t be too hard to make something like that and tucked the idea away. Now that I’m working on the Thatched Cottage, I decided to give it a try.

Read on for the step-by-step of how I did it. I’ve included a parts list at the bottom with dimensions for each of the pieces. My well is half scale (1:24) but you could double the dimensions to create a 1:12 version.

The base of the well started out as a piece of PVC pipe that’s 1-7/8″ wide and 1-1/8″ tall. (It’s actually 1-1/2″ pipe — that’s the inside diameter.)

I painted the pipe gray as a base for the stonework.

While the paint was drying, I cut support pieces from 5/16″ x 3/16″ basswood. The roof pieces are from a scrap of 2-1/2″ wide luan plywood that some trim I recently purchased was taped to when I received it in the mail.

The decorative corners are Northeastern Scale Lumber BRE-1 brackets that I’ve used in various other places, like the Victorianna’s bay windows and the Gull Bay dormers. These aren’t listed on Northeastern’s website anymore, which sadly may mean they’ve been discontinued. They are totally optional for the well, or you could substitute another right-angle bracket or small apex trim.

The last major component is a 1:12 spit fork from Olde Mountain Miniatures. Alternatively you could make something like this out of wire; I bought it because I was trying to fill up a shopping cart enough to get free shipping and it seemed like it would work.

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