4mm Terry's Card Buildings Thread
- Thread starter Terry
- Start date
The rear door and step were attached, the door being a piece of scribed card..
The two sides of the roof were cut from mount board and glued in place. Red Tiles TX41a from Scalescenes. Weathering required..
I gave some thought as to how to replicate the fancy brickwork under the eaves and decided that it could be achieved by gluing the appropriate brick or stucco paper to 1mm card, cutting a strip to the right width, and then cutting off small squares from the strip. I have a small guillotine which proved very useful here. I used small card spacers to ensure the squares were evenly spaced..
Both sides of the building were quickly completed. During the process of gluing the squares of card in place, I pushed a steel rule against the bottom edge of the squares to ensure they all lined up.
The gutters were glued in place (Evergreen No.242 half-round strip styrene). As you can see, they reduce the amount of fancy brick on view below the eaves..
The downpipes were made by my usual method - Evergreen No.221, 3/64" rod. Always willing to try something new, I decided to make the small brackets, which hold the downpipes to the wall, from the same self-adhesive labels used in making the windows. Part of the label was coloured black with a felt-tipped pen and a narrow strip cut off. A 5mm long portion of the strip was cut off for each bracket and carefully laid in place and firmed down with tweezers.
The ends of the gutters were painted with black acrylic paint.
Terry
The two sides of the roof were cut from mount board and glued in place. Red Tiles TX41a from Scalescenes. Weathering required..
I gave some thought as to how to replicate the fancy brickwork under the eaves and decided that it could be achieved by gluing the appropriate brick or stucco paper to 1mm card, cutting a strip to the right width, and then cutting off small squares from the strip. I have a small guillotine which proved very useful here. I used small card spacers to ensure the squares were evenly spaced..
Both sides of the building were quickly completed. During the process of gluing the squares of card in place, I pushed a steel rule against the bottom edge of the squares to ensure they all lined up.
The gutters were glued in place (Evergreen No.242 half-round strip styrene). As you can see, they reduce the amount of fancy brick on view below the eaves..
The downpipes were made by my usual method - Evergreen No.221, 3/64" rod. Always willing to try something new, I decided to make the small brackets, which hold the downpipes to the wall, from the same self-adhesive labels used in making the windows. Part of the label was coloured black with a felt-tipped pen and a narrow strip cut off. A 5mm long portion of the strip was cut off for each bracket and carefully laid in place and firmed down with tweezers.
The ends of the gutters were painted with black acrylic paint.
Terry
Good morning Rob. Nice to hear from you. Thank you very much for your kind comments.
Terry
Subtle weathering was applied to the roof using watercolour paints. I had previously sprayed the roof tiles with Testors Dullcote matt varnish before fitting to the roof. This meant I was able to apply watercolour paint without fear of the ink running. The tops of the chimneys were added using the strip of card covered in stucco paper, as used for the decorative brickwork under the eaves. The flashing around the chimneys was added using Scalescenes TX00b Roof Flashing.
Rectangles of card were glued to the chimney tops to represent the mortar into which the chimney pots are set, these being commercial white metal items which are widely available. Using watercolour paints I applied some more subtle weathering, such as rainwater streaks running down from the window sills. Advertising signs are from the excellent Sankey Scenics range @ www.sankeyscenics.com
Lastly, the shopkeeper's name was produced on my computer. I have used the same name as per the John Ahern drawing.
Here is the finished model..
Thank you for your interest in this build.
Terry
Rectangles of card were glued to the chimney tops to represent the mortar into which the chimney pots are set, these being commercial white metal items which are widely available. Using watercolour paints I applied some more subtle weathering, such as rainwater streaks running down from the window sills. Advertising signs are from the excellent Sankey Scenics range @ www.sankeyscenics.com
Lastly, the shopkeeper's name was produced on my computer. I have used the same name as per the John Ahern drawing.
Here is the finished model..
Thank you for your interest in this build.
Terry
34091 Weymouth
Western Thunderer
Absolutely excellent work. I would never have thought about scribing card before.
I look forward to seeing more.
Si
I look forward to seeing more.
Si
Bert's Garage
What follows is not a blow by blow account of how I built this structure, but I thought it worth showing the finished item.
I refer you to the drawings on page 114 of Miniature Building Construction by John H. Ahern, depicting Bert's Garage.
Here is my take on the building, lately renamed as Bert has taken early retirement to tend his vegetable plot. This project formed part of a 'Buildings Masterclass' run online via 'Zoom' for the enjoyment of fellow Orpington Model Railway Society members during the Covid19 lockdown.
As usual the building was constructed from 1.5mm thick mount board, in this case from a free off-cut purloined from a picture framer.
The walls were covered with Scalescenes' white clapboard, painted with a thin wash of green acrylic paint, after being varnished to prevent the ink from running. The roof was covered with Scalescenes' aged corrugated iron. Windows have a card frame and self-adhesive label glazing bars on discarded clear plastic packaging, as shown in the previous Village General Shop build. Signage is from the Sankey Scenics range @ Model Railway Signs Sankey Scenics
The lamp shade is a spare from a pack of Southern concrete lamps by Ratio, attached to a short length of wire. Gutters were formed from Evergreen No.242 2mm wide half-round strip styrene and downpipes from Evergreen No.221, 3/64" styrene rod, all painted with black acrylic paint. For the purposes of the tutorial I didn't intend to detail the interior of the building, so it was simply painted black.
Terry
What follows is not a blow by blow account of how I built this structure, but I thought it worth showing the finished item.
I refer you to the drawings on page 114 of Miniature Building Construction by John H. Ahern, depicting Bert's Garage.
Here is my take on the building, lately renamed as Bert has taken early retirement to tend his vegetable plot. This project formed part of a 'Buildings Masterclass' run online via 'Zoom' for the enjoyment of fellow Orpington Model Railway Society members during the Covid19 lockdown.
As usual the building was constructed from 1.5mm thick mount board, in this case from a free off-cut purloined from a picture framer.
The walls were covered with Scalescenes' white clapboard, painted with a thin wash of green acrylic paint, after being varnished to prevent the ink from running. The roof was covered with Scalescenes' aged corrugated iron. Windows have a card frame and self-adhesive label glazing bars on discarded clear plastic packaging, as shown in the previous Village General Shop build. Signage is from the Sankey Scenics range @ Model Railway Signs Sankey Scenics
The lamp shade is a spare from a pack of Southern concrete lamps by Ratio, attached to a short length of wire. Gutters were formed from Evergreen No.242 2mm wide half-round strip styrene and downpipes from Evergreen No.221, 3/64" styrene rod, all painted with black acrylic paint. For the purposes of the tutorial I didn't intend to detail the interior of the building, so it was simply painted black.
Terry
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Lyndhurstman
Western Thunderer
Lovely, Terry
I do like this. And I’m very grateful for the knowledge transfer, too.
Cheers
Jan
Herb Garden
Western Thunderer
Terry
Your work is really inspiring, I know nothing about making buildings but have a few to do this year so I will look to take some inspiration and make one or two in car
Please keep posting
George
David Waite
Western Thunderer
Hi Terry
The buildings you have made look wonderful and I love the old signs you have put on them.
David.
The buildings you have made look wonderful and I love the old signs you have put on them.
David.
Lancastrian
Western Thunderer
I know it's a good few months away at the moment, but Will Heath of St. Neots club, and who also built the 2mm Finescale layout of Swindon, will be doing "An Evening With..." on making buildings with card. This will be on the 26th March at 8pm. Details nearer the time will be available on the Guild website, The Gauge O Guild (Iain Young this coming Sunday)
For anyone interested, it could prove to be a nice addition to Terry's thread here.
For anyone interested, it could prove to be a nice addition to Terry's thread here.
A Lighthouse
The last chapter of my 1969 reprint of John H. Ahern's excellent book 'Miniature Building Construction' features a drawing of a small, attractive hexagonal lighthouse. When I made this model some years ago, I hade already constructed a number of the superb Scalescenes' downloadable buildings kits. I decided that it would be a simple matter to transfer the skills learned during that process, thus the use of templates or Base Layers as they are known by builders of Scalescenes' kits. If making this building again today, I would draw the elevations directly onto the card.
I began the process by drawing the Base Layers on plain paper. This was copied on my home printer/copier and the copies were used. The master was put away safely for possible use again in the future.
Next, I fixed the six walls and base to 2mm greyboard using a glue-stick and similarly fixed the roof to 1mm card. When dry, the parts were carefully cut out.
The next stage was to cover the walls using Scalescenes TX49 - Dressed Stone, applied using a glue-stick. Lintels were applied and window sills were cut from 1mm card covered in plain paper from the Dressed Stone sheet. At this stage the parts were given a couple of coats of Artists' Fixative spray to protect the print surface, as recommended by Scalescenes. Today, I use Testors Dullcote. Purely a personal preference.
I used some .20" x .30" Evergreen styrene strip to make the window frames. Today I would use card as shown earlier in the Village General Shop build. For the window panes I had to hand a packet of Scene-Setters Glazing Bars 3x4mm, which were produced by Freestone Model Accessories. I attached the glazing bars using Microscale Micro Kristal Klear. This is the stuff which you can use to make loco windows by dragging it accross the opening with a cocktail stick and it dries clear. Well it's also a plastic adhesive according to the bottle. Unlike Mek-pak etc., it doesn't stain the 'window glass'. Today I would use my preferred adhesive, 'Cosmic Shimmer'. Again purely personal choice.
The Promarker was used to colour the edges of 1mm card strips which were fixed to the rear of the window to give the impression of some thickness to the wall.
One of the completed windows..
All windows completed. The walls were not distorted as shown in the photo. However, the walls are wider at the bottom than the top.
Terry
The last chapter of my 1969 reprint of John H. Ahern's excellent book 'Miniature Building Construction' features a drawing of a small, attractive hexagonal lighthouse. When I made this model some years ago, I hade already constructed a number of the superb Scalescenes' downloadable buildings kits. I decided that it would be a simple matter to transfer the skills learned during that process, thus the use of templates or Base Layers as they are known by builders of Scalescenes' kits. If making this building again today, I would draw the elevations directly onto the card.
I began the process by drawing the Base Layers on plain paper. This was copied on my home printer/copier and the copies were used. The master was put away safely for possible use again in the future.
Next, I fixed the six walls and base to 2mm greyboard using a glue-stick and similarly fixed the roof to 1mm card. When dry, the parts were carefully cut out.
The next stage was to cover the walls using Scalescenes TX49 - Dressed Stone, applied using a glue-stick. Lintels were applied and window sills were cut from 1mm card covered in plain paper from the Dressed Stone sheet. At this stage the parts were given a couple of coats of Artists' Fixative spray to protect the print surface, as recommended by Scalescenes. Today, I use Testors Dullcote. Purely a personal preference.
I used some .20" x .30" Evergreen styrene strip to make the window frames. Today I would use card as shown earlier in the Village General Shop build. For the window panes I had to hand a packet of Scene-Setters Glazing Bars 3x4mm, which were produced by Freestone Model Accessories. I attached the glazing bars using Microscale Micro Kristal Klear. This is the stuff which you can use to make loco windows by dragging it accross the opening with a cocktail stick and it dries clear. Well it's also a plastic adhesive according to the bottle. Unlike Mek-pak etc., it doesn't stain the 'window glass'. Today I would use my preferred adhesive, 'Cosmic Shimmer'. Again purely personal choice.
The Promarker was used to colour the edges of 1mm card strips which were fixed to the rear of the window to give the impression of some thickness to the wall.
One of the completed windows..
All windows completed. The walls were not distorted as shown in the photo. However, the walls are wider at the bottom than the top.
Terry
It was at this point I realised that it hadn't been necessary to cut an aperture for the door! On the drawing there is a small portico sheltering the door, which stands vertical. The walls all slope inwards from bottom to top. The portico was made from small pieces of card covered with the same Scalescenes TX49 - Dressed Stone paper. I made the door by scribing the planks on 1mm card using the back of a scalpel blade. The card was then coloured using blue and light grey Promarkers. These markers are very useful in that they are double-ended with a point at one end and a wedge shape at the other. I used the wedge-shaped ends to cover the door in broad strokes. Warning: Promarkers are alcohol based and tend to bleed along the surface of paper and card. A door-handle was fashioned from brass wire. Coloured pencils were lightly rubbed over the finished door to add some slight variation to the colour. All walls were glued together and the door assembly was fitted. The door frame was made with plastic strip in the same way as the window frames, although today I would use card.
Terry
Terry
Wonderful stuff! There's something really enjoyable and rewarding (and relaxing) about scratchbuilding structures from card - it's how I always used to do it too.
I think Freestone are still trading - I did manage to get the most recent catalogues a few months ago although I didn't place an order.
Matt
I think Freestone are still trading - I did manage to get the most recent catalogues a few months ago although I didn't place an order.
Matt
So, this is where we were at..
The six lower plinth walls were fixed in place. Each had to be chamfered with a scalpel on the inside at both ends, and had to match its immediate neighbours at each end, all of which slope inwards towards the top..
The small lower plinth was now fixed in place. This job was similar to the larger plinth in that each wall had to be chamfered at each end. Like the larger plinth you have to remember to take the stone paper over the top edge to cover the card..
The time had arrived to cover those long vertical joins. Two narrow strips of card were glued together along the long edges to produce an angled strip. On the edge of the Scalescenes Dressed Stone sheet I found some plain areas of the appropriate colour with no stones printed thereon. I covered the corner angles with this. If the angles were covered with the printed stone, the mortar joints would never line up with the walls either side. Remember, the walls are inclined inwards AND tapering in width as we move up the building. The angled strips were fixed in place over the corner joins..
I'm sure that all kinds of mathematical solutions could be arrived at to ensure the mortar joints could be made to line up on both sides of each corner. However, I was never any good at maths, and anyway, I fancied an easy solution. I simply drew the mortar courses lightly with a pencil and then 'knocked them back' a bit with an eraser. Total time for all corners to be completed, about five minutes..
Terry
The six lower plinth walls were fixed in place. Each had to be chamfered with a scalpel on the inside at both ends, and had to match its immediate neighbours at each end, all of which slope inwards towards the top..
The small lower plinth was now fixed in place. This job was similar to the larger plinth in that each wall had to be chamfered at each end. Like the larger plinth you have to remember to take the stone paper over the top edge to cover the card..
The time had arrived to cover those long vertical joins. Two narrow strips of card were glued together along the long edges to produce an angled strip. On the edge of the Scalescenes Dressed Stone sheet I found some plain areas of the appropriate colour with no stones printed thereon. I covered the corner angles with this. If the angles were covered with the printed stone, the mortar joints would never line up with the walls either side. Remember, the walls are inclined inwards AND tapering in width as we move up the building. The angled strips were fixed in place over the corner joins..
I'm sure that all kinds of mathematical solutions could be arrived at to ensure the mortar joints could be made to line up on both sides of each corner. However, I was never any good at maths, and anyway, I fancied an easy solution. I simply drew the mortar courses lightly with a pencil and then 'knocked them back' a bit with an eraser. Total time for all corners to be completed, about five minutes..
Terry
The small walls at the top of each side were now fixed in place. These were made to the same thickness as the corners. You will notice that the lower walls, or plinths, are much thicker giving a certain stability to the structure.
The roof has was cut from some nice hard card. I don't know where this card came from but it appeared to have a darker card in the centre, faced on both sides with a hard white card. I do tend to collect odd pieces of card which might come in handy for modelling purposes. A smaller hexagon was attached to the underside to ensure a snugly fit into the top of the structure. The hole is for the wiring to pass through to the lamp.
Roof test-fitted to top of structure..
The roof was given a coat of shellac (French polish) to harden it to prevent the corners from fraying. It was then painted with a mixture of grey and brown matt enamel paint. The colour turned out a bit on the dark side so I gave it another lighter coat after this photo was taken. The step was also fixed in place, it being two pieces of card laminated together and covered with paper from the Scalescenes' Dressed Stone sheet..
The drawing of this lighthouse in Miniature Building Construction shows a cornice on the underside of this lower roof. As it happened, I had some plastic strip of just the right shape..
The cornice was cut to length, with corners mitred, and fixed in place on the underside of the roof. Not truly John Ahern style using a plastic moulding, but I suspect he would have used it had it been available to him instead of stripwood. Well, that's my theory anyway. Why make life hard for yourself? The building is upside down in this photo..
In a surprisingly short period of time, I found that I had completed the cornice, thus:
Here is the completed (lower) roof with cornice in place atop the walls awaiting painting..
Terry
The roof has was cut from some nice hard card. I don't know where this card came from but it appeared to have a darker card in the centre, faced on both sides with a hard white card. I do tend to collect odd pieces of card which might come in handy for modelling purposes. A smaller hexagon was attached to the underside to ensure a snugly fit into the top of the structure. The hole is for the wiring to pass through to the lamp.
Roof test-fitted to top of structure..
The roof was given a coat of shellac (French polish) to harden it to prevent the corners from fraying. It was then painted with a mixture of grey and brown matt enamel paint. The colour turned out a bit on the dark side so I gave it another lighter coat after this photo was taken. The step was also fixed in place, it being two pieces of card laminated together and covered with paper from the Scalescenes' Dressed Stone sheet..
The drawing of this lighthouse in Miniature Building Construction shows a cornice on the underside of this lower roof. As it happened, I had some plastic strip of just the right shape..
The cornice was cut to length, with corners mitred, and fixed in place on the underside of the roof. Not truly John Ahern style using a plastic moulding, but I suspect he would have used it had it been available to him instead of stripwood. Well, that's my theory anyway. Why make life hard for yourself? The building is upside down in this photo..
In a surprisingly short period of time, I found that I had completed the cornice, thus:
Here is the completed (lower) roof with cornice in place atop the walls awaiting painting..
Terry