How to Make Miniature Roofs from Cardboard, Part 3 Cont'd

The plain, back roof is done. Just a matter of laying row after row of cardboard slates. There was just the narrowest bit of the ridge-beam that wasn't covered, and that will be covered with the ridge-tiles.

Saturday was devoted in its entirety to doing the roof on the front of the workshop, the part with the louvers. This meant a lot of careful snipping and cutting to fit the various courses neatly around the little roof vents and the chimney. I found it helpful to mark, in pencil with a ruler, where the new course of slates overlapped the previous one. You also have to measure regularly from the tile courses to the ridge-beam, to make sure you are proceeding in a straight line. I had to fudge about 1/16" or 1-2 mm or two twice or so on each side to make the lines perfectly horizontal.

The first few rows are in place, they fit quite nicely with the bottoms of the louvers. From here on in, it is a lot of careful cutting while keeping the overlap of the tiles in place as much as possible. In a real old slate roof, the tiles get smaller as you get nearer the ridge-beam; however, in miniature I decided to just use regular courses.

It's done! Well, except for that ridge-tile course. With a flash the roof surface is far too shiny for my tastes, I will try matte varnish over it to see if that dulls things down. The chimney pots were decided on today as well; I am using a pair of resin pots I picked up at Birmingham Miniatura two years ago. One of them is somewhat crooked on the bottom, that will have to be shimmed when glued. The narrow top course of chimney brick will come off, and I will do a layer of bricks for the top of the chimney with nice little hollows for the pots. These days we use concrete as a cap on our chimneys, but all the photos I've seen of Tudor chimneys have brick caps. Fortunately, I have just enough paper clay left to do the chimney top.

Tomorrow I hope to start on the shop part of the Tudor Apothecary; the Workroom build is pretty much done, except for a few small finishing touches. The first weekend in April I hope to be at the CFB Shearwater Hobby Show in Halifax, NS, and my plan is to bring this building and its partner, in whatever state of completion it is by then, to display at the show, along with last year's Camp MiniHaHa project, the Anton Pieck-inspired Pawn Shop.

How to Make Miniature Slate Roofs from Cardboard Part 3

Things went a little faster than I thought they would, which meant that I could start on the roof of the Tudor Apothecary Workshop.  First of all, I had to age the plaster-work.

The first coat is a yellowish dirty water wash, as the area under the roof overhang on the chimney end would naturally retain more soot drifting down from the chimney.

The arch end of the building has a smoother finish, as it will be mostly covered up by the roof of the shop proper, so it needs to look more like an interior finish.

The dirt, soot and greenish algae has been added. As it is a bit too yellow, it will need to be scrubbed out a little to better match the lower storey.

On the open end, all that is needed is a little general dirtying up, from smoky air, candles, braziers and the like.

Now we install the roof tilt-board; this is a slip of scrap wood 1/8" or 3-4mm thick at the bottom end, tapering off to near nothing at the top. This is what will support the cardboard slates, and give a very slight lip to the edge of the roof.

As the open, arch end of the roof has no overhang, I had to use masking tape to hold the glued tilt-board in place until it dried. The edges are then painted dark brown, and we wait for everything to adhere nicely. The first course of slates - cardboard strips prepared in previous posts - is glued with an overhang of about 1/8" or 3-4 mm. Subsequent courses are glued at the same distance, below the previous course's top edge. Then you just add  each succeeding courses. Because I have to glue each strip down separately, holding it in place with masking tape, this will take about 3 times as long as previous roofs, which had overhangs on both sides. Those roofs were done 3 strips at a time, held in place to dry, about 20 mins., by a slat of scrap wood held on by spring clamps that neatly held the slate strips in place.

Four courses are in place in the above photo. Note that the slates overlap about the middle of each preceding course; I had prepared strips that began with both a half slate and a whole slate, to make this a nice, quick process. The end by the clamp is being trimmed as I go along; I had to lay a few courses to decide on the finished overhang on the chimney end. This is the back roof; the process is pretty simple until I get to the chimney, then I will have to cut and fit the courses around that. The edges of the chimney have "lead" flashing, silvered copper self-adhesive tape darkened with a permanent black marker pen.

Before I go to bed tonight, I will have filled in up to the chimney; tomorrow, when I am hopefully fresh and wide awake, I will start adding the strips that have to be cut to accommodate the chimney.

The top of the roof will have a piece of bent cardboard to act as the top course. That still has to be made, I saved a paper tablet back for this recently. It will be cut to fit, so will have to wait until the entire roof has its slates.

Further to Aging....

Before I discovered chalk aging, I used very watery colour washes. This is what I used on this particular building. The paint underneath is a textured paint called suede, which was custom coloured to a meerschaum pipe colour. I have a quart of it, which means quite a lot of buildings can still be coloured with this paint.

Aging comes to me from the artwork of Anton Pieck, a Dutch artist who is best known for his Dickensian scenes, generally including timbered buildings that are quite discoloured and worn with age. I always loved his illustrations, and have used some of his ideas in my minis. I think Mr. Pieck may also have inspired Rik Pierce, as his buildings remind me of Pieck's work. Some miniaturists in South Africa have reproduced Pieck-type buildings in one-twelfth scale, and they look just wonderful.

My trip to the US had the hoped-for results, as I was able to buy the matte exterior sealer I use on all my paper-clay brickwork; it was no longer available at our local Michael's store. As well, I was able to find some basswood in the sizes I needed to continue work on the Japanese scene I was working on. Michael's these days carries Revel basswood, which becomes completely "furry" when you touch it, even with a 600 or 800 grit sandpaper.  A.C.Moore's in Bangor still carries MidWestern basswood, thank heavens! Of course, I have to drive for four blessed hours through the piney woods to get there....

Age Can Be Wonderful....

The Tudor House, like the Tudor Market, closes up completely. The narrow view is the actual front of the house, which stands on a corner, while the view with the door opens on the other street. The wider walls are the ones that come out. Currently, they are a straight friction fit, but I may have to come up with something else once I get the support brackets on under the eave beams.

Tomorrow, Sunday, I am off to Bangor, ME for the day with my daughter. It will be the last long trip before the winter hits. Given the weather in my neck of the woods, it's unlikely we'll be making any other long trips until April. On the list are visits to A.C. Moore's and Joanne's Fabrics, in the hope of scoring some mini supplies I can no longer get here. Her main goal is a visit to Hot Topix, a punky sort of clothing store heavily inspired by Japanese street fashions.

We are tidying up the garden in anticipation of Tropical Storm Sandy brushing by us on Monday....