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| roof tiles from cheap cardboard found at the back of notepads |
The early stages of this project saw big progress. Walls appeared, stairways,a breach and a gateway filled six feet of boards. Gouging and plastering and sanding and painting created a real sense that things were cracking on apace.
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| this middle board has taken over 40 hours alone so far. |
When I started assembling the buildings around the gateway area I began to run into some real challenges - building symmetrical buildings onto tapering wall sections called for much planning cutting and pinning.
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| cutting door hinges |
Roof construction is challenging. The ubiquitous wooden coffee stirrers came into their own as a scratch building material.
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| Not yet painted - hinges and handle in place - brickwork is card. |
I had to think of how to construct such mundane items as doors, gates, window frames, door knobs, hinges, half timber sections, fascias , a draw bridge and drawbridge chains, thatched roofing, fixing rings etc.
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| mesh grills on windows - I may yet seal this room up to create a more robust roof |
This really put my ingenuity to the test and had me scrabbling through boxes and old materials bins which I literally had hung onto for more than 20 years.
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| finishing off the structure of the upper windows - built on wood |
I have actually used stuff on this job which I acquired and stored as far back as 1995 and never used. The hording qualities of wargamers are I believe, unsurpassed!
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This roof was difficult because I hadn't planned well enough
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This post may help some of you who intend to embark on scratch building of mundane but necessary little features which lift a model up a couple of levels.
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| starting to take shape now - some tiles and chimney added |
The humble wooden stirrer which is easy to cut and shape contributed to fascias, roofing sub structures, door panels, the gates of Derry, a drawbridge, hatches, half timber sections on the large military guard house and other patch jobs here and there.
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| where it's going is becoming more obvious now |
I used a very useful sand, PVA and water mix to get the rough stone effect on most of the walls and buildings. This is easy just to paint on a dries very quickly.
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| this roof was tricky too |
The hinges for the doors are made from cobbled pattern plastic sheeting which, when painted looks like rough wrought iron.
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| looking through the guard house gable end window |
I even found something in an old store box that I thought I would find very difficult to buy.. some wire mess for the screened windows of some of the buildings.
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| to allow all edges to be finished properly I'll probably seal this room (without the guard inside of course) |
The cruciform window frames were made from matchsticks. I was struggling with the idea of wrought iron door rings/handles and couldn't decide on anything until one day I noticed a bag of buckshot someone had given me to use as cannon balls! Voila! - Iron door handles in one!
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| feel the love.. it's had a lot of it so far! |
There are various other details too numerous to mention but I am sure you will spot something here which you can use.
