Fiddling On The Roof - Have I Missed Christmas?
Entry posted by paulprice
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Well I have had a couple of days off , because the people at work claimed it was Christmas, but I had my doubts as if it was Christmas that would mean the Fat Man in the Red Suit would bring me some presents.
So I laid in wait to see if this Christmas rumour was true, and hoped if it was I would actually get a present this year, or I would spend another year as the "little boy that Santa Claus forgot". Whilst I was waiting to see if I got even the smallest of presents, or if I would be left heart broken for another year I got some modelling in.
As previous posts have shown I have ben working on the buildings that will form the street scene that runs along the front of the layout, and my last post saw me considering the production of windows for the buildings. Even though I set out with every intention of doing this, I was scuppered by forgetting where I had put my clear plasti-card.
Not being bothered to actually look for the plasti-card I decided to work another task, the roofs for the buildings, so I started with the most difficult roof first, the one for the corner pub. I'm not sure if I'm the only one to do this, but depending upon the building I like to make the roofs as sub structures. As the roof will actually sit inside the buildings outer walls, I first cut the relevant former.
To aid with the process I marked out the relevant lines for the various roof panels, then cut formers that would be set at the correct height for the final roof, glued these in place along the centre of the roof.
Once this was done, I then cut out the various geometric shapes from card to form the roof, (my old maths Teacher would be proud) and pretty soon, had the basic structure, ready to have some slates adding. This is where the hard part of the process came into play, deciding how to go about this. I like roofs to have some texture as I think it adds a little interest to models, especially as we view them mostly from above.
I have seen some pretty good models where the builder has used commercial brick cards but have added a little relief by scoring the tile/slate lines on the roof panels, but never wanting to take the easier option or try anything new, I went back to one of my old, painstaking methods, guaranteed to make you go crazy.
Step one is to cover the surface of the roof with graph paper so you can have a reference points for the next stage, of applying slate strips.
Then I cut strips of graph paper the correct length for the roof but two squares wide, then the fun bit begins, working lengthways I then cut slits "one square" deep, once each strip is completed, it is then glued to the roof following the guide lines on the graph paper I had applied earlier.
Its not a quick process, but as I was lying in wait for the infamous Santa, I thought it would fill in some time, so I plodded on with the task. If you use this approach it does not matter if a couple of the strips are not applied perfectly straight, as is you look at pictures of old buildings you will see that some slate courses have slipped. I know maybe I should have applied a few more courses, but as I work in N gauge, sometimes I think a few corners need to be cut, and its the impression that counts.
I even got to work on the roof, for one of the other layout buildings, all I need to do now is sort out the chimney stacks, and apply some paint to the roofs, with the nice new pants Santa brought me for Christmas as I have been a very good boy 
THAT IS I WOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO APPLY SOME PAINT, IF THE FAT FELLA IN THE RED SUIT HAD ACTUALLY BOTHERED TO LEAVE ME ANY. BE WARNED SANTA YOU HAVE MADE AN NEMY HERE, IF I EVER MEET YOU I WILL KICK YOU IN YOUR JINGLE BELLS..
Until next time as ever happy modelling
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