How to make OO slate roof tiles?

[signalmaintainer]

Hate to ask a question unless I've exhausted all the known resources I have at my disposal. But it seems to me sometime back there was a topic on making slate roof tiles fron styrene. I can't find it.

 

Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks!

[JZ]

I would suggest using black plasticard to make indidual tiles. Not made tiles myself, but did use it for slate fencing on an earlier 009 layout.

[signalmaintainer]

Thanks for the tip, JZ!

 

I may have found a solution, York Modelmaking, through one more search on this site just now using the word "tiles" rather than the phrase "slate tiles."

 

This company has what I'm looking for, and the price is very reasonable. They even accept PayPal.

 

[Tim Chambers]

If you can get hold of a copy of "The Peco Book of Model Buildings" by Mike Gill,it has excellent guidance on how to slate a roof ( and many other goodies as well).Best wishes, Tim.

[Isambard Kingdom Brunel]

4MM Slates:

 

You can use either paper, or 10thou plasticard.

 

In MS Excel create a grid withcolumns 4mm wide and rows alternately 3.5 and 2.5 mm.

 

Print onto paper or Plasticard.

 

If using paper scribe the column lines lightly with an old biro or blunt knife.

 

i use plasticard and scribe the columns lightly with an olfa cutter.

 

Cut rows of tiles using both a 3.5 and 2.5 row.

 

Individual tiles can be cut, notched or removed to give a bit of variety.

 

Mark the under roof with some paralell lines to the gutter

 

Start at the bottom and lay a strip, lay the second strip on top overlapping to 2.5mm line and offset by half a tile.

 

I use mekpak and a small brush.

 

Keep going until you get to the top, then turn it round and do the other side.

 

Valleys will need a gutter installing and ridges will need a ridge tile.

 

Flashing around chimneys and dormers and lots of other little nuances which yoe can catch in photos

 

Hope this helps

[PhilH]

Scalescenes grey roof tiles

[Il Grifone]

Slates are very thin (less than 1/4") so a great deal of relief is not required. Strips of paper would be quite adequate.

[signalmaintainer]

Thanks for all the help, everyone. Thin paper sounds like another good alternative, especially with the exchange rate these days. I'm thinking a heavier construction paper, rather than typical 20-pound bond paper, would be appropriate.

[Adrian Wintle]

There is a North American company that makes sheets of roof tiles. I forget their name, but the samples I looked at appeared pretty good.

 

Adrian

[Captain Kernow]

Apart from the product sold by York Modelmakers, which looks very good, I couldn't have said it better than PhilH:

 

Scalescenes grey roof tiles

 

These are simply superb and self-coloured. All you need to do, once you have cut them out, is to colour the edge of the cut paper with a grey felt tip pen...

[Campaman]

A bit of a long winded process, but I have cut first strips of a reasonable quality paper and then cut the strips into individual slates and the stick those on one at a time to create a slate roof.

 

A bit of subtle painting, and weathering and I usually also give it a light rub over with a 6b pencil in places, for that slate effect.

[buffalo]

...I'm thinking a heavier construction paper, rather than typical 20-pound bond paper, would be appropriate.

Another case of 'divided by a common language' or, at least, the different units in normal use on either side of the Atlantic. I had to look up what '20-pound' paper was because over here we are more used to specifying paper in g/m² Helpfully, there's a useful conversion table on Wikipedia that shows 20-pound to be roughly equivalent to 75g/m². Apparently, this weight of paper is around 0.097mm thick so in 4mm that would be about 0.29", or 0.33" in 3.5mm scale. As Il Grifone mentioned, UK roofing slates are typically less than 0.25", so even this would be slightly over-scale, but probably within the range of acceptable exaggeration.

 

btw. in some slate-rich areas, they may be much thicker and considerably larger.

 

Nick

[Stubby47]

Apart from the product sold by York Modelmakers, which looks very good, I couldn't have said it better than PhilH:

 

 

 

These are simply superb and self-coloured. All you need to do, once you have cut them out, is to colour the edge of the cut paper with a grey felt tip pen...

 

or print on to grey coloured paper...

[signalmaintainer]

Yes another shining example of why this is my favorite model railway site on the Web -- several helpful, insightful answers from experienced modelers! Thanks again, everyone!