Being new to 7mm scale, I haven't got my head round the size of it yet, except that it's BIG!!! I've got a track plan for the layout printed out full size, with some track and stock standing on it, and I wanted to see what the buildings would be like. For my OO Ingletyme, I knocked up some quick mock-ups from the main parts of the Scalescenes kits I'll be using, but without the paper overlays. For this one, I thought I'd do a bit better, and use it as an opportunity to practice designing buildings on the computer, and actually building them. It may well be in use for some time, so I wanted something fairly presentable too.

I want one of the original Rother Valley Railway buildings. They were all corrugated iron, and all but one was in the usual position at the back of the platform, and had a canopy. The exception was Wittersham Road, which was on ground level behind the platform, at right angles to the track, and didn't have a canopy. I think this fits the space I have available better, but I may end up with either arrangement. The smallest surviving building is at Bodiam, and I have drawings of it from The Colonel Stephens Society. Below is the road side in 1978, when the station was unused and overgrown. I actually used the second photo on this page as a guide while building it. The platform and road side of the building have the same layout of doors and windows that makes building it easier.

I haven't got blow by blow pictures, so here's a description of what I did:

1) Scanned the rear of the building into GIMP from the Colonel Stephens Society drawing.

2) Only a small section of the drawing has lines drawn to represent the corrugated iron, so I copied and pasted this multiple times into a new layer to cover the wall. Then I cut out the areas where there were doors and windows. I then applied a colour fill. It should be cream, but mine came out a rather gaudy yellow, so I must do better next time! I set the Opacity of the layer to 85.5%, so the other layers show through.

3) On a new layer, I coloured the plinth in a dark grey and set the Opacity to 88.6%. These Opacities were set by pure guesswork/trial and error/incompetence!

4) Next I added a colour layer for the doors and windows, again with 85.5% Opacity. The frames were filled with red, and the glass with light grey, although they printed with a bit of a red tint. I must experiment more to improve things like this. By now, you may have gathered that I wasn't planning to cut window openings!

5) I then copied and pasted the wall area only into a new file, and resized it as the drawing is rather smaller than 7mm scale.

6) I followed a similar process for the end walls. I haven't bothered to add lean-tos, but may do when I build the final version.

7) I printed two copies of the sides and ends on my HP Color Laserjet, then started building.

8 ) The entire building is built out of Bonio packets. When shopping for dog food I make sure I choose undamaged boxes, and treat them carefully until the contents are eaten! I stuck the sides and ends onto the plain side using Pritt, pressed down firmly with a roller, and left to dry. Then I cut them out, leaving an extra strip at top and bottom of the sides, and the bottom of the ends. I scored along the edge of these strips, and bent them at right angles. This great increased the rigidity.

9) Assembly was then pretty much by making it up as I went along, with corners reinforced with right angled triangular pieces of card and strips bent longways. I used a mixture of Pritt and UHU, depending on which seemed best for each part. I hadn't made the roof at this stage, but added two long uprights angled at the top to support it. Edges of most of the card were coloured with a black felt tipped pen or highlight pens before assembly, as it's better than doing it as an afterthought!

This is after completion, but helps to show how the walls were assembled:

10) The roof was cut to fit from a single piece of card, then scored and folded down the middle. Fortunately I'd managed to get the building pretty square, so the roof was no problem.

11) An oversize roof overlay was drawn in GIMP, with a section of the "corrugated iron" from the end wall copied and pasted multiple times. Then it was coloured grey, but didn't print quite as I would have liked! I also added two finials copied and pasted from the end walls to this sheet.

12) Gutters were made from a strip of card coloured with a black permanent marker. Several parallel lines were scored close together, and shaped by wrapping round a steel rule. I doubled up the thickness where it went under the roof and it all fitted together nicely without needing fascia boards.

13) The printed roof overlay was stuck to the roof with Pritt and pressed down with the roller. When dry, I cut the paper round the edges, rather than wrapping it under, then coloured the edges. I then stuck the gutters to the roof, and left it for a while to dry.

14) I stuck the roof to the building using UHU. I need to sort out some better way to hold roofs in place, than holding it in place with my hands, as I don't have enough fingers and bits with no pressure applied tend to move!

15) Finally, I added a ridge using one of the strips cut off the oversized roof overlay, and stuck the extra finials on the back of the ones that were part of the wall.

The end result is a bit basic, and rather bright, but it was a good way to practice some of the techniques I can use for more sophisticated buildings later. It doesn't look quite so gaudy in real life, honest! When I get round to learning how to do weathering, it will be something to practice on! I'm impressed with how strong and rigid the building is, with a just a single thickness of Bonio packet, although I don't know if it will warp in time. If it does it won't matter, as it will have served its purpose, but it will be interesting to observe it.

I plan to make the final building with full 3D corrugations. And proper windows of course! It won't be for some time, and I need to investigate what sources of plastic or metal 7mm corrugated iron are available.