Jump to content
 

Scratch-building a hipped roof


Recommended Posts

Hipped roof construction, though costlier and more complicated, has advantages over gable roof construction in that it is subject to lower wind-loading and gives eave and gutter protection to all four walls of a structure, thus making it suitable for buildings in exposed locations such as signal boxes.

 

post-106-128272196929_thumb.jpg

Copyright DL Dickson

 

Newcomers to scratch-building may avoid them because of the perceived difficulty in setting them out, so I offer the method below to those who have yet to find a way to do it.

 

 

The only necessity is a scale drawing of the side and end elevations, i.e. the shape of the roof that you see when you look at the 'front' and 'end' of the building. With those two drawings, and a pair of compasses you will be able to measure the length of the ridge, [D-A], the length of the lower sides and ends, [E-C, C-B] and the distance down the slope of the roof to the lower edge, [A-B]. Notice that the distance G-F, the height of the roof is much less than the length of the slope, A-C.

 

 

 

post-106-12827222102_thumb.jpg

 

 

 

Start by drawing three parallel lines, slightly longer than E-C and the distance A-C apart. In the middle of the middle line mark the length of the ridge D-A and divide it by two, marking the point G.

 

Using a set square [or by construction] draw a line at right angles from point G such that it cuts the two outer lines.

 

From the point where this line cuts the upper and lower line mark out half the distance E-C on either side to give points V,W,Y and Z and join them as shown, D-V,D-W,A-Y and A-Z.

 

From A scribe an arc of length A-Y and from Z an arc of length B-C.

 

Where they cross is point X. Join points A-X.

 

Repeat this exercise at the other end and you will have a pattern, which when folded up will look exactly like the side and end elevations of your building.

 

 

 

 

 

I hope this has been of use to someone, and that it will encourage you to have a go.

 

 

Doug

post-106-128272101635_thumb.jpg

post-106-128272248076_thumb.jpg

Link to post
Share on other sites

Thank you for your kind remarks! I really didn't think I would 'scratch an itch' so promptly for other modellers. I am off to UK very soon for a few days [attending the YMR/Kernow Show and taking SWMBO around her old childhood holiday haunts....] but if anyone would appreciate the development for low-relief hipped roof [i.e. half the back slope cut off] I'll add it to this post, or, for that matter if anyone wants a simple solution to a Mansard roof I'll do that too, if someone thinks it will be useful. With the likelihood of a Scalescenes small 'old fashioned' tile I shall probably try something along those lines in the future.

 

I'm looking forward to some Cornish Pasties and real ale, sadly I won't be in Hampshire long enough to go to the friendliest preservation railway I've yet visited, [The Watercress Line] but we have planned a visit to the Bodmin and Wenford Railway.

 

Doug

Link to post
Share on other sites

Guest Max Stafford

Thanks Doug. I have long wondered what the secret formula for this was.

I'll be having a go very soon - now to bookmark the thread! :)

 

Cheers.

 

Dave.

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • 2 years later...
  • RMweb Premium

I'm currently building a model of a GWR hipped roof box (Torre, built in 1921-1922) Although I've been able to derive most of the dimensions from photos and taken a few on-site measurements, its not been easy to determine the angle of the roof. Was this standardised? I've checked a few photos of different GW signal boxes and can't come to a conclusion on what the pitch of the roof should be.

Does anyone have any advice on this? I've tried mock-ups from 25-35 degrees and none of them seem quite "right!"

 

Regards

 

Martin

Link to post
Share on other sites

Martin,

 

A quick and rough check on a couple of drawings of GWR boxes suggests an angle around 33 degrees to the horizontal. However, if you follow Doug's method in the OP, you'll find that you don't need to know the angles, only linear measurements.

 

Nick

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

Thanks Nick,

 

That data was useful - I wasn't able to get a good "down slope" measurement (AB) to complete the graphical construction method.

 

Best Wishes

Martin

Link to post
Share on other sites

Hi

 

The mansard roof would be useful, also have you a way to work out the angle for dormers and other right angled joining roofs?

 

Look at page 25 of Miniature Building Construction by John H. Ahern. It’s all there.

 

I think it would have been gracious of Chubber to have acknowledged his source.

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

 

 

Look at page 25 of Miniature Building Construction by John H. Ahern. It’s all there.

 

I think it would have been gracious of Chubber to have acknowledged his source.

 

Aren't you in danger of assuming that is where he got it from? It may or may not be but you seem to have made up your mind already. I worked something similar out myself some time ago with basic geometry and I didn't need or use Ahern's book. Just because something has been published somewhere sometime, it doesn't automatically mean that everybody knows about it, as some of the posts on this thread testify.

 

Having said that, if you look at the works of people like John Ahern, Peter Denny and others of that sort of period, it does strike me that between them, they cracked most modelling problems many years ago and that people have been attempting to re-invent the wheel ever since. Leaving aside modern technology, such as laser cutting or CNC machining, nearly all solutions can be found in articles and books from 50 (or more) years ago.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Look at page 25 of Miniature Building Construction by John H. Ahern. It’s all there.

 

I think it would have been gracious of Chubber to have acknowledged his source.

 

Hullo, I have had your post pointed out to me in a PM as I have not followed this post some some time.....

 

Before you accuse me of a lack of grace, or worse, plagerism, please read JHAs method and explanation and compare it to mine. It differs principally in that I start my drawing with three parallel lines and use a pair of compasses and no 'odd piece of paper'.

 

Whilst I do not expect an apology for your post, I extend one to Campaman for not having seen/followed the thread and replied to his request for details of setting out a Mansard roof et cetera.

 

Having sought out and been granted rights to reproduce/publish JHAs work by his family, with whom the copyright for 'Miniature Building Construction' now resides, I could simply copy any of JHAs work straight to the forum, but consider my method and explanatory notes in this small but puzzling matter to be clearer and more easily understood than that of the great man.

 

I am an unashamed admirer and promoter of his work.

 

Doug

Link to post
Share on other sites

Hipped roof construction, though costlier and more complicated, has advantages over gable roof construction in that it is subject to lower wind-loading and gives eave and gutter protection to all four walls of a structure, thus making it suitable for buildings in exposed locations such as signal boxes.

 

post-106-128272196929_thumb.jpg

Copyright DL Dickson

 

Newcomers to scratch-building may avoid them because of the perceived difficulty in setting them out, so I offer the method below to those who have yet to find a way to do it.

 

 

The only necessity is a scale drawing of the side and end elevations, i.e. the shape of the roof that you see when you look at the 'front' and 'end' of the building. With those two drawings, and a pair of compasses you will be able to measure the length of the ridge, [D-A], the length of the lower sides and ends, [E-C, C-B] and the distance down the slope of the roof to the lower edge, [A-B]. Notice that the distance G-F, the height of the roof is much less than the length of the slope, A-C.

 

 

 

post-106-12827222102_thumb.jpg

 

 

 

Start by drawing three parallel lines, slightly longer than E-C and the distance A-C apart. In the middle of the middle line mark the length of the ridge D-A and divide it by two, marking the point G.

 

Using a set square [or by construction] draw a line at right angles from point G such that it cuts the two outer lines.

 

From the point where this line cuts the upper and lower line mark out half the distance E-C on either side to give points V,W,Y and Z and join them as shown, D-V,D-W,A-Y and A-Z.

 

From A scribe an arc of length A-Y and from Z an arc of length B-C.

 

Where they cross is point X. Join points A-X.

 

Repeat this exercise at the other end and you will have a pattern, which when folded up will look exactly like the side and end elevations of your building.

 

 

 

 

 

I hope this has been of use to someone, and that it will encourage you to have a go.

 

 

Doug

 

 

Hi,

 

I'm quite new to card building and I am just completing a station building for my cornish layout. The roof tiles and brick chimneys in that last photo look really impressive, are they brick papers or did you produce them yourself?

 

Best regards,

 

Jeremy

Link to post
Share on other sites

Hi,

 

I'm quite new to card building and I am just completing a station building for my cornish layout. The roof tiles and brick chimneys in that last photo look really impressive, are they brick papers or did you produce them yourself?

 

Best regards,

 

Jeremy

 

Hullo Jeremy,

 

The roof is Scalescenes Red Tiles Texture Sheet TX41a printed onto 90gm/m2 watercolour paper, which gives it a pleasant texture and the chimney stacks are covered with Red Brick Stretcher Texture Sheet TX10 which is the correct brick pattern for a 9" flue chimney. Two of the chimney pots are 'flexible' pots

 

http://www.rmweb.co....e-chimney-pots/

 

and the others rolled from newspaper http://www.rmweb.co....__1#entry236735 I can't remember if the chimney stacks are laminated card or balsa wood cored.

 

The fashion tiles for the 'corners' are Scalescenes ridge tile strips cut about with a scalpel. In this cae, the roof was constructed in medium card and then the texture paper applied over the shape in panels. This method, though more labourious gives one the opportunity to cut out and adjust plain paper patterns from which the covering layers are maarked out.

 

I hope this helps,

 

Doug

Link to post
Share on other sites

Hullo Jeremy,

 

The roof is Scalescenes Red Tiles Texture Sheet TX41a printed onto 90gm/m2 watercolour paper, which gives it a pleasant texture and the chimney stacks are covered with Red Brick Stretcher Texture Sheet TX10 which is the correct brick pattern for a 9" flue chimney. Two of the chimney pots are 'flexible' pots

 

http://www.rmweb.co....e-chimney-pots/

 

and the others rolled from newspaper http://www.rmweb.co....__1#entry236735 I can't remember if the chimney stacks are laminated card or balsa wood cored.

 

The fashion tiles for the 'corners' are Scalescenes ridge tile strips cut about with a scalpel. In this cae, the roof was constructed in medium card and then the texture paper applied over the shape in panels. This method, though more labourious gives one the opportunity to cut out and adjust plain paper patterns from which the covering layers are maarked out.

 

I hope this helps,

 

Doug

 

 

Hi Doug,

 

Thanks mate! I'll check out their website and see what I can find. Where is the best place to get water colour papers from?

 

Best regards,

 

Jeremy

Link to post
Share on other sites

Hi Doug,

 

Thanks mate! I'll check out their website and see what I can find. Where is the best place to get water colour papers from?

 

Best regards,

 

Jeremy

 

Sorry, Jes, I haven't shopped in UK for ages, I remember that the majority of big 'Craft/Art' shops used to sell only 140gm/m2 stuff that won't go easily through a printer, but 'proper' art shops will sell a greater variety. You need to ask for 'NOT' watercolour paper [it means 'NOT hot pressed, i.e. NOT smooth]

 

Good luck,

 

Doug

Link to post
Share on other sites

Having just accidentally discovered, yestyerday,that theu have opend a branch in Inverness (we were in the shop next door), and Knowing that they are opening 21 new branches, you may have a Hobby Craft near you - if not, they are on the Internet.

No connection, except as a very impressed potential customer - I have a dreadful feeling that they will be relieving me of a fair amount of "readies"

Link to post
Share on other sites

Sorry, Jes, I haven't shopped in UK for ages, I remember that the majority of big 'Craft/Art' shops used to sell only 140gm/m2 stuff that won't go easily through a printer, but 'proper' art shops will sell a greater variety. You need to ask for 'NOT' watercolour paper [it means 'NOT hot pressed, i.e. NOT smooth]

 

Good luck,

 

Doug

 

 

Thanks for the advice Doug. I'll see what I can find.

 

Best regards,

 

Jeremy

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • 6 years later...

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...