Diddington Stables

[wiggoforgold]

The stables at Diddington are my second foray into what I would call the “Scalescenes” method of making card buildings. My first attempt was the crossing keepers hut at Oakington described in my previous thread.  The stables are slightly more complicated The stables are situated adjacent to the engine shed at Diddington, to house the horse used to shunt the horsebox siding at the rear of the station.  Inspiration came from a Pathe newsreel of the shunting horses at Ely in the mid 1960’s. As well as the newsreel itself, there is a reel of outtakes on the internet, which provided useful material for the construction of the model. I played the newsreel, paused it at points of interest, and made copious notes.

Construction of the model can be divided into four parts, the walls, the interior, the roof and the base.

The walls

When making buildings from scratch, I tend to start by finding some suitable windows, and the rest of the building is proportioned from those, rather than exactly following a scale drawing. I have found that the correct impression is achieved by getting the style of windows right, and matching things like brick courses, rather than worrying about fidelity to a plan.

At this stage I need to confess that this particular building isn’t made entirely of card. Windows and doors made use of suitable scrap plastic items from Wills kits. One of the doors was extensively modified to make the stable door.  The widow frames were painted a creamy buff colour mixed from Tamiya paints. The doors were painted Tamiya flat green, dry brushed with grey and flat earth.

The sides and ends were marked out on 2mm thick artists mounting board. Study of the newsreel showed that the windows had a much deeper reveal than the doors, the frames of which were almost flush with the outer surfaces of the walls. The effect of this was achieved by making an overlay for the front wall from thin card, which included the door frames themselves. The frames were then painted with Tamiya flat green XF5, and the walls covered with Scalescenes aged cream brick paper TX08 , which was printed onto matt photographic paper.  The window reveals were cut to actual size in both the thick and thin parts, but the doors were cut larger in the thick card, so that when the doors were fitted they are behind the thin card frames.

The brick paper was glued in place before cutting out the window reveals. When it was cut, the paper was folded round the sides of the window reveals, and stuck to the reverse of the sides.  On the ends, the brick paper was not folded round at this stage, but left until after the sides were assembled. This reduces the vertical line which would otherwise be left if  the  paper was folded round the ends before the walls are assembled, and strengthens the corner join when the sides and ends are assembled. Window sills were made from strips of thin card, painted before being stuck in place. The top of the sill and the bottom edge of the window reveal were painted with a thin mix of polyfilla, pva, and Tamiya flat earth, which was filed down with a piece of wet and dry paper on a sliver of lollipop stick when dry.  The completed sides and ends were left to dry for an evening under a sheet of glass.

The windows and doors were then fitted and the sides and ends were assembled. A strip of 2mm card approximately 8mm high, was fitted to the bottom of the inner faces of the sides. This supported a false floor, the top of which was approximately 2mm lower than the bottom of the doors. On top of this sits the floor proper, which is part of the interior, and is removable until the roof is fitted.

The Interior

Once the sides and ends were assembled, work could start on the interior. Depending on the location of the building, and how it is lit, influences how much of a detailed interior is necessary. On Diddington, the building is at the back of the layout, and the only interior detail required is that which might be seen through the open stable door.

Construction started with the floor, to which was fitted a back and ends from 2mm card. The end walls are cut level with the sides, and window reveals were cut in them. The interior is divided into stabling for the horse at one end, and a tack room/office at the other. A pile of hay bales was cut from a block of balsa, and a dividing wall made from scraps of planked plasticard and plastic strip. 

The manger, fixed to the rear wall, was made from some scraps of plasticard, and a section cut from some Ratio GW station fencing. The completed interior was given a coat of white artist’s  gesso, to give the effect of rough plaster walls. The floor was sprinkled with fine ash onto wet Humbrol matt earth paint. The pile of bales was painted a fawn colour, and when dry was painted with dilute pva and sprinkled with “dead grass” colour static grass, which was also sprinkled on the floor and in the manger to give the impression of hay.

The roof

The basic shape of the roof was cut from some card approximately 1mm thick. There is no ceiling in the stable, so five sets for roof trusses were cut from 2mm card. The roof was then assembled to the trusses, with the outer sets fitting tightly inside the ends, and the other three sets being equally spaced between them.  Once dry, the inside of the roof was painted with matt earth, with the trusses being picked out in a slightly greyer mix. 

The outside of the roof was then covered with the printed inner roof from the Scalescenes row of cottages kit TO19, and slates from the same kit were fixed to that. The finished roof was sprayed with artist’s fixative, and weathered with a wash of dilute black drawing ink, followed by a very light dry brushing with Tamiya flat green.

The base

I make my buildings sit in holes on the layout. All the buildings are therefore made with a “cellar” approximately 10mm deep at the bottom of the sides. While the building is under construction, this provides something to hold onto without repeatedly touching the detailed areas and when the building is finished, allows it to be put in place without the black line which appears at the bottom of buildings that are just placed on the layout. It also allows the landform to be shaped more realistcally  round the building.

For the stables, once the basic construction was finished, a base was built up round the building, using strips of card approximately 9mm deep projecting from the edges of the building, with sheets of 2mm card laid on top to create the basic land form.

At the right hand end there is a walled area. The walls were built up from two thicknesses of 2mm card, overlaid with Scalescenes aged cream brick paper.  At the right hand end there is a brick privy, made up from 2mm card, overlaid with Scalescenes brown brick left over from the cottages kit. The corrugated iron roof is made from some Wills clear corrugated plastic, painted with Tamiya red-brown, over painted with Modelmates rust, and dry brushed with Tamiya NATO black and flat green.

The completed building is now ready to be placed on the layout, and this part of the work will be described in my layout thread.