Dollshouse to Station Building

[47137]

This is build of a 1:48 dollshouse kit by Petite Properties into a freelance 1:64 scale model. I bought my kit from the dollshouse show at the Tower Hotel in London earlier this year, a nice change from the usual model railway circuit. The core of the model is thin MDF but most of the modelling is in card and paper so I hope this forum is a satisfactory location for the post.

 

The kit is marketed as a 'basic kit' for the builder to finish to their own specification, and essentially comprises laser-cut walls of MDF, and window frames, doors and roof panels from 1mm card. There is also a second set of window frames laser-cut from thinner card (so you can have a frame on both sides of the glazing) and some detail fittings like chimney pots and window sills. The building presented is a one-up one-down affair with a lean-to extension on one side and a further extension on the other. This second extension might be a ticket office or perhaps (after cutting a doorway into the main house) a kitchen or living room.

 

MDF core with foam board chimney stack

 

The living room and bedroom scale up to about 11’ x 12’6” at 1:48. If you put a staircase and a chimney breast into this, and start thinking about a shower room or a kitchen, it is clearly a very bijou residence! A bit too twee for my taste, and so am building it as a 1:64 scale model instead … for a diorama now, and maybe one day a layout …

 

I reduced the height of the walls of the main house by 3/16”, and the heights of the two extensions by 1/8”. I used the offcuts of MDF to trim down the door openings to 1:64 scale. I want the window frames to be near flush with the outside of the building (not on the inside walls) so the rooms can have window sills, and the plan here is to attach the windows to the outside surfaces of the walls and then add new outer wall skins from card on top.

 

The MDF walls are 3/32” and 1/8” thick, far too thin for a scale thickness even at 1:64. I added pieces of 1mm card on the inside of the main house to add thickness and to provide rebates for the upstairs floor to slide into. The bay window is built outwards from the front wall on 3/32” wide strips of card to make depth for external cladding and decoration.

 

The kit has one serious shortcoming in that there is no attempt to model the location of the damp course, and so the entrance doors and floor are at ground level. I raised the whole of base of my model on a piece of 3mm foam core board, and then glued this onto a sheet of mount board. The mount board is oversize to help blending into a layout. I have also put the chimney stack on one side of the house, instead of at the rear, to let me put the foot of the staircase near the front door.

 

After all this you might wonder if it would be easier to start from scratch but for me no ... the laser-cut walls are flat and cut true, and make a good foundation to work on. I have tried to avoid painting as much as I can, and so the model is finished with coloured papers, card and especially veneers. I picked up an unfinished marquetry kit at a jumble sale and this has given me the “oak” flooring, “mahogany” office counter, and some kind of “dark wood” kitchen worktop. So far I have resorted to styrene for only the dado-height panelling in the office, the skirting boards and the brick base of the lean-to.

 

Hope you like the pictures so far.

 

- Richard.

 

General arrangement

Station office

Lobby and shower room

 

Edited to simplify content on 21st April 2014.

Edited April 21, 2014 by 47137

[47137]

A couple more photos to show how the building is taking shape. The plan is to finish the interior and stop for a while ... the treatment of the outside depends rather on the region being modelled.

 

The model is glued together with Evo-Stik Impact wherever possible. (This is a solvented contact adhesive if you’re unfamiliar). I choose this because it doesn’t let paper have a chance to warp, and it sets just about instantly. I resort to occasional superglue, Mek-Pak and woodworking glue when I have to, which usually means when the Evo-Stik would dissolve the surface.

 

The staircase is from small-section triangular stripwood, glued onto a strip of card. I added stair treads from flat stripwood too, but while the camera struggles to pick these out, it finds faults like the crooked kitchen plinth which I never noticed before.

 

- Richard.

 

[JimF51]

Nice conversion, interesting changes to the basic kit.

 

How well do you think these kits would work, used for a O gauge layout?

 

Jim F

[47137]

How well do you think these kits would work, used for a O gauge layout?

Hi Jim,

 

It is a well-proportioned building (which is probably what attracted me to it in the first place) but I think it would look twee in 0 gauge. For example, the bay window is less than 11 mm deep - that's barely 18 inches at 1:43. The model might work at the back of a 0-16.5 affair, or a standard gauge light railway.

 

Some of the features of the kit show up the differences between a scale model and a dollshouse. I mentioned the floor level being too near the ground in the first post, but also the barge boards are too short - they look pretty, but they don't reach the eaves. So when you start thinking about adding guttering, the ends of the soffits will be in mid-air. The barge boards measure 2.5mm wide which scales up to about 4.2 inches - too narrow for a real building

 

The walls are 3mm and 2mm MDF ... if you pad these out to something near scale thickness either the rooms will become even smaller, or you will need to cut some larger roof sections.

 

So I think it's too small.

 

It might work as a cottage in rural surroundings at the back of an 0 gauge layout, but in this case I'd still want to reduce the sizes of the doorways. It is part of a large range, and some of the non-railway models might work better. I want to try another one for the same layout.

 

- Richard.

[47137]

Here are some photos from the last week ...

 

- Richard.

 

Faller embossed stone card, marketed for HO but looks good at 1:64

 

The outer wall for the booking office has a curiously familiar shape

[47137]

Three more detail photographs, and two views of the finished building.

- Richard.

 

Upstairs window is layers of 1mm card

 

Outer layers for lean-to extension

0.020" styrene sheet overlays and then 0.100" x 0.015" strips

 

Finished model

The details on the end of the office are from Hornby magazine earlier this year: a 1:43 letter box and a 1:76 sign and empty notice board. I've never seen a meter box modelled before, so I measured the one on my house. I need to add guttering and flashing, but the roof still looks better in the photo than in real life. The barge boards are still unpainted and left in their 'raw lasered state' which I quite like. The roof sections are resting in place so I can lift them off to show the interior.

[joppyuk1]

A very nicely finished model. It looks about right for a Victorian level crossing keepers house, and I might be tempted into one.

[47137]

... It looks about right for a Victorian level crossing keepers house, and I might be tempted into one.

Yes. You could add a window to the end wall of the 'office' and put the lever frame in there; and perhaps locate the building at right angles to the tracks instead of parallel. The kit will easily build up into a mirror image if this helps the location you have in mind.

 

- Richard.

[47137]

I have re-roofed the two main sections of the roof. The model now has some laser-cut 7mm scale roofing by York Modelmaking. This is self-adhesive and goes on in overlapping strips. Slates come in some quite large sizes, so I'll imagine this represents slates rather than tiles. The "ridge tiles" are from the borders of the York sheets. I think this is an improvement over the printed sheets of tiles I had before. A nice little project for Boxing Day!

 

- Richard.

 

 

 

Posted 26 Dec 2014, edited 28 Dec to upload a better photo.

Edited December 28, 2014 by 47137

[Marly51]

At the dolls house fair - Miniatura 2015 - modelmaker, David Wright, ran a demonstration workshop for creating stone textures with DAS clay on Petite Properties Kits. I am mainly working on 2mm scale scratchbuilt models just now and finding card models with paper textures are giving a satisfactory result, especially since I am working to a deadline!