First Scratch-Built House

I've been naughty and posting to our FB group for convenience.

My girlfriend and I have started a small diorama to experiment with, before I start working on Central Station for the Short North railway. And this little diorama she wanted has a small house. I found this, Pines Cottage in the Kosciuszko National Park.

Originally built as a part of a complex of buildings that date back to the 1880s, to provide accommodation to Stockmen.



There will be design differences, and Xi is picking out the colour scheme (presently pink with white trim). But hold on and lets see how I go.


I drew up a paper mock-up over January with where I thought the windows and doors might be good. As well as a roof which is designed to be removable.

I pulled everything out today and got to work, managing to fairly neatly cut out everything and only making a mistake at the last step, a small section of the door is a bit wider than it should be. Easy to fix though.

After another test fit, I started glueing. All went very well, very well. If you haven't noticed in the above image, when I went to test fit the two sections, I had glued the wall sections to the same sides.... whoops.



Pulled the one on the left apart, which despite it glued better, it didn't have two support braces installed. Easier to pull apart. Double checked and reglued it.

While it dries, I'm going to paint the trim on the windows and doors. So I'll reply back after I've done that.

 

Really need to spray paint these... watered down paint is a bad idea and does not work. Please don't make my mistake.


But the roof is coming together quite nicely.

 

I got 2 out of 3 tips, that's not too bad. Right?

Didn't think of drilling the holes, considering I was just watching a lot of woodworking videos were they did the same thing. You'd kinda hope that I might have put two and two together. I hope anyway.

There is an internal wall inside to help keep the shape, I'll look at installing that horizontal piece as well.

 

It was some water-soluble paint. Watered down.

I'll have to spray paint, or just gently paint with non-watered paint. But I guess it kinda makes an very old, weathered look. If the plastic gray was weathered the same.

As for the brand, I'll check tomorrow.

 

Because this is really a test model for how to do everything, I plan on leaving the paint how it is for the time being. Painting the walls. And just see how it goes overall.

Next build will definitely wash and hopefully can afford a spray paint kit. Glueing the last wall sections together now. Still working on the roof.

 

So far so good, there are issues of course. Not everything lines up perfectly. But for a first attempt, I am very happy. And after pulling the roof apart and reangling it. Looks much better than it did.

Now I might hold off on the verhandah and guttering until the weekend. Might.




All images are temporary here as I haven't loaded them onto my Flickr albums. So they'll change a bit.

I did take the time earlier to compare the walls, doors, windows etc to correct scale. I haven't done that with the roof. But doesn't seem so bad.

 

Windows are the correct orientation.

And I have run the corrugated iron this way for the reason of: Artistic Licence (also known as: I buggered up)