Flintloque Buildings Set part nine

The snow continues to fall, here in the Midlands. It is not quite as heavy as we had last week, but enough to mean that I will not be going out.

As most of my new projects are on hold (they are safely tucked away in the shed-at-the bottom-of-the-garden) - I thought that I would post a detailed Workbench Article on how I model Spanish style tile roof models. I will use as an example the tiled roof of the tower in the Flintloque Building Set.

Steps One to Three - Using cardboard (packaging from an Aldi Roast Pork dinner), I marked out a square just bigger than the size of the tower roof, 80mm x 80mm and then drew four triangles - one to each side (figure 1). I then built an internal strengthening support from the same card, that was 18mm high at the centre and slotted so it would slide together and fit on top of the main roof base (figure 2). I then folded up the four triangles and using superglue on the inside and newspaper and uPVA glue on the outside I was able to produce the correct shape (figure 3).

By using more newspaper, some card fillers and PVA glue I built up the middle of the roof so that the slope was not uniform, but curved upwards (like a pagoda shape). The layers of newspaper and PVA glue make this particular structure very strong.

Photo Three - The individual tiles are small coloured beads from HAMA, each bead is cut in half, length ways and then glued onto the roof profile with undiluted PVA glue, starting with the main diagonals and then building the rest of the roof from the bottom up.

Photo Four - The roof about halfway through. Please note that the beads I am using are second-hand and have already been used to produce a plain resin, roof section 'blank', rather than throw them away after the master was taken out of the rubber, I am re-using the cut beads. In terms of time spent - there is not a great deal of difference between re-using old and cutting new beads as the old beads still needed to be cleaned up prior to use.

At this point I have superglued the cardboard former to a base of 3mm plastic card, the over-sized plastic card was glue to the base of the roof section, then cut and later sanded flush. A 6mm fillet will be glued to the bottom of this plastic card base and this will fit into the top of the tower.

Photo Five - Three of the four sections finished. Note the newspaper on the plain roof section.

Photo Six - The roof section now covered with Hama beads.

Photo Seven - As above.

Photo Eight - After a second coat of PVA glue is dry, I cover the whole roof with a mixture of ready-mixed filler (Polyfila), some PVA glue and a sprinkling of fine sand. I use an old brush and a stippling action to add texture to the otherwise plain plastic beads.

Photo Nine - As above.

Photo Ten - The next step is to use DAS modelling clay to fill any gaps and add some 'mortar' to the tiles and the roof top.

Photo Eleven - The DAS added. I use a spear-headed dental tool to push the DAS into the small gaps and later smooth the joins with a paintbrush dipped in water.

Photo Twelve - As above.

There is still some modelling work to be completed on this roof, I like to fill most of the beads or the rubber moulding compound is very difficult to remove from the master. In addition I may add even more filler-glue-sand mix to the tiles before having the roof cast.

This process takes quite some time, which is why I first produced a plain 'blank' and had this cast up for larger, plain roof sections (see earlier posts). For 'fiddly' roof sections such as this tower, the plain resin blanks would be too wasteful and (more than likely) take longer to produce than gluing the individual tiles.

I would expect to be adding doors and window frames over the next couple of days, then a bit of detailing or adding 'clutter' before taking it to be first moulded and then cast.

Should you have any question - you know where I am.

Tony