Weekend Roofing

I took a long weekend off work last weekend, spending Saturday in the company of several Doctors from a certain long running BBC science fiction series, at the Day of the Doctors convention in Slough.

Sunday was some dutiful housework, but Monday I had intended to venture into the garden and make a start on the spring clean up. The weekend prior had been very nice, weather wise, but Sunday never got light and Monday was little better – a few glimmers of sunlight every now and then to tease - but certainly no chance to drag everything out of the shed or attempt to mow the grass.

So I turned my attention back to the haunted house model. Before starting on the new idea for the windows, I wanted to get the roof finished first. However I had to admit that the roof on one tower was not as I would have liked it. That has had to come off, and get reshaped. Extra card glued inside along with an additional round of tiles at the bottom to attempt to get a better fit.

I also found several other areas where tiles did not hang correctly along edges of the various roof sections, so additional remedial work and extra tiles were added in various places. I think building the roof pieces separately and tiling them before putting them on might have been a bad move after all.

Once most of those patch ups were set I turned my attention to the edges of the roof sections, along the joins. I’ve still got some of that solid DAS putty left over from last year, I soaked it down and make it into a thick paste. I then added some PVA glue along the edges and moulded the paste along the gaps, shaping it as I went. I also added some additional shape to the top of the chimneys with the putty.

This has to then be left to dry out completely before anything else is done to the model. The dampness does spread along the cardboard tiles, but if left to dry, this does dry out ok, as I think you’ll see in one of the photos.

Now all I have to do is wait for the rebuilt piece of roof to dry out and then attempt to reattach it. At the moment it’s still clamped up. I seem to be having difficulty finding more of these claps in the local hardware/pound stores where I previous bought them. Somebody has suggested this might have something to do with a recent film release, but I wouldn’t like to comment.

Previous article in the Mystery Model / Haunted House series:

The House is Back

Next article in the Mystery Model / Haunted House series:
May Day, Breaking Windows

The House is Back

The haunted house, the house of mystery, is back on the agenda. With Karl finished, except for a few things (*), I am going to ensure that the next writing project is not going to take up all of my time. I’ve already returned to the Doctor Who tapestry, and I’ll be posting more photos of that soon, which has also allowed me to start working my way through a backlog of Big Finish and other audio books and dramas.

Now the models are getting a dusting down, and with spring soon around the corner I hope to be able to get back out to use the garden table where I have more room to work. I took another look at the old haunted house in preparation for this the other day, and decided that there was something bugging me. For the moment I think that was the way the front tower was shaped, the thinner tower higher up felt awkward. I came to the conclusion it needed some extra roof pieces. These are to act like a collar around the tower.  (I hope somebody will tell me if there is a technical name for this).

I cut four small angular pieces of car and covered them with the small pieces of card previously used for the tiles on the model. I had some left over cut up from the main model; I will never throw the leftover pieces away until the model is complete, just in case, like this, I need to keep continuity in the model. Once the tiles were set and dried I trimmed them up and fixed them around the base of the thinner part of the tower. There is some work to do along the edges where they meet, but then I need to do this on the rest of the roof pieces anyway.

I have also had another little brain wave whilst walking round the Poundland at the weekend. This is to do with the windows which I have not tackled yet. More on that soon...



Previous article in the Mystery Model/Haunted House series:
November Update

Next article in the Mystery Model/Haunted House series:
Weekend Roofing

(*) Outstanding work on Karl, marketing and conversion for other eBook formats.