Sunday 19 February 2017

Slipped Slates

This last week I've been working on the roof of the old barn - the end that still has one, that is.

The challenge with this has been to make it look suitably distressed.

On all the houses I've been building for the layout I've been able to use embossed plastic sheets but here the only realistic solution is bespoke slating.


I use strips of very thin card - or perhaps, more accurately described as very thick paper - onto which I have run through a photocopier with repeated design of rows of slates.

I cut out a row and then slice with the blade on the markings between each slate, leaving them connected by a sliver along the top edge, and then I glue them, row upon row, onto a styrene sheet using PVA.


Doing it this way I can break the row at any point to create the look of a missing slate, or one that has slipped.

In case you were wondering why there is the triangular marking at the top it's because I first created the pattern when I was asked to make a model of Minffordd weigh house as a retirement gift for FR permanent way legend Fred Howes.



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