Onion Domed Church - Part 3: Final (Fiddly) Bits

The request was for this model was for a removable roof.

The construction of the basic roof structure was pretty straightforward. I cut the basic roof base from 3mm MDF and then glued on a couple of MDF locator plugs that, along with the tower, will lock the roof in position. 

The roof shape is a Pedimented Gable - a shallow or no pitch that then rises to a reasonably steep pitch - was cut and a heavy weight card used to create the skin of the roof.

Once the glue had dried I textured the exposed end of the roof, with a piece of plasticard across the bottom to help disguise the joint lower part of the structure, adding a circular window, or oculi, was  positioned to form an equilateral triangle with the pair on the lower structure. Any gaps were then filled and smoothed off.

For the tiles I took a different approach to my usual methods that are more suited to rustic structures than a more formal one like this. I want this roof to be made up of diamond shaped tiles. The thought of making and gluing as many as 4,000 3mm diamond shaped tiles and getting them in perfect alignment was too daunting so I sought other ways to achieve the effect.

My solution was a variation of a very old technique. The first step was to draw a pointed tile on the computer 3mm by 6mm, then duplicate it and butt the two side by side. I then repeat the process until I had a strip of 62 tiles, wide enough to extend across the longest part of the roof, plus a bit. Those strips were then duplicated and pasted to an A4 document. That step was repeated multiple times and several copies were printed.

The strips were glued to thin card that when the strips are laid on top of each other and then offset by half a tile the desired diamond effect is achieved.

Yes, there is still a lot of fiddly cutting, but it beats creating and gluing thousands of individual tiles in precise order. Individual strips needed to be cut from the main sheet.

Then every 'v' on the bottom of every tile had to be cut out.

I must admit that by the time I had cut the first ten strips of the 70 that I needed, I was beginning to think that I should have set the diamond size at 5mm instead of 3...but while my eyes may have crossed many times during the process I persisted and the strips were duly cut and glued to the roof structure. It took the better part of four evenings to complete and although alignment is not perfect - the printed paper has stretched or contracted with the glue - it will look effective when painted nonetheless. 

A good coat of PVA was applied to hold everything in place and add a bit of strength.

Finally the roof ridges were made fixed on.

Just when I thought I was done with roofing, I remembered that there was the roof over the porch and the smaller area on the side opposite the tower to be done...another 200 tiles!

The next significant fiddly item was the grilles and mullions of the windows. These were made using thin balsa strips. Surprisingly it took less time than I thought. Then I made all the door fittings.

Next step is to apply a little paint.