The Half-timbered House. Part 2: Everything Else

After a short break I started working on the half-timbered house again.  Is started by cutting the eaves, for which I just measures up 4” on both sides, marked this, then found the center of the top edge and connected the dots. After marking both of these off I etched out the plan for my timbers and cut them out as well.  I decided to go for a simple plan with no windows and some straight forward timber placement. 

After cutting out the foam along the timbers the area in the center of the stucco walls is much higher that the rest of the area. You can use a file, as I mentioned in part 1 to get rid of these. Or you can use a box cutter and lay it down as flat as you can get it, even bending it slightly and cut it off flat, as shown in the photo below. Making sure to not cut your thumb off.

The next step was to make a rabbet cut on either side of both of the side walls, and then glue the walls together. The rabbet cut was made using my Master Airscrew balsa stripper.

The cuts were not deep enough to detach the foam, so a little extra cutting with a hobby knife was needed to make the cuts deep enough to get it out. I should note that when doing this, to be careful when cutting the back of the exterior face of the building. As cutting to deep could cut through or even cut off part of the side. So again, just be careful to control the depth at which you cut.

Once you have these removed you can glue them together, I use a brand of craft glue called Tacky Glue, which is pretty common and it works fine. When gluing the pieces together I put the glue on then spread it around in a thin layer then put the pieces together, and use pins to keep them together while the glue dries. Occasionally I have with the pieces not fitting together very well. To help alleviate this problem I put some sand paper flat on my working surface and then take the wall that it causing the problem and sand it flat. You can also straighten out the inside of the rabbet cut  if needed, by wrapping some sand paper around two sides a small wooden block and lightly sanding. If your corners still are not as flush as you would like, or separate a little while gluing there a few more things you can try to get around this problem. The first, is to take some of those little bits of foam that you cut off from the face of the house, smear a little glue on both sides and then and shove them in the cracks, and once they are dried you can cut them off flush. You can also cover any unsightly cracks by filling them with glue and flocking and making it look like the area is covered with moss or ivy. 

While waiting for this to dry I made the chimney. This was done by taking one of the excess pieces I cut off when I did the eaves on the side walls. Since the bottom angle of this matches the pitch of the roof (since that’s what we cut it off of) it works out really well.  Just trim it up a little, and then etch in a brick or rock pattern as you like. I topped mine off with a thin strip of foam slightly larger than the chimney, and two bits from a stirring stick that were secured by drilling into the foam then gluing them in place.

The next thing to work on are the windows. You need to decide what type of windows you want.I decided to go with something fairly simple as you can see in the pictures. I glued one strip across the window, and then divided the upper pane into two halves. The bottom windows I split into three panes.

My biggest problem here is keeping track of the windows and putting them back in the right spot instead of getting them all mixed up.

For the roof I use card board. I start by measuring the roof and then add 1/4” for both sides (1/2” overall) to the measurements. You can add more if you want a larger overhang. I cut this out as a single piece when possible, then score it down the center line and fold over. On this particular house there seemed to be a shortage of appropriately sized cardboard so I used two pieces and taped them together with masking tape. After you have your roof cut, just glue it straight to the building. Smearing the glue around in a thin even layer and pin it until it dries.  You may notice the house isn’t exactly straight but gluing the roof on should help bring everything back into line.

So after getting some feedback on the first part of the tutorial, I decided to go back and make some changes to the original walls. I added a few extra timbers under the windows. This highlights another advantage to using polystyrene foam, its flexibility.  To add the timbers I cut flattened out the areas where I wanted to add the timbers then glued thin strips of foam to the face of the wall. When the glue dried I added the wood grain to match the other timbers. In two other areas I cut back the foam a bit and made the area into a brick wall in order to show the underlying structure. You can see all of this in the pictures below in the Roof section.

Starting on the roof required getting the material required, mainly my 1/4" strips of card stock that I had ran through my strip shredder many projects ago. These I cut, in bunches, into shingles of various lengths.

I also attached the chimney to the roof. On this house I choose the center of the house but you could put it on either end or wherever you prefer. After pining that in place I started putting the shingles on.

 

Putting the shingles on is relatively easy. I just put down a bead a glue from the left side to the right, starting with the bottom row. Then I lay down a layer of shingles. After the first row, I put the glue half on the row below and half on the cardboard above the previous row. I generally leave a little gap between shingles and occasionally put them on at a slight angle so that some of the shingles look a little loose. I try to keep the rows as straight as possible but there will always be a little variation. If you have trouble keeping a straight line, you might try drawing a line, or lines across the roof to use as a guide. For me, if it is reasonably straight, it's all good.

After you are done with the roof and it has all dried you can come back with a sharp pair of scissors and straighten up the edge of the roof, or you can leave it as is. The final step is the roof cap. For this house I choose to use a center timber as the top of the roof. So I cut a piece of foam and glued it to the peak of the roof. If you want you can also use a strip of balsa wood and sit it in the gap of the cardboard at the peak of the roof, which is what I usually do. In this case, since I taped the roof together I went with the foam.

If you look closely you will notice I forgot to paint the underside of the eaves. Oh the shame!

The next step is painting. I painted the stucco a light linen or cream color. Then I gave it a wash of a slightly darker color then highlight it with the same linen color. Timbers I paint dark brown then dry brush with a lighter brown. The chimney and stone work I kept a brown color, but gray, red or orange would work fine I think. The shingles I painted a shade of brown then highlighted slightly. If you wanted a more weathered look you could paint them gray, or a gray brown color. You could also paint them blue, red or green if you wanted.

Here is the final and parting shot. All done and over with...well except somewhere along the way I decided I didn't like the windows so I decided to add the fancy diagonal frame pattern on the bottom pane of the window. For this I used carbon fiber screening material that you can pick up from the hardware section of Wal-Mart and pretty much any DIY center as well. This stuff runs about $10.00 for a gigantic roll that will last an eternity if all you use it for are windows. To add these to the windows I cut out little sections, turned them to a 45 degree angle and put my window face down on it, and cut around the window. I then glued them into place with some tacky glue. When dry I shoved my windows back in place. You will also want to paint your windows before you do this, otherwise you will get an excruciating exercise in tedium trying to paint all of those little diamond shaped panes of glass. I painted my window glass a pretty benign light gray color, but light blue, green, yellow, or brown will also work. As many of these houses were built in the days before clear glass.

The Half-timbered House. Part 1: The walls

So I am going to detail the steps and techniques that I use to create half-timbered house walls with polystyrene foam.  Hopefully this will be pretty simple and straightforward and you will be knocking out your own in no time.

First I start by cutting four identical 4” x 6” sections for the four walls of the house. Two of the wall sections will be used as 4” high and 6” long sections that will be the front and back of the house. The other two sections will be used as 6” high walls and will form the peak of the roof; the walls will then be 4” wide. You can make yours however big you like, it’s your house after all.

Exciting picture of 4 pieces of polystyrene foam

You can do this by measuring and cutting by hand, but I find that I simply cannot cut polystyrene foam in a straight line. To solve this problem I built a cutter just for this purpose. It consists of a 4” x 4” block of wood that has a guide (a thinner piece of wood), screwed to one side. This guide is slightly shorter in depth than the foam, so just under 1/2”.  On the opposite side I placed two screws diagonally and offset from each other. The blade is placed in between them and then tightened down to hold it in place. The blade does not cut fully through the foam. So you have to run the blade down one side, then flip over the foam sheet and cut the other side.

Now I take the first wall piece which will become the front and measure up two inches to the center. Then I measure and mark a few mm above and below the center-line. Then lightly etch both lines across the foam. For the etching part you can use just about anything with a point. I’ve used a mechanical pencil, a needle, but usually I use a sculpting tool that has a pointy end.

When will the excitement stop?

Okay now that this step is finished we can move on to more exciting things. Next I mark out the door and the timber posts above and to the sides of the door. The door I usually make 3/4" wide and about 1 1/2" inches tall. 

Not yet.

Then I measure 1/2" inch from the base of the wall where I want to put the windows on the bottom floor. Then holding my magic 1/2" inch stick in place I trace around it. Then, because I want really small windows on the ground floor (because this helps keep the burglars out, and the teenagers in) I then flip the stick sideways and use it to etch another set of lines on the inside of the square, which will become the timber window frame.

Then I do the pretty much the same thing on the upper floor, measure up 1/2” and etch the lines for the windows. These lines will be the inside of the window this time as I want the windows on the upper floor a bit bigger than the ones on the bottom floor.

Now that the windows are done we move on to the wall timbers and etch these on. You can put these wherever, and however you want. Live a little and do some odd angles, you know you want to. 

The next step is to now trace over all those lines you just finished etching with a hobby knife. So I know you are saying to yourself, why not just skip all the etching and cut all those lines to start with?  Well because if you mess up anything while etching, it will get cut out or can be covered up later, but if you cut them with a knife and mess them up, it will show up later on. Now, you want to cut just a few millimeters deep when you do this and try not to cut through any intersections as this may cause problems down the line. Also don’t worry about the inside of the windows just yet; we will get to those later. After that is done, take the hobby knife and start cutting out the areas that will become the stucco walls. Cut inward towards the part that will be the timbers trying not to cut too deep under them. When doing this part try to cut at a shallow angle using a sawing motion. The more sawing you do the rougher your stucco will look.  When you are done there will be some pieces left in the middle that you will need to cut out in the same way. You can use the hobby knife again or you can use a box knife with the blade fully extended to get these bits out. It really just depends on how difficult they are to get to. You can see the results in the picture.

Now we want to cut the door and the windows out. Using the hobby knife cut straight in along the edge of the widow. Since it is fairly deep you will probably have to cut in a sawing motion. Make sure that you tilt your knife when you get to the corners to make sure that get everything. It also helps to flip the foam over and check the back to see if there is anything you missed. Try not to cut from the back as it may not line up with what you have already done. Once you think you have it you can use the back of the knife or your finger to push the window through, breaking it loose from any remaining bits that didn’t get cut. Once the windows are loose, just push them back in. We will get to these later but for now it is best to just keep them in place so they don’t get lost.

Take the door out and use you etching tool to make four or five planks that will make up the door if you want the rustic look. After this cut them with the hobby knife and then use the etching tool on them again to give them more depth. Then take the back of your knife or your etching tool and scratch some lines in to make it looks like the grain of the wood. You can get fancy if you want and do knot holes and type of thing, but anything should do. Remember, you want the grain to show, but not to be as deep as the cracks between the planks. Now if you want a more modern looking door you can cut off a thin piece of the door from the back side. Then cut out several squares from this then glue this part to the front of the door, with the flat side of the back against the flat part of the front. Once it is dry you can glue the whole thing back in place. 

Before

After

Now that you have a little practice with scratching in the wood grain of the door, do the same thing to all of the timbers on the wall, including around the windows and the door. At this point you can stop if you want to, I often do. However, if you think the stucco looks a bit too rough then can take a small file or some fine grains sand paper and lightly sand down the stucco areas, and I mean lightly. Pressing to hard while you are doing this can tear it more and make it look even rougher, so go easy. Also a small piece of sandpaper run into the corners between the stucco and the timbers can be used to get any little bits that are stuck in there. 

You may notice that I didn’t put a timber running down either side. I left these out on purpose, as I always put the timbers on the corners of the building on opposite pieces.  So the corner timbers of our building will be on the side walls in this build, but you could easily put them on either end of the front and back pieces and it would work just find.  Then I use my Airscrew balsa stripper to make a rabbet cut on the side walls of the house, and inset the other wall. This way the wall timbers will be flush with the corner timbers. This also gives the model more stability and helps hide the seams if you can’t get it to glue together flush, as it appears to be cracked stucco along the side of the corner timber. I will cover this in the next part of the tutorial with some pictures to clearly illustrate what I am trying to explain.

So I am going to have to leave off here for a while as I am going to be out of town for a bit. However, if anyone actually wants to try building something similar, just do the same thing on the other four walls. Remember to turn the side walls sideways and cut the peak of the roof from the 4” mark on either side of the wall to the top center at 6”. You will also want to create a timber running across the wall at the 4” mark to separate the second floor from the attic. I will still be online from time to time if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask.