The Bungalow in Foamboard

[Earl Marischal]

David,

Will you be making the roof removable, so the interior can be viewed?

steve 

[Anglia105E]

11 hours ago, Rodent said:

Doesn't need to be a woman, just ask anyone who cooks. Your stove, sink, and fridge need to be nearer to each other or you will walk 1/2 mile just making your biscuits and tea. Maybe put your corner cabinet in the upper left corner, or make the windowsill smaller so your sink can go under the window and arrange the other stuff as needed. M'lady can have a view of the garden whilst washing the dishes since you haven't given her a dishwasher.

Thank you Steve . . . I had considered removing the window sill or making it smaller, in order to place the sink unit under the window as you kindly suggested. There will be no dishwasher or tumble drier, as I think there are enough appliances in what is not a particularly large kitchen, but I take your point. M'Lady is welcome to wander out through the French doors and into the garden, once she has finished washing the dishes . . .

David

[Anglia105E]

6 hours ago, Earl Marischal said:

David,

Will you be making the roof removable, so the interior can be viewed?

steve 

Once the rooms are completed and all of the 16 wall panels are firmly in place, the ceiling panel will rest on top of the upper wall edges. The ceiling panel will not be glued to the walls, or attached in any way. The lighting for each room, including the garage, will be mounted within the ceiling panel.

The entire roof structure is being constructed on it's own baseboard, and this baseboard will rest on top of the ceiling panel . . . Both the ceiling panel and the roof structure baseboard can be lifted clear of the lower room compartments, giving a free and unobstructed view of the room interiors . . .

I have made this bungalow model so that the ceilings and roof structure assembly fits within both gable ends, as shown in the photo below . . .

David

[Anglia105E]

Steadily moving forward, as the wall panels are being mounted onto the baseboard, one at a time, with an overnight setting time of 24 hours to allow the PVA glue to dry completely . . . Yesterday, I did manage to mount two walls, which were the rear and side walls of the garage.

Today, I carefully mounted the front wall panel of this bungalow, which is the wall that has the window for bedroom two and also the double garage doors. Now that this wall is firmly glued in place, the hinged double garage doors are locked into position, and cannot be removed. The two upper hinge rods and the two lower hinge rods are slotted precisely into holes that were drilled into the upper and lower styrene strips . . .

Some PVA glue seeped out from under the garage wall on the inside, and found it's way between the 1-2-3 block and the garage floor. When I slowly removed the 1-2-3 block a section of the garage wall and floor was torn off . . . This damage has since been rectified, using some grey emulsion paint.

Having started in the centre of the bungalow and gradually moved outwards, over to the right hand side of the baseboard, I can now continue across to the left hand side of the baseboard . . . The walls for bedroom one, the bathroom and the two gable ends are going to be mounted during the next few days, along with the longest wall that runs along the left hand side of the bungalow . . . This will leave only one wall at the rear of the living room, that has French doors, and also the main front entrance door of the property.

Thanks for following the build this far, and pretty soon the roof structure will be coming together decisively . . .

David

 

[PHPaul]

Excellent progress, Sir.

And I've been there and done that with glue and 1-2-3 blocks...

[Anglia105E]

1 hour ago, PHPaul said:

Excellent progress, Sir.

And I've been there and done that with glue and 1-2-3 blocks...

Thanks Paul . . . Generally, the PVA glue is what I would describe as a ' friendly ' adhesive, and I like using it. The lengthy and slow setting time doesn't bother me really . . . Super glue on the other hand, is what I would describe as an ' unfriendly ' adhesive, and I hate using it, but sometimes I am forced to use it . . .

The damage from the PVA glue seeping under the 1-2-3 block is easily fixed, and actually looks like a typical garage interior after many years of use.

David

[Anglia105E]

Having mounted both gable ends of the bungalow, I moved on to mounting the longest side wall that runs between the two gable ends. Prior to this, the front entrance door and frame was mounted between the walls of bedroom one and bedroom two . . . The bathroom has all four walls in place, and the hall is now nicely squared off at the corners.

Three paintings by Edward Hopper are now hanging on the walls of three rooms, these being ' Gas ' in bedroom one, ' Hotel Lobby ' in the kitchen above the fireplace, and ' Nighthawks ' above the fireplace in the living room . . . There will be one more Hopper painting hanging in the hallway.

The final wall of sixteen was mounted this evening, which is the back wall of the living room, including the opening French doors. Once this has been allowed to set over a period of 24 hours, the entire lower floor structure is ready for further painting . . .

David

[PHPaul]

Great progress, David.

I like the creative use of bracing...

[Anglia105E]

9 minutes ago, PHPaul said:

Great progress, David.

I like the creative use of bracing...

Sorry Paul, just woken up and the brain is not fully functioning this early in the day . . . When you say creative use of ' bracing '. what did you mean ?

David

[PHPaul]

1-2-3 blocks are normal/common.  Glass bottles are "creative"...

[Anglia105E]

18 minutes ago, PHPaul said:

1-2-3 blocks are normal/common.  Glass bottles are "creative"...

Oh I see . . . These are what I call my ' weight bottles ', and basically I fill empty plastic bottles with water, so they get used a great deal for holding things down, or bracing upright structures . . . Thanks !

David

[Anglia105E]

Having checked that the two sets of French doors at the rear of the bungalow open and close without issues, the garage doors and the main front door were also checked for normal functionality . . . Then the remaining white areas of the baseboard, including the outer edges, were given a coat of grey emulsion paint.

Shortly I shall be applying Mr White Putty R filler to all of the exterior parts of the walls that have gaps showing. Once the filler is sanded smooth, I can then apply a further coat of emulsion paint , which is mostly the ' Cushion Craze ' pink colour . . . Meanwhile, I decided to carry out some work on the roof structure.

The roof structure baseboard and the ceiling panel were separated, and the ceiling panel was placed on top of the lower rooms assembly. The outlines of all the rooms are marked in pencil on the ceiling panel, which will make it easier to position the lighting for each room, including the garage . . . From the following photos it can be seen that the roof trusses near the gable end wall needed a 45° angle to provide a tidy joint, so I set about cutting the angle manually. This was my first attempt at cutting a 45° angle, which I did using an offcut of foam board. As this turned out well, I repeated the cut with the actual roof truss, and this was also a success . . .

To the right hand side of the gable end at the front of the bungalow there needs to be a small roof panel that slopes down to the gully. Before committing myself to cutting a piece of balsa wood, I first measured and cut out a piece of thin card. The measurements were then modified slightly, following a visual inspection, and a second version of the template was taped in place against the roof truss . . . I placed the largest roof section, which has already been tiled, up against the other side of the roof truss, and examined the overall alignment.

I shall need to do some further 45° angle cutting at the edges of the ceiling panel, to allow the roof panels to be seated correctly . . .

David

[Anglia105E]

The central front roof section turned out to be extremely difficult to calculate, in terms of angles and dimensions. This was no surprise, as the shape of the roof area is quite complex, which is further compounded by the angle of incline, as the panel rises to the top ridge . . .

Maybe I should have used a truss frame and rafters type of construction, rather than opting for the solid foam board trusses and the sheet balsa panels. Anyway, as I am now committed to my chosen method of construction, this involves painstakingly measuring and cutting out thin card templates, which are then translated into sheet balsa panels . . . Each template required two attempts to get the dimensions to an acceptable level of accuracy.

Three balsa roof panels are now almost ready to be test fitted to the roof structure, using the orange tape to hold them in place. The largest roof panel is already in place on the left hand side of the bungalow at the gable ends . . . This represents four of eight roof panels prepared so far.

I had great difficulty determining the length of the gulley in relation to the ridges, and consequently the required angles to align the whole structure precisely.

Some foam board material was removed, in order to provide a chamfered edge to the front of the ceiling board and the roof structure baseboard.

David

[David G.]

What a delightful project this is shaping up to be David. It seems nearly as involved as planning and building a full scale structure.

Beautiful work so far!

David G.

[Anglia105E]

51 minutes ago, David G. said:

What a delightful project this is shaping up to be David. It seems nearly as involved as planning and building a full scale structure.

Beautiful work so far!

David G.

Thank you kindly David G.  . . . Certainly, this whole process feels like what I would have to go through in order to plan and build a real 1:1 bungalow !!

David W.

[Anglia105E]

Today was all about applying the strips of roof tiles. These have a peel off self-adhesive backing, and they are a very nice product to work with.

The wooden ' gully ' was also test fitted, and this will be glued to the roof sections, with grey emulsion paint applied afterwards. As well as this gully at the front of the bungalow, there are two more gullies at the rear of the property . . .

The small roof section to the right of the front gable end was tiled first, and then the triangular section to the right of the garage was fully tiled. The larger centre front section will be tiled tomorrow hopefully, and then I can move around to the rear of the bungalow to measure and cut thin card templates for the sheet balsa roof sections . . . There are four of these, and one of them is a large complex panel, similar in shape to the front centre one.

David

[PHPaul]

Very nice work Sir!  Fussy work like that requires a certain frame of mind with which I am only rarely blessed, and then for short periods!

I've used those peel-and-stick shingles in 1:64 scale for cedar shingle siding.  Excellent product.

[David G.]

That's a tidy bit of work David, the roofing looks great!

David G.

[Anglia105E]

1 hour ago, PHPaul said:

Very nice work Sir!  Fussy work like that requires a certain frame of mind with which I am only rarely blessed, and then for short periods!

I've used those peel-and-stick shingles in 1:64 scale for cedar shingle siding.  Excellent product.

Nice and easy to apply, although quite time consuming, and the process requires a considerable amount of patience as you have found Paul . . . !

David

[Anglia105E]

Just now, David G. said:

That's a tidy bit of work David, the roofing looks great!

David G.

Thanks David G., . . . I have a feeling that this roof structure is going to look pretty good . . . fingers crossed !

David W.

[Anglia105E]

The three roof sections at the front of the bungalow have been fully tiled . . . For the next task, I positioned all of the ten roof trusses. Each truss was fixed onto the roof structure baseboard using Bostik Glue Dots, one glue dot in the centre of each truss . . .

Today I was able to measure and cut out the remaining four roof section templates from thin white card. I realised that my method of measuring the length of each side of the roof sections was problematic, because each time the first attempt failed. The template did not fit onto the trusses properly, and was often out by a considerable margin . . . The problem was not the length in millimetres, but actually it was the ANGLES that were wrong. Then a new method came into my head, and this has worked much better. First I cut out a piece of card that was roughly the size of the area, and then I pinned each of four corners to the foam board trusses. Once the pins were removed, I could connect the four pin holes by drawing black lines between them . . . Cutting out the template by leaving about five millimetres just outside each of the lines allowed some margin for error. This not only worked well, but also this method was easier and quicker.

Four templates were completed during the day, so these can be transferred to sheet balsa tomorrow . . .

David

[David G.]

You've made some good progress on this David. I've always wanted have a go at building a scale structure like this and I'm finding your posts enlightening, informative and entertaining.

A thought about the errors you've related experiencing. One thing I've found in my experience when measuring, cutting and fitting is that I sometimes neglect to take into account the thickness or volume of the material I'm working with. If I find that my results don't seem to match what my measurements and calculations predicted, that's the first error I check for and it's frequently the solution.

Please forgive me if that's turned out as an insulting assumption but I believe that you know I do mean well.

David G.

[Anglia105E]

1 hour ago, David G. said:

You've made some good progress on this David. I've always wanted have a go at building a scale structure like this and I'm finding your posts enlightening, informative and entertaining.

A thought about the errors you've related experiencing. One thing I've found in my experience when measuring, cutting and fitting is that I sometimes neglect to take into account the thickness or volume of the material I'm working with. If I find that my results don't seem to match what my measurements and calculations predicted, that's the first error I check for and it's frequently the solution.

Please forgive me if that's turned out as an insulting assumption but I believe that you know I do mean well.

David G.

Your comments are always well received David, and I recognise that you have more years of experience in model building than I do. I do take your point regarding the thickness and volume of material that we are working with, although in this case it is entirely due to incorrect angles on my part . . . The lower edge of each template, and also the top ridge, is a simple horizontal on flat paper, but then you have inclines and also gulleys that cannot be measured on flat paper.

As each template required two attempts to get anywhere near right, I ended up using the ' pin ' method . . . One pin at each corner of the card provided me with a precise point of reference, and by simply joining the dots ( joining the pin holes ), I was able to define the exact shape. Basically, this is a 3D visualisation of the problem, and not a 2D visualisation . . . Now I get it . . .

David W.

[Anglia105E]

The remaining four roof section panels have been cut out of sheet balsa, and these do require some slight adjustment to fit precisely . . .

I wasn't happy with the roof truss attachment to the roof structure baseboard, because they kept moving out of position as I was lining up the roof sections. This prompted me to secure the trusses, using PVA glue along the lower edges . . .

All ten roof trusses are now PVA glued in place, and they will be allowed overnight setting. The eight roof sections will be completed once the remaining four panels have been tiled . . . 

David

[Earl Marischal]

Hope it all goes well!

steve