An old wooden garage/shed diorama - Photo set for cars

[Ember]

Most of my modeling (I use the term fairly loosely) is terrain and scenic work around my slot car track, which has been a work in progress for 3 years or more now. As well as driving cars around the track I use it a lot for photographing the cars in my collection. Trouble is that the toy room in which the track sits is not particularly well lit, and as yet I've not had the opportunity to upgrade the room lighting.

I also had the urge to try to make a building, but there was not any room to place one on the track table. So, I decided to make a stand alone diorama that I could take outside and photograph my cars in natural light. But, what to build? So many magnificent racing cars have started their lives in some bloke's shed in the back yard, this seemed like a good place to begin.

I'd seen people doing builds for model railways and the like with card or styrene and only detailing the outside. But this was to be a photographic set the interior of the shed was as important as the exterior. The only way I could think of to proceed was to work in the same way as a full sized one would be built.

This is very much a "make it up as you go along" build.


The shed would need to house 1/32 cars. So, I logicked some measurements out based on the 8'x4' 'standard' sheet size.

Testing the build in cardboard seemed like a good idea. This truck was the biggest car I had at the time. A Mustang would fit easily, as would every other car I had on the shelf at the time.

The paint can lid would eventually become a water tank.

Sizes seemed ok. So onward....

Using the cardboard mockup as a pattern the building frame was cut from 5mm square spruce.




But this was to be an old shed. I couldn't have bright, fresh cut spruce for the frame. What to do?

Once again, let me remind you that I'd not done this sort of thing before. Research indicated that there were various products available for aging wood. But I couldn't obtain any easily, nor within my meager budget. So I experimented around with my artist's acrylics and came up with a recipe that worked to my satisfaction.

Ultra blue deep and raw umber with just a hint of black. I very rarely use black in mixing colours, a leftover from art classes at high school.


And two very important products.

Sorry about the brand advertising. They're just what I had in the cupboard.

Mix roughly and paint on wood


Wait a little and wipe it off...


Voila!

Might be a bit dark, but I can lighten the mix up with more glaze medium. I also made sure I used plenty of sealer when staining balsa.

And the results on the spruce


Oh the fun of staining all the pieces of the frame before building could commence.


Wall frames glued together....

So far so good.

Cheers
Embs

 

[spud]

that is very cool Ember

 

[Junkie]

Great project. Your stain looks great.

 

[Ember]

Thanks. The stain colour looks much better in natural light than under fluro. And I've adjusted it a little along the way depending on the wood I'm trying to represent.

On to the roof...

Trusses took me a while to work out for some reason. But I eventually managed to get them sorted and the roof frame together.



Once again, the frame is all in spruce.

And test fitting on the wall frame.

The blu-tack blobs are helping hold the trusses upright while the glue dries.


The roof needs to remain removable so that I have access to the inside of the garage.

 

[Ember]

With the garage itself starting to take shape time to think about a yard for it to sit in. This is the way I've done much of the terraforming on my track.

I thought long and hard about the size of the base (but not long and hard enough.... more on this later) and decided that 450mm square would be suitable for what I wanted.

A piece of corflute was a starting point. I was getting it for free when I was working as a signwriter.


Basic idea of layout scribbled on the sheet.

Add a sheet of polystyrene scrounged from the recycle pile at the local whitegoods store.

Carve some contouring into it and then enjoy the next half hour or so of cleaning up white polystyrene bead snow.

Add a skim coat or two of plasterer's joint compound. I think it's dry wall mud to some of you.

I've used it extensively on my track because it's easy to work with and sand. Comes in a pre-mixed tub and keeps for ages. I tint it with artist's acrylics because I don't like working on a white base.

A light sand when dry and time to splash around some paint.

The slightly raised rectangle is where the shed/garage will sit.

Dirt comes next. And what better way to emulate dirt that to use... well... Dirt. Remember always: Cheap is good... Free is better.

This sand is ground down from decomposing sandstone picked up along the side of the road when driving around the nearby Grampians Ranges. Crushed in a stone mortar and pestle and roughly colour graded.

So, the base gets smeared with PVA glue (white wood worker's glue) which dries clear and sprinkled with coloured sands.

A top coating of watered down PVA glue will help hold it in place.

And when mostly dry it looks like this.

The dark patch where the shed will sit has had some sifted garden dirt added. I thought the dirt floor inside the shed would be darker due to grease spills and the like.

With that starting to take shape, attention can move elsewhere again.

Next installment, the paling yard fence.

Hope there's still someone out there who hasn't fallen asleep.

Cheers
Embs

 

[Quaralane]

Excellent stuff, Ember

 

[Ember]

Why thank you sir.

Now.... where did I get to. Ahhh yes... Yard fence.

Well... That's basically the same story as the shed frame. Cut. Stain. Glue. Then do it all over again.

Spruce again for the supporting work.

Upright posts cut from 6mm x 4mm and notched.


And 2mm square for the rails.

Rather than standard palings I decided to go for a wider, rough cut slabs for an old farm feel. So, the palings got sliced from a slab of balsa and are 10mm wide rather than the 6mm or so they should be in 1/32.




Palings meet railings with the assistance of PVA glue

A piece of cardboard helped with the spacing, which is important because this will be a double layer privacy fence

Second layer starts


With all the palings in place.


And the inner side.


The framework for the fence all looks a bit neat and tidy. Next time I tackle something like this I'll bash them about a bit before I stain them I think. Oh well... Live and learn.

For now, adieu.
Embs

 

[struschie]

Very usefull tipps and great results so far!

I would love to see your whole slot car set up (despite bad light)

 

[GaryD]

Awesome, inspiring stuff.

 

[Quaralane]

Love how that fencework is turning out

 

[Ravhin]

Awesome stuff, and great nicely detailed post. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Ember]

Thank you for the very kind words. I've certainly learned a lot through this first building build and intend to do more somewhere along the way.

So, the fence is sort of done and I have the base to a certain point. Let's get back to the shed and the tedious job of weatherboard cladding.

The weatherboards are cut in strips 6.5mm wide (1/32 of the size measured from the weatherboards on my cottage) from a 1.5mm thick balsa sheet. Cut to a scale 10' length and profiled with an emery board they were then attacked with a brass suede brush to give them some grain and character. A slow and repetitive process I assure you. Since finishing the process I've invested in some tools that would have made the whole build somewhat simpler.

The boards were all stained with the same stain recipe mentioned above before starting the cladding process.


I started off using PVA glue to stick the boards in place, but soon got frustrated with the drying time and changed to C23 (balsa glue). Not my favourite glue to work with, but it's at least quicker to cure than PVA.

A visual check of the shed against the paling fence before getting too far along with the weatherboarding.


And as this build is as much about the inside of the building as the outside...

I did cheat a little bit, there are no noggins between the frame uprights.

More cladding...


And still more...


And yet more....


The roof had to remain removable, so a bit of fiddling is required around the top of the walls to allow the birdmouths in the roof trusses to still slide into place on the frame.

Rear window (good name for a film)

Window frame is more balsa and the glass is acetate from some packaging. You may also notice that I've added a couple of extra rows of weatherboarding above the window which are yet to be trimmed to length.

Weatherboarding continues up the roof gables...

The change from wall section to roof section isn't too obvious. Or it shouldn't be when finished.

 

[Ember]

Oh, I forgot to mention. The edges of the boards at the corners have been neatened and finished off with some 2mm square section spruce.

And on to the roof. Corrugated iron, of course.

The roofing sheets are cut from corrugated cardboard picked up at the local $2 shop. I found a few different profiles in the scrapbooking supplies area.


Sprayed with Tamiya silver acrylic and cut into scale 8' x 4' sheets.

You will also see the doors being test fitted here. Where would we be without BluTack?

Another shot of the test fit.

Door framing is again in balsa.


With the corrugated sheeting all in place, cardboard flashing was added the the ends and ridge line. This is simply heavy paper with a bamboo skewer glued into the middle.


The whole roof was weathered with soft pastel mixed with a little methylated spirits and painted in appropriate places.


Gable ends were finished with balsa barge boards and paper flashing. The square black box is to disguise a power connector.

And just to prove the roof still comes off...

 

[CTspeedshop]

I love the look of this. Very nice.

 

[struschie]

Great WIP - thank you so much for sharing it!

 

[Quaralane]

That looks great, Ember.