Paper houses: churches!

vicvolta · Post by **vicvolta** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 6:36 pm

Great paper houses Ian! But does anyone have an idea 'bout building a church with paper facades?

sfcgreg29er · Post by **sfcgreg29er** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 10:24 pm

vicvolta,

Here are a few pics of churches I have made using paper over styrene. Took quite a bit of time to make the large one.

I had to use about three or four different pictures of churches off the internet to create the "wallpapers"

Hope this "inspires" you to make your own.

sfcgreg29er · Post by **sfcgreg29er** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 10:33 pm

Here's a side view of the large chuch..

dnichols · Post by **dnichols** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 10:34 pm

Very impressive work. My sincere compliments.

jb · Post by jb » Thu Nov 23, 2006 10:58 pm

Great job! Mike,those are beautiful...

vicvolta · Post by **vicvolta** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 3:39 am

Indeed! Those churches are outstanding! You would'nt happen to have the "smaller" one in PDF, would ya? =)

sfcgreg29er · Post by **sfcgreg29er** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 7:21 am

I have to figure out how to convert jpg or bitmap images into pdf. I have Adobe Photoshop but I'm not smart enough to use it yet. Anyhow, here is the wallpaper in jpg. Open it up in the Microsoft Windows paint program and see if you can print it out that way. That's how I do all my wallpapers now.

To get the proper scale, the side wall of the church measures 53 mm long by 18mm high.
You may have to reduce or enlarge the image to get it the right size.

The walls are made from 1mm thick styrene. The roof from .75mm thick. Let the image dry for several hours after you print it so when you cement it to the styrene the ink won't run.. Then use liquid cement to adhere it to the styrene.

8ball · Post by **8ball** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 12:23 am

Ah. Ya can't make pdfs from Photoshop. You need Adobe Acrobat for that. The free download is only a reader.

I have it, and would be happy to do it for you, but I suspect these are pretty big files that might not email very well. Let me know.

You could also post jpegs to Photobucket.

Whoops! Almost forgot. Really nice work!

BattlerBritain · Post by **BattlerBritain** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 4:52 pm

I have it from good advice that you can get an MS Office-like product called OpenOffice that has a MS Word-like product that can be used to save files to pdf.

And it's free.

It can also be installed alongside MS Office.

Check out http://www.openoffice.org/

terry · Post by **terry** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 10:20 pm

Save the picture above as bmp, open it up in paint and use the stretch and skew tool to resize the photo. about 66% seems close

Zippy · Post by **Zippy** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 11:30 pm

Terry
I followed your instructions and it worked great.

mike

RoughRIder · Post by **RoughRIder** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 4:58 am

Not a noob and have constructed buildings out of balsa wood, but where in the world can i get styrene without having to order it online? Well any help is greatly appreciated.

Mag · Post by **Mag** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 5:46 am

I know that styrene is the modelers choice when it comes to this type of bashing, but why not use coroplast - you know the stuff that the political signs, gas station outside displayers, etc. are made of ? Most sign shops carry this in different thickness and board sizes and can be glued with CA... I plan on visiting the local sign shop Friday to see what they have glue sitck to stick the paper on and voila - building!!!

terry · Post by **terry** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 6:06 am

Most hobby store that sell model trains have an entire rack of styrene shapes and sheets. two sheets of .040 styrene (about 5" by 8") cost about $3.00. It can be cut with a good pair of scissors. spray the styrene with spray adhesive lay the paper building pictures on and let dry, cut out ,bevel the edges with sandpaper or an emory board and glue together

sfcgreg29er · Post by **sfcgreg29er** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 8:10 am

I posted a step by step article at the following yahoo group on how I make scratch built houses like the churches I posted:

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Micro-Armor/files/

terry suggested beveling the edges of the styrene. I tried that initially but it was time consuming and I could never get a perfect 45 degree bevel along all the edges. I use a sharp x-acto knife and score the stryene 2-3 times then snap it to size. I then use a small file to smooth the edges. I recommend the liquid cement over the spray adhesive. The spray gets all over the place. The liquid cement soaks thru the paper and melts the styrene right to the back of the paper. Besides, you have to use liquid cement to glue the styrene pieces together so there is no need to go out and buy spray adhesive. Just my opinion.

Oh. Thanks for the comments.

I get all my styrene from a local hobby shop. Evergreen Brand. Fairly inexpensive too. I think I figured that it only cost about 50 cents for a small house model.