hi all, as some of you may have heard i am doing another dio, this time with a sherman , us troops, a panzer, german troops and a farm house.

i am starting to seriously plan and i am stuck as to how am i going to make/build, or buy a farm house. i would really like to build it to save on money, i have buit RUINED farm house before, but i am way inexpericed as to building one intact with furniture , etc, in my dio i am aiming to have a small house and beside it a barn in wich i i will have the german panzer hiding between the house and barn. inside the house i am going to have german troops set up to ambush with mg, mortars, etc, etc.

can anyone help me build a farm house without it costing me much money, i have the materials for the walls already but thats about it.

all help is greatly appreciated

thnx

matt

Matt, what type of farm house do you want? First thing I would reference farm houses in what ever area you want the setting to be to get a style of house. Also will the house be intact with 4 walls or open on one end? Please give us some more details. And if you have a location but have trouble finding pics of houses let me know and I can search my reference for you. Cheers Kevin

thnx kevin, the house is going to be french in normandy, or carantan ( havnt decied yet) the house is going to be semi ruined, so therefore answering your question kevin, it will be half opne half closed, this way i can show a full houseand still reveal its insides by having a collapsed wall and half of a collapsed roof. it may or maybe a two storie house, ( that will depend on the amount of material i will have). pretty much an ordinary farm house, with barn, well, maybe an out house, its going to have two bedrooms ( ruined).

if theres any more info you need , let me know.

thnx alot......

matt

Matt, what building materials are you wanting to represent? Stone? wood? brick? I will be happy to run through my reference pics for you. Just pm me your addy adn I will send some off. Cheers Kevin

Hi Matt. One thing to consider is how much of the farm house and barn you want to show. Farm houses were generally quite big and barns could be any size. This could lead to a huge dio, a lot of materials and a lot of work
A great dio like this is Sam Garcia´s "battle for cassino". Check out this link and click on the "battle for cassino" thumbnail image. This idea might give you some inspiration.

As far as construction goes you have a few choices
Poured plaster 'solid walls'
Framed & mortared 'hollow walls'
Bricks

Here is a quicks shot of a Framed style

This was super cheap, a bit of balsa, kids contruction paper and regular paper.
Use this technique in Kevins dio for a house and not a barn
https://armorama.kitmaker.net//features/374

Poured plaster is easy
Follow this feature (without the hole)
https://armorama.kitmaker.net//features/389
Here is another way of pouring plaster
https://armorama.kitmaker.net//features/248
With these simply build a solid in tact wall without damage.

You could always use bricks such as these and go vertical
https://armorama.kitmaker.net//features/397

Check out PvtParts dio as a guide
https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/35380&page=1

Check out warthogs threads - he gives tips how he built the furniture
https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/35674&page=1

Here' a simple detail tip. Take three colors of thread that are all close to the color of hay. Cut them in lenths representing about 3-4 feet in your scale. It makes a great straw floow and/or hay pile. Especially, if you drop a little wash on it. The slightly different colors of the thread, give a nice not-too-uniform look.

Inside you can take a thin piece of bass wood and scribe lines to make it look like 8-10" wide boards. Drag a file across the wood in a wiggly manner to put some grain in it.

Put a few pegs on an angle up on the walls and hang some "rope", a harness made from oven bakable clay, and the like. You can copy some farm implements from pictures of them with wood, styrene, oven bakable clay, etc.

If the roof is thatched, you can go crazy like I did until I finally figured out to use oven bakeable clay that I had put screen material inside of to hold the shape while baking. I had already scribed lines using the back of my X-acto knife and used a toothbrush for the ends of the thatch.

Hope this helps.

Sealhead

MATTTOMLIN: I hope the following tip could help you in making your furnitures:

Furniture:
1) Research the types of furnitures you want to show taking into consideration the country and era.
2) Determine the dimension (1:1 sacle) then just convert them to the scale you want. Below are some of the average dimension for chairs and tables...this might somehow lessen your burden of researching:

Chair:
Seat width 16"-20"
Seat depth 15"-18"
Seat height from floor 16"-18"
Slope of seat front to rear 5° to 8° (3/4" to 1" drop)
Armrest height above seat 7"-9"
Armrest length (full armrest) 8" minimum
Armrest width 2" average
Set back of armrest from front 2"-3"
Seat back height 12"-16" above seat
Seat back recline angle 0°-5° (formal); 10°-15° (casual

Tables: See image below.


Beds: See image below.


For cabinets, my suggestion is just look for an old display cabinet in your area and copy it (exclude some of the veryvintricate designs -- if you are in a hurry or if its too hard). Just stick to basic and don't forget the glass in there is a need for it.

My Furniture:



Other scratch built item for farms:





Materials:
1) Wood - I used coffee stirrer, popsicle sticks and spatulas (they are wider but softer thus easy to thin and cut)
2) Sandpaper
3) Protractor (for some furnitures that needs to be angled)
4) Cutter (x-acto or any cutter will do).
5) Rulers (preferable steel)
6) Drawing - I would suggest that you draw your subject first complete with dimension (scaled) before you begin cutting and glueing.

This is quite long...it would be longer if I were to discuss how I built each item particularly the cabinet and the horse cart (it took me sometime to build the wheels particularly the felloes and spokes)...For the mean time this would probably do....

The most important thing is patience especially if the object is very small...

BTW, I scractchbuilt them because I have the same problem as you....budget and availability of aftermarket materials here in the Philippines...

Cheers

Arvin

MATTTOMLIN: I'm sorry I got carried away in my previous post forgeting that the topic is about farm house...

I built the farmhouse using styrofoam and wall putty (bostik). The roof was created using wood...Mr.Roo helped me a lot in the roof building process (see https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/28670&page=1

Result:





Hope this helps