Lately I've been working on a tower project and I need some ideas on how to make roof tiles. What materials to use, what techniques are good for making tiles. If you have any advice or experience, leave a reply, it would be more than helpful. I was planning to make each tile about 1mm thick, rectangle shaped, flat, dimensions: 10mm x 7mm. It's going to be for a 28mm-35mm scale (so it's around 1:53 or so). Thanks in advance for any help.

regards,
dsc.

Kancali sells latex roof tiles. Take a look here.

Patrick

Try basswood or balsa strips cut to size. Model railroaders supplies also include shingles if my memory serves correctly.

Those Kancali clay tiles look nice, but I have to say that I want to scratchbuilt them, so shoping isn't an option. Also I wanted to make them clay tiles, so balsa or bass wood won't help either. But thanks for your input nonetheless.

dsc.

I have used small cedar shingles for doll houses. I have to sand them thinner and cut each into 6 individual 1/35 scale shingles. Then glue them down in rows on top of each other.
http://photos.kitmaker.net/showgallery.php/cat/12178

You can also use heavy card stock (thick paper) for hte shingle material I used a heavy grocery bag for my Cold Stare diorama.
http://photos.kitmaker.net/showgallery.php/cat/12053

In my One Shot dio, I used constructon paper-found in craft stores. I glued two pieces together to add some thickness, then I drew the shingles with a pencil and straight edge. Cut the shingles out and glue them down to your roof and paint. It's a little time consuming but I was happy with the finished product. The construction paper takes paint well too. Hope this helps. Good luck.

Hi DSC
I make my roof tiles whit carboard or plastic sheet, but also I use cofee removers for make alf rounded tiles . see the photo

blockhaus youre are genious. I've been discarding those 1/2 round ends of coffee stir sticks. NOT ANY MORE.

Thanks for the input guys. I've tried two methods of those already mentioned:
- using cardboard, which is looking quite nice, not very hard to do, but still looks more like cardboard than a realistic tile
- using plastic sheets, cut out small tiles, sand them down and glue them in position, it is sadly very time consuming (because of the sanding) but look pretty nice too, here's a picture of a house I made some time ago which has roof tiles made using this method:



I've been trying to make a plaster prototype piece of a tile covered roof. I can post some pics if you're interested. Again thanks for the help guys! That idea with coffee stir sticks is cool, I might try it out in the near future. Cheers!

dsc

I have used card board for my tiles. Here is my latest example:


This is commonly called "chip board" in the printing industry. It does have a texture to it. this particular card board had a texture much like that of cedar shingles. Don't give up easily it took me awhile to find this stuff. There are many textured card boars to be found. A couple of places to look is frame shops where they cut mattes to frame picture or art work. It is also posible to give the card board texture in a couple of different ways. If you want more details than this feel free to Private messenge me and I will help as much as I can.

Thanks Paul for your suggestions and for offering help. I kind of went in a different direction and scribed my own small test piece of a tile covered roof panel. I've taken three pictures showing different angles, here they are:

- an overall look of the test piece:




- an angled view, this is how it would look like on a roof:



- and a sort of bottom look, showing the scribing under the tiles:




It didn't take long to make and I guess it looks pretty cool and realistic (ignore that bigger whole in the middle of the piece, I had to make a quick cast). What do you think guys?? Would you use such thing in your dioramas?? Maybe some suggestion how to make it better or what to change?? Any advice/critique/comments are welcome and thanks in advance.

cheers,

dsc.

DSC,

I love the carving job of the plaster roof tile but the overlap is missing, if you know what I mean. Roof tiles over lap each other and have an under cut. You don't really get that effect with carved tiles.

Just a thought...

Shaun

Hi Shaun

If you look closely at tiled covered roofs you will see that in most of them, all the tiles fit together very closely. So closely that there is little space between rows (the gap between overlaping tiles is very small). I've added scribing under each row to make an impression that each tile was placed seperately. When painted with some washes, the wash should run under the tiles and create a realistic look. I know it's hard to achieve a natural look with scribing but with a little bit of practice you can end up with a very nice final look. Thanks for leaving a comment, all ideas and thoughts are pretty important when scratchbuilding, so you know if you're going in the right direction. Anyone else feels like adding a comment??

dsc.

I have tried several things for tiles. the quickest and handiest turned out to be thick carboard. I bought a few sets of Kincali roofs and will never bother scratching them again. Excellent stuff... light weight and easy to cut a fit.
Your scribed tiles look quite good and will probably do the trick. The big problem with this method is the thickness. To be able to work and scribe, you need a certain thickness or its easy to break and crack. The thickness you have here is gonna be difficult to hide realistically.
Mol Plastic Modelbouw in Holland who advertise at the top of the page, sell Kincali sets. Buy for €40 or more and you get free postage in Europe.

Frank,

This is only a test piece so don't worry about the thickness. I will make the panel thinner when making the mould. It's going to be something around 3mm thick, which should be enough even for plaster casts. Do you also make your tiles rectangle shaped??

dsc.

PS. I've seen those Kancali latex sections and they look great. I could buy them but I'm having much more fun scratchbuilding everything:)

No I made them square, but when they are laid out and overlapped properly, they appear rectangular.This is how real slates ... well the type I saw were.



LOL ... I totally understand what you mean. Some of the happiest modelling times Ive had, was when trying out new things and making my own. Today Ive got so much I want to do and so little time, I just buy the parts I want, when they are affordable.
I like the Kincali system because you get quite large sheets that you cut to your needs and tthey´re quite reasonbly priced for the size.
So, if I read your message right .. your going to make a whole roof, make a mold of it and then cast it to 3mm? Should be possible. One tip would be to use the dry powder type and use diluted white glue for your mixing fluid. It gets really hard and solid. Good luck!

Well I was planning to do it a bit different. I'm going to make a bigger triangle panel (3mm thick), than make a mold and cast four panels to cover the whole roof. After that I will only have to make some corner pieces to cover up the joints and the roof will be finished. Thanks for your water-glue mixing fluid suggestion, that should really make the cast stronger. Cheers Frank!

dsc.