I made some view blocks.  The tall section is just a piece of black construction paper, the longer part of the structure I used some firmer cardboard and glued construction paper to both sides.  

Jeff

Mark, I've found with using only short strips and the transfer tape, the shingles stay pretty straight.  I've not had much luck with coloring them, I should make a test piece and try your advice.  Mr. Kirk did great scenery work.  

Jeff

Thanks, Jerry, I'm making slow but steady progress.  

Jeff

Morning all,

Cold and windy here today.  

Hope Tom is recovering well from his surgery.  Which reminds me, I only have 2 more weeks off until I have to go back to work.  

Slowly working on the roof of the FSM kit.  

Jeff

Another issue is there are two chimney stacks which go on the roof.  To get these to sit straight I glued some wood inside the structure and used some shims that would get up to the roof for them to stand reasonably straight.  Next up is the first set of rafter tails.  The two middle roofs use tarpaper, so I'll paper them before adding as well.  The peaked roof uses the Campbell shingles again, I'm not sure I'll use them or something else.  

Jeff

The instructions want the first roof braced and attached, then do the rafter tails and then the roofing.  There was no way I'd get the shingles on if it was already on the structure, so I put them on first.  I marked the card with parallel lines to ease alignment and marked the places for the shingles to go.  Cut out the spot on the tape and applied them.  

Jeff

Each roof has many (MANY) rafter tails.  I start by marking on the outside of the roof where these go.  Then cut out the roof before painting the underside of the roof (which makes the printed marks go away), I then place the card back in the cutout and remark the places with a white pencil.  You can see the roof needed a slight trim to fit.

Jeff

The structure has four main roofs.  The first has a combo of two of my least favorite roofing materials.  Campbell shingles and corrugated metal.  The shingles are just on a couple of exposed areas where the metal has "come off" to add some detail/age to the structure.  My main issue with the shingles is as they are on a roll, when you try to put them on the roof, the line tends to curve.  These strips are pretty short, so it shouldn't be a problem.  They are also easier to install with 3M transfer tape, as are the metal pieces.  I hate them as they always seem to chip when handling them so the metal shows through.  

Jeff

Morning all,

One week to Christmas.  Probably too late to get off the naughty list.  

Need to chauffer my wife to an epidural this morning and other stuff this afternoon, so probably not much bench time today.  

Jeff

Morning all.

Let's get up, people!  Time's a wastin'.  I have a trip to Costco and Best Buy this morning.  

I accomplished nothing yesterday except putting together a new office chair.  

Jeff

That's a lot of parts, Mark.  I hope you have plenty of glue on hand.

Jeff

Bob builds are always informative and welcome.  

Jeff

Morning all.

Foggy here this morning.  No plans for today, but hope to continue working on the build challenge.  

Jeff

I agree, Dave.  I had never noticed that it was a trapezoid until I saw the template.  From the pictures, I believed only one wall was angled. 

Jeff

Mark you are quite observant.  I lost that piece of trim somewhere along working with the walls.  It has been replaced.  I don't believe any of the FSM kits have a base, I'm just glad there was a diagram to build it over.    

Jeff