Building buildings for SAGA - Part 2

I managed to get some good quality time working on my buildings for SAGA.

I finished adding all the planks to the building's exterior.  Once that is done, you will need to trim any overhang.  I just set the building on its end and took my exacto and cut off the overhang.

Now it is time to frame in the door and window.  This isn't strictly necessary, but I think it gives the building a good look and makes it appear more "finished".  To do this, I cut short pieces of balsa to fit inside the cut outs.

Then I cut strips to be glued onto the exterior.  No fancy cuts.  I notched the header on the door for fun.  You will follow the same process for any other doors and windows.

Now that I have the walls all finished it is time to start on the roof.  I cut a piece of foam core to the correct size for the roof.  I trimmed a gap in the middle so it would fold onto itself and glued in a piece of balsa to help it hold its shape.

Now I took the roof and dry fit it onto the building.  I needed to trim it a little along the eaves so that it would fit nicely on the building.  I just trimmed a bit and fit it again, trimmed a bit and fit it.  Trim a little each time.  You can always take more off, but adding material back on is difficult.  Once you have a good fit, tape up the edges as you did with the main building.

I wanted to add a bit more detail to this building since it will be the main building in the settlement.  So I decided to add timbers to the ends of the roof.

For this I just cut a few pieces of balsa so that they would extend from the peak of the roof.  Once I had the length right, I notched out the pieces so they would fit together smoothly.  Again, trim a little bit at a time.  You can't add material back once it is cut off.

I ended up adding a second strip of balsa to the inside of the peak to add a bit more structure.  I did the same thing for both ends of the roof.

Now it was time to start on the thatch.  I decided for this building to do a thatch roof and I would use an old towel for the material.  There are a few different tutorials that I looked at for this.  One used teddy bear fur and the other a towel.  Here is the link for the tutorial I used:  http://muraminiatures.com/aking-a-28mm-scale-thatched-roof.html  

The teddy bear fur tutorial can be found here:  http://glorioustwelfth.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/how-to-make-really-authentic-dollhouse.html?m=1

Thanks to The Goon from the Moon from The Miniatures Page for these links.

I modified how I did it a bit as this was for a Japanese building, but the basics are the same.  I decided that since I am lazy I would just cut 3 strips.  One for each side and then one for the peak.  You might be tempted to do this with just one piece, but think about the grain of the towel before you do that.  How does the material lay.  The towel I used had a definite direction that the material lay and if I had just used one piece, it would have layed up one side of the roof.  However, I'm not sure how noticeable it would be at the end.

Once you have the towel cut, it is just a matter of gluing it into place.  I watered down some wood glue and used a paint brush to apply it.  I put the towel onto my table with the bottom side up.  I applied the wood glue with the brush until it was nice and wet.  I then put the towel in place on the roof.  I moved it around until I was happy with its placement and then took my brush and wet down the top of the towel.  I soaked it pretty good as I think this will help when painting.

I then did the same thing for the opposite side and the peak.  Here you can see to two side are done and I'm dry fitting the peak piece once more before gluing it down.

Once all three pieces of thatch were in place I took a toothpick and made sure the fabric wasn't overlapping the wood beams on the ends of the roofs.  I just used the toothpick to push in the fabric at the ends to give it a nice clean look.

Here the building is done.  It just needs to dry and it will be ready for paint.  There is a lot of glue in the roof, so be prepared for it to take quite a while for it to dry.

Let me know what you think.  I'm happy with the progress and think this will look nice on my table.

Do you think I should add a base or leave it how it is?  I could go either way.  I think the base will give it more stability, but it is pretty solid as is.