I had excellent response looking for doors and windows, thanks. Now lets try the same thing on shingles, Make yout own or buy them ready made. I have printed some that look pretty good but would like to look as realistic as possible. I am looking for either a composition or a ceder shingle. Thanks Mike
Check out www.rustystumps.com, they have an assortment of shingles, they also have some windows and doors. Campbell makes shingles. There are plenty more. Others will tell you.
I’ve done one small building (sorry, no pictures) with Campbell shingles. They are time-consuming, but the results are very good. I think they are real cedar. They come in a roll, one strip of shingles wide. There are also a couple of pieces of cardboard with horizontal lines across it. You cut the cardboard to size, and then glue the strips of shingles down just like you were putting down a real roof. The backs of the strips are pre-glued. They advise only moistening the upper half of the strip, so you can loosen and raise the lower pieces to give a more weathered look.
As I recall, Bob Grech uses Campbell shingles for his models.
Mike - I’ve used Campbell’s shingles on a number of my scratch structures over the years. While they turn out quite nice, I’ve pretty much moved on to the more convenient laser-cut, peel-and-stick, shingles offered by various other companies today. The real virture of Campbell’s, in my opinion, is the ease in staining/weathering them with liquid stains, rather than by applying chalk or other powdered weathering agents. Likewise, Campbell’s cedar shingles have a nice distressed look to them if you like buildings with a older, rather rundown, FSM character.
The structure imaged below has Campbell shingles employed on the addition roof to the far left. Click on it to enlarge.
CNJ831
Might be an idea to do a search on Walthers web site before you pose your questions. If they don’t have it, at least you’ll know.
What scale? If you’re looking for HO scale cedar shingles, the two best are from Master Creations or Evergreen Hill Designs.
The Master Creatiions product are Random Cedar Shingles, item 21000, sold by Better Than Scratch. They are self-adhesive paper.
See http://www.master-creations.com or http://www.btsrr.com
The Evergreen Hill Designs shingles, item EH307, are laser cut from real cedar and are not self-adhesive; however, nothing looks more like cedar than real cedar.
The Campbell shingles are shipping tape, best way is to wet the back with a paintbrush and apply with overhang, then trim to size ( the cardboard should be cut to size before applying the shingles). Then to get them to look good you have to use a wash of some type, some use inks some paints or others. They are the biggist bang for the buck but there are better but unless it is very foreground, the campbell are great.
I started using Campbell’s shingles after my wife picked up a box of “train junk” at a garage sale. Among other goodies, there was a part roll of shingles plus the lined cardstock. I make most of my scratchbuilt structures from styrene, so the cardstock is not much use to me. Instead, I build the roof using .060" styrene as the deck. From the Campbell roll, I cut enough strips to do one side of the roof, allowing for overhang on both ends, then, using a small, stiff brush, I coat the gummed side of the shingles with contact cement, setting the strips aside on a piece of newspaper as they’re done. I then use the brush to apply contact cement to the roof deck. (I don’t bother with alignment marks, but if you require them, they’re best done before installing the roof deck.) When the cement has dried to the touch, start applying the shingle strips, working from the bottom towards the top. The part of the strip that overlaps the strip below it will not be stuck down, as the upper face of the strip has not had cement applied to it. When you’ve done both sides of the roof, you’ll need to apply a narrow swatch of contact cement along both sides of the roof, over the top upper face of the shingle material near the peak, in order for the cap material to stick. I usually colour my shingles with thinned washes of Floquil paint in a variety of colours, using a wide soft brush and quick strokes to avoid saturating the paper. I sometimes follow-up with some dry brushing to add highlights. Here are a few examples:
In the last picture, above, the warehouse in the background is roofed with Campbells corrugated siding. Since the sub-roof is also .060" styrene, I again use contact cement to apply it, with one important difference: the contact cement is applied to the strips of aluminum before cutting them into individual sheets. After the cement has dried
Mike,
I’ve used Campbell shingles in the past. They are a little fiddly and a bit tedious, but roofing with shingles always is.
I’ve heard lots of good things about Paper Creek laser-cut shingles. I have a couple of packs, but haven’t tried them out yet. The narrow gauge crowd has been drooling over them, though, and they are very nice looking, but a bit pricier than Campbell shingles.
It’s hard to beat Campbell’s rolled shingles when it comes to roofing a structure. However, there are a few tricks I have learned to make them look a whole lot better. First, I attach the rows of shingles using Elmer’s glue, applying the glue to only the upper half of each row. Like already mentioned, I run each row past the edge of the roof card then trim them flush with a pair of sissors. Once the roof is covered, I spray it using Floquils earth. Once dry, I apply a wash of A&I stain to tone it down and weather it. I then randomly lift some of the shingles with a hobby knife (hence the reason I only glue the upper half of each row). Lifting shingles really makes them stand out. Finally, I dry brush (Reefer White) to provide some highlights.
Here are some pics showing this technique applied to my structures:
