roof shingles

I’m making a few of my own buildings, including a station, and would like to know how to make a realistic-looking shingle pattern. Besides ordering sheets from suppliers, has anyone made their own home-made shingle design for roofs? Or bought something that looks like a roof pattern? (It’s for HO)

Simple six step process.

First, get some air mail paper. You can find it at office supply stores.

Second, cut the air mail paper in 1/4" wide strips long enough to go across the roof and hang over just a little bit. Make cuts in the edge of the strips to approximate shingles.

Third, put a thin layer of white glue on your roof and set the strips into it, staggering them as you go. When they’re all done, let dry.

Fourth, trim off any excess that’s hanging over the edges of the roof.

Fifth, paint your new shingles, going from top to bottom with each stroke. The choice of color is up to you.

Sixth, sit back and admire your handiwork.

Better way than I did trying to make styrene for a styrene building. All the rest of my building now have rolled roofing made of painted phone book pages.

I use real cedar shakes that I cut from sheets available from Seirra Scale Models. They look great when they are weathered but do take a while to apply as you have to cut them and apply them one by one. The effort is worth it though when you see the finished product.

Campbell are still available but I have just found northeastern and they are like campbell only already done on sheets and prestained to boot!!!

I use Rusty Stumps peel and stick paper shingles:

Nick

jw:

Paper grocery sacks or kraft wrapping paper work nicely too. Notch the strips quickly by folding the strip and cutting through all layers at once. Keep the cuts as square with the edge as possible, but don’t fret about making the widths consistent. Real wood shingles aren’t. Make yourself a miniature weather-exposure gauge by notching a piece of cardboard, to help keep the courses straight and evenly spaced. You can also draw pencil lines.

I find that applying a strip of glue wide enough for two or three courses works better than trying to apply all at once, as the thin glue layer dries quickly.

I scanned in a sheet of premade peel and stick shinges I had left over from a kit. I used InDesign (you could use any page layout program) made up a complete page of them. Then using a sheet of label paper (with very large - half page labels) printed them on the printer. If you have a photo manipulation program (like Photoshop) you can change the color of the “shingles” before printing, or that can be done in the page layout program as well. Whalla! Home made “peel and stick” roofing.

Happy roofing!