Shingles. Actually shakes. In search of a better way.

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

I’m building a craftsman kit and I’ve come to the roof. Eyeing the roll of shingles supplied in the box – I guess they’re really supposed to be wood shakes – I wondered if there isn’t a way to make shakes that look slightly more real. Those supplied are nice, and easy to apply – just moisten and stick on! – and I don’t mean to throw shade on the genius that enabled Durange Press and Campbell and any number of other manufacturers to approximate shake roofing for their kits, but real shakes would be just a bit thicker wouldn’t they? And even though real shakes are irregular I think they’re not so wavy. It’s always bothered me a little.

I experimented by cutting some strips from a grocery bag and slicing the edges to make individual shakes. Here for comparison is a photo of the experiment alongside the roof of a general store I scratchbuilt when I was a kid, apparently using a spare roll of Campbell’s shakes.

I’m not sure my new idea represents any improvement at all, especially since the old roof was so nicely weathered (how did I do that?) and has gathered the dust and damage of four and a half decades.

I’m not yet decided, but I’m leaning toward the easy roll. This kit is already taxing my eyesight, neck muscles and the free time I have available for the hobby. I give myself high marks for innovation and sheer pluck, but I may not use the paper bag. I might try again sometime with a card stock a bit thicker than the bag.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, if you celebrate the day.

-Matt

2

The roofing on your building looks more like wood Shakes (rough top surface) but I do not like the bowed up in the center look, the (paperbag) roofing looks more like wood

3

Agreed.

Wood shingles are sawed on both sides and are thinner at the end when compared to a wood shake. Wood shakes are sawed on one side and hand split on the other side, making them thicker than wood shingles.

Rich

4

Cedar shakes are made from cedar shingles, usually split, either by hand or machine. then cut-in-two to make shakes.

I used Campbells cedar (rolled paper) shakes for quite a few of my model railroads’ trackside buildings, but because the sub-roof material was sheet styrene, used gelled contact cement to put the roofing materials together. Here are a few photos…

…this one is still looking for a better location…

Wayne

5

Hello,

My favorite HO shingle are the laser-cut variety from Minuteman Models or I believe American Model Builders offers some. There may be others. I like your idea and I have used the old Campbells shingles but for most commercial structures in the 20th century cedar shakes would probably not be an option.

CP_union4-a by Edmund, on Flickr

Cleanly cut, easy to apply available in several textures and colors. I used real copper foil for flashing on the tower above.

https://minutemanscalemodels.com/collections/ho-roofing

You can order some Scalecoat paint while you’re there, too.

GC Laser, Motrak and Bar Mills also offer laser-cut shingles. Try a couple and find the ones you like. I’m familiar with the Minuteman ones and have had good luck with them.

Feed-Mill_shingle by Edmund, on Flickr

Good Luck, Ed

6

Hi Matt,

For purposes of this discussion, I’m going to use the word ‘shingle’ to represent both shingles and shakes. As was previously explained, cedar shingles are sawn on both sides and have a relatively flat appearance. Cedar shakes are ‘hand split’ leaving one side rougher and their thickness can vary. They have a much more textured appearance.

I sold roofing for a long time and I got to see a fair number of cedar roofs. I never sold cedar roofs but we got lots of calls to replace them with asphalt shingles. My personal opinion of the Campbell style shingle strips is that they don’t look realistic even if you are trying to model shakes. As PC101 has pointed out, the horizontal convex cupping appearance is pretty rare. Even the cheapest cedar shingles or shakes don’t usually warp in that direction. They may curl in the opposite direction, i.e. concave where the outside corners lift up, or they may curl up slightly from the bottom, but the degree of curling would be virtually invisible from an HO perspective.

Having said that, sometimes it is better to have things slightly out of scale so the the effect is more obvious, but the Campbell style roofs are just too distorted, again IMHO. (Sorry doctorwayne).

I like the look of the paper bag shingles. Card stock or heavy weight printing paper would probably look even better. My only comment would be to reduce the amount of vertical curling so that it is barely visible.

I will also add a couple more (probably useless) bits of information. If you live on the west coast in North America or close to it, the shakes or singles will usually be of very high quality. That’s because the source is relatively close by, Unfortunately, if you live in the eastern part of North America, the cedar roofing is crap by comparison. Almost all the shingles come from the west coast but they seem to keep the godd stuff for themselves. If you can afford to import the good shingles from the west coast, then you can ge

7

OK, I’ve been pretty busy and not spent much time on here, but I have a few thoughts.

I’m not saying the Campbell shingles/shakes look all that great.

BUT, going back to Matt’s orignal comments, NO they would not be thinker.

#1 Perfection Blue Label western red cedar shingles are only .45" thick, at the butt edge, and the taper to near zero.

.45" divided by 87 = .005"

The AVERAGE piece of paper is .004" thick.

In my humble opinion, there are far too many people willing to accept over sized details, on structures or rolling stock, just so they can see them from too far away.

The texture of a roof, even a cedar, slate, or tile roof, is pretty subtle at our viewing distances in HO scale.

It’s just like wood grain showing on the siding of a building. Unless a building is a neglected wreck, there is no wood grain you can see from 30’ away, or the 260 scale feet that a 3’ viewing distance represents.

And even when buildings had wood clapboard siding, you could not see woodgrain thru the paint at 6" away in real life, let alone 10’, or 50’, or 260’.

I HATE vinyl siding with molded in wood grain - so not what ANY old building EVER looked like when it was new.

Go out in the world, look at some buildings from 250’ away. That might be a good standard for how your models might look more realistic.

Just my view, the view of the guy who builds models and restores old houses like these:

Even the slates on some of these roofs are less than 1/2" thick - remember .00574712"

8

Ed, those are very effective an realistic looking roofs to my eye.

9

Over 30 years ago, we bought a property, right next door to us, that had a two storey house, plus a detached storey-and-a-half two-car-garage, with an attached workshop.
The garage roof was in pretty rough shape, so I set about removing the shingles (three layers of them) then discovered that the fourth layer, at the bottom, was cedar shakes, and as Dave mentioned, over 4" boards on 4" spacing.

At that time, the town had a spring and fall collection day that allowed homeowners to put out relatively large items or large piles of bagged or boxed refuse. I hustled down to the grocery store and filled-up my truck with all of the banana boxes that they had on-hand. For two and a half years, I had 20 banana boxes waiting at the curb, filled with rotten shingles and rotten shakes on those pick-up days.

I did end-up covering the 4" planks with plywood, then put on new asphalt shingles.
We eventually sold the house, but also severed-off (and kept) a half-acre-or-so, which included the garage. It’s no longer used as a garage, but is now over 180 years old (with no curled-up shingles or shakes).

Wayne

10

Hi Sheldon,

I guess we will have to agree to disagree. I’m in favour of using somewhat oversized details in some cases in order to suggest to the viewer that the modeled structure (or whatever) has a certain texture to it. Emphasis on the ‘somewhat’. You are absolutely correct when you point out that in reality, things like wood grain are practically invisible in 1:1 situations let alone in HO scale.

I believe that the intent of the original purveyors of the Campbell style shakes was to give them some visible texture but they took the concept way too far to the point where roofs that have their ‘shingles’ on them look like they have some hideous disease! Again, that’s my own opinion. Absolutely no disrespect intended to all of the modelers who have used the Campbell style shakes and are happy with them!

I’d better shut up now before I upset any more members of the forums. I can see doctorwayne just seething with my comments about wood shingled roofs![:$][swg]

Cheers!!

Dave

11

Dave, I think some of our details will always be oversized, there is no getting away from that.

And we should all build and select our models based on what looks good to us, and what artistic aesthetic we wish to convey.

I will use my favorite example - George Selios and his F&SM - he is a craftsma

12

I have many buildings with Campbell shingles and they look very relistic but you have to install them corectly. You have to white glue the seamless edge only, then once dry you have to paint them in a water based stain of your choise (mine looks like dirty water) and put weights on the created sheets to dry (this gets rid of most of the cupping, if not all). Then you trim the shingle edges on the top and side of the cardboard sheet.

13

I have a couple of Lasercut kits that came with Campbell shingles, and I’ve used them for a couple of scratchbuilds. I’m happy with the results.

14

In a word, gosh!

I didn’t really expect much of a response since I was just thinking out loud, and almost didn’t post about it, but I’m glad I did. For starters, I always thought shingles were the asphalt or composite 3-tab bundles that my dad and I reroofed our house with. And I thought any wood roofing was referred to as shakes. Thanks for the education about shakes versus shingles. I’m trying not to be embarrassed that I didn’t know better.

Secondly, the discussion of outsized details is interesting, whether it is desireable to emphasize certain things beyond their real-life dimensions so that they can be seen better, and I’m not sure yet where I come down on it. But I think I would like to be able to look across my layout and see that there is a texture of shingles or shakes on a roof, even if in the real world the distance would occlude those details from my eye. I guess my ethos would be that where they diverge, I would prioritize effect over prototypicality.

Finally, thanks to several of you who posted pictures of your rooves. Those photos showed me that the Campbell rolls can look quite good, and that there are some other attractive options that I’d never even heard of.

Thanks all,

-Matt

15

To Ed’s and Sheldon’s point about the unlikelihood of seeing many new shake rooves in 1950s America – whether because of prohibitive cost or of the likelihood of their having long since been replaced – I noticed that the new purveyors of this model, J.L. Innovative Design, did not bother with shingles OR shakes, but opted for a modern tar roof.

I have the original Durango Press model, and the image of the finished model on the instruction booklet for my kit shows the Campbell-style shakes. I have to say this tar roof looks pretty realistic, but I wonder if they just did that because they were in a hurry and needed to get a photo to the marketing team. I notice they were unable to cover the metal windows and doors with enough coats of paint to make them look truly white. They don’t look weathered to me, just insufficiently painted, and I had the same problem, as I noted in a different post (and thanks again to those who pointed out some options for styrene windows).

-Matt

16

Hi Ed. I followed your link to the roofing page on the Minuteman site, but that page seems to be malfunctioning because none of the product images are showing. You can still BUY them, but you can’t see them. Do you recall which of the Minuteman roofing items you used for the feed mill in that second photo you posted above?

-Matt

17

The circa 1956 S.F. east bay area house my late parents used to own still sports it’s original shake roof, as do many other houses in the neighborhood.

Big Tim’s displays a Campbells roll paper shingle roof.

Nice scenes Doc Wayne, and your heavy lift traveling crane is something special.

Regards, Peter

18

Peter, I’ve never seen that Big Tim’s model before. It’s very nice. The slope on that roof is very much like what the Perkins will have. The shingles/shakes look good.

One of my jobs in college was pressure washing the cedar shake rooves we have around here. I would have the generator sitting on the opposite side of the house from where I was working with the hose coming up over the ridge, and wrapped around my waist. I leaned into the curl of the hose a little, that way if I slipped the hose would tend to provide a lifeline rather than drag me off the roof. I learned to work in bare feet for better grip. I came off the job covered in mud and moss like a swamp monster. The pressurized water could cut a shake (or a toe) right in half before you knew what you’d done, so I learned to sweep the nozzle at just the right arc and distance from the shakes to remove the moss without removing more wood than necessary. Done right, I left the house with a bright, new-looking cedar roof. Some rooves had been left too long uncared for, and the shakes would simply fly apart. Those occasions were double-plus ungood. Homeownder not happy; supervisor not happy.

-Matt

19

Maybe not so much of a malfunction but more of the site owner simply not bothering to upload photos.

I have heard from other forum users that Minuteman Models is having trouble fulfilling orders. That goes for Scalecoat paints as well [:|]

There are other manufacturers of laser-cut shingles. GC Laser might be an option.

https://www.gclaser.com/ho-shingles-ridge-cap/

You might want to see who handles similar products that can readily be ordered in Canada to avoid shipping costs.

Good Luck, Ed

20

Thanks for your kind words, Peter. I always enjoy seeing your photos, too.

Dave, most of my seething is directed at the idiots around here who have almost no skills for driving, and absolutely no consideration for others…if I had a bazooka, I’d remedy the situation fairly quickly.

As for wood shingles (or asphalt, slate, and metal ones) one of my delayed projects is to use pinking shears to create the look of diamond-shaped shingles that were common years ago, and are now coming back in-fashion.

I’m going to use them on the transfer warehouse, shown below…

…but the fly in the ointment is that there are six curved-roof dormers needed on both the front and rear sides of the roof. I have a feeling that that will make the shingling job much more difficult…even though I have drawings of the curved dormer’s construction

…I might have to get out my rolls of Campbell’s shingles, and let their drawbacks catch the eyes of the beholders, with their curled-up and lumpy shakes.

Wayne