SITC - Building The Wooden Shack

Merijn has begun his build and posted his progress, and Bodvoc claims to have made "a tentative start", so I've worked on the wooden shack version of  building 8, starting with a foamboard shell.

The walls are reduced in height, you can read why here.  

I realised that I couldn't build it quite as simply as it looked.  That veranda was the problem, the foamboard being as wide as the wooden supports.  If I replace just the pillars with wood then I have issues with the rest of the foamboard, notably the top of the front wall.  So I ended up removing all the veranda from the foamboard core and replacing the relevant timber bits with, well, timber.  At this rate I'll be building complete timber frames in miniature and planking them with balsa or stir sticks.  As you can see from the pictures below, I ended up replacing an angle of foamboard on the side walls, glued onto the side supporting beams.  This made it easier to add the planks later.

Foamboard shell

Frame for veranda, pillars and support beam

Rather than use balsa for the support I'm using sticks from spent fireworks.  As its the beginning of November here there are a lot just lying around.  Well worth collecting for hobby purposes, and one type of stick is 5mm wide, just right for the supports on the shed.  I drilled into the beams to add a couple of half cocktail sticks,  these were then glued and poked into the foamboard shell.  I also drilled and pinned the joints between the pillars and the support beams.

Yes, I know the right hand pillar leans, it has been corrected.

With the veranda pillars sorted it was simply a case of cladding the building.  I used 'granny grating' for the windows and stuck that in place beforehand.  I chose to cut balsa into planks rather than use balsa cut to size and scored or stir sticks as planks.  Looking at it now, it looks a bit shoddy for dwarf-work, and the planks are a bit thin.  If I were to redo this design I'd probably use stir sticks.

I also chose to do planks on the roof.  These needed a little bit of shaving on the upper edge to stop them sticking up at an odd angle.

The shack will eventually have a planked veranda in front, but that will be added as part of the basing.

I'm leaving the painting etc for now, as I want to try the same sized and shaped shack but built in proper dwarven stone.  I'll get the painting done all in one go (probably).