“Shed Head”

Right back to the scenery front again this week as I thought it would be nice to get in one more scenic piece before I go back to work (BOO!), so to this end I bit the bullet and ordered some coffee stirrers off of Amazon (yes I actually PAID for something they give away for free in most café’s and restaurants). Anyway they arrived and though I have to say they are not of as good quality as some you can get at the “larger” branded coffee shops they would suffice for what I had in mind. But what I hear you shout did you have in mind? Well I have an idea for some “post-apocalyptic” buildings but thought I’d try out some of the techniques on a smaller scale first, plus I thought this would be a fun simple build…A shed!

Why a shed? I don’t really know, or for that matter what exactly I’m going to do with it once it’s finished, but a shed it is. So first job was to cut out the sides from stiff cardboard, Now if the average figure is 28/32mm and represents a man about 6 feet tall, then a 6 x 4ft shed should be 30mm x 20mm right? But if you stand a “heroic” 28mm figure next to this it looks tiny so after some thought I decided that a 45x30mm base and 30mm rising to 45mm at the apex height looked about right. Therefore a rectangle 30x30mm was drawn onto the card then another 45x30mm was drawn next to it, another 30×30 square and then a 44×30 rectangle (44, to allow for the thickness of the gluing tab) and then said tab was added, I then went back and added triangles of 30mm width by 15mm tall atop the two ends, and cut this all out. This was glued together and a couple of rectangles were glued onto the bottom to keep it all square in the corners. It was then glued down onto one of my 60x40mm m.d.f bases (picture A).

Next taking my legitimately obtained coffee stirrers I cut lengths 45mm long (well about, there was a little variation), and after smearing the side of my little cardboard box (it wasn’t really a shed yet!) with PVA wood glue, stuck them on, each one slightly overlapping the one below. I found it took eight lengths to cover the side. Then turning the piece around I took some matches and cutting small lengths fashioned a window frame with a cross in the middle made with more matchsticks shaved down to a thinner thickness. The “slats” were then added with smaller ones added either side of the window. This was then repeated on the back up to where the apex started, and at the front the same idea as the window was used (only bigger of course) to form the door. The door itself was three “stirrers” wide but I scored down the middle of each one and cut a bit off of to one side of each groove to give the impression of separate planks. A couple of cross planks finished the door. I also added a match stick at each corner to tidy these up. Lastly today I glued the roof on, this was cut 27x55mm (bear in mind that once clad in “stirrers” the shed’s dimensions had grown). Notice that the roof does not fit tight to the slopes of the apex due to this increase in width (picture B), that’s why the roof went on before the last slats were added.

That was the next job on the “to do” list, now each of these “tapered” slats had to be cut individually and “dry fitted before gluing down so much re-cutting and swearing took place before I was happy with the result. Once these were dry I mixed up a small amount of greenstuff  and fashioned a couple of wrought iron style hinges, and covering the curved stirrer end piece I’d attached to the other side of the door front pushed in a keyhole and made a “latch” style handle (picture C) I also “textured” the base around the shed with some “Tetrion” filler.

Painting could begin the next morning and as usual I began by painting everything (except the roof) black, I then made a mix of dark grey and chocolate brown and heavily dry-brushed it all in that, then another mix was made using scenic brown and mid grey and this was dry-brushed over that, then yet another mix (there was a lot of mixing!) of Butternut, coffee, chocolate and mid grey was (you guessed it!) dry-brushed over this, then butternut was lightly dry-brushed (at least it wasn’t a mix!) and finally more coffee was even more lightly dry-brushed over that. The windows, gaps above and below the door and the metalwork on the door were all painted black next, with the hinges and latch getting a dry-brush of chainmail. Turning to the roof next and I had a “cunning plan” in mind for this, I wanted a flat “felt” style roof so to this end I had found an old well used piece of sand paper (picture D) that was even the right colour as the they do roofing felt in this brown/red colour so I wouldn’t even have to paint it and I liked the scuffed appearance to it too. So two lengths the same as the length of my roof were cut out and after painting the roof with PVA glue they were stuck in place. To cover the ridge another length was cut and then cut again lengthwise to about 12mm wide, this was then glued and stuck down the middle.

It was at this point that I stupidly remembered that I forgotten to fit the “fascia” boards at the ends of the roof and would have to paint them up to match now, instead of doing them while I painted the rest of the shed! So taking another full length coffee stirrer, I painted it in the same manner as the shed (don’t worry I’m not going to go through all that again!!) and after cutting them to length superglued them in place and touched up the “raw” ends. That just left the base to be painted in my usual manner apart from the space in front of the door was heavily dry-brushed in butternut before the coffee instead of Khaki and I added a piece of rubberized moss by the door as a weed. After flocking with some hairy grass, it was given a final spray coat of matt varnish.

So there you go, my final entry for the Summer/Winter (dependent on which side of the world you are on!) Scenery Challenge. As I said at the start this was really just a chance to try out some techniques I hope to use on some more “useful” projects in the future. My wife however has taken a bit of a shine to my “cute” little shed so I have given it to her.

Stay safe, cheers Roger.