Building churches

[St.Michael]

I´m not very religous, but I consider building a church at my line. And instead of one church I´m thinking of two:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... t_Gran.jpg
It´s Roman architecture, lot´s of stone and not so many windows..
Concrete casting will be too heavy so the plan is styrofoam or something equal, and maybe some detailing in jigstone.
All my other buildings so far, are beeing carried in and out of the shed, when I need them, but the Sisterchurches will have to be stationary outdoors.
This forum has so far given me a lot of inspiration, and if you do have more ideas or opinions, about making the surfaces weather and frost proof, I´d be glad to hear of them

[benchmark]

I was at the Hardware store today (Bauhaus) and i bought some items that i intend to use for making a couple of buildings on my railway that may interest you

The first looks like slate, genuine natural stone cut into small bricks and assembled in modules. The have different colours including some the colour of the churches in your picture.




The second type unlike the first above, is not real stone but made to look like stone. I think it may also have some potential.



Finally while i was walking past the garden section and noticed two bird-feeder houses that looked like they were in the correct scale, you can judge for yourself from the pictures below.

[St.Michael]

Thank you  I shall browse the different buildingmarkets in my district. I think material like that can help me!!
May I ask you, or someone else who know a totally different question. In GR, mister Tag G often mentions "etch brass primer" to blacken brass. I have bought from Regner in Germany "Kaltbrunieriung. Messingfarber" Are theese the same products, or would etch brass primer be easier to use, or give a better result?
Regards Michael

[benchmark]

I will assume that you will get the same results, even though i have not used the product myself .

[Mrs F Controller]

Having just built a small church for the Moreton Pit Light Railway I was interested in your question, I don't know whether my answer will help but may give you some ideas.  I built ours which is based on a 13th century church nearby by cutting it our of wood first (marine ply) and using a jigsaw for the windows etc.  then as I don't like any of the plastic sheeting for bricks and stones you can buy I decided to 'render' it in real stones!  I used a bed of thick PVA glue sprinkled on the stones (fish tank gravel) and then when it was dry went over the lot with a mixture of runny PVA and cement dust.  I bent the wooden frames for the windows.  I did consider using small flat stones to make a 'stone' church like the one in your picture but it was finding them that was the problem.



Hope that helps.


I have just added a full blown version of this to the 'How we did it' page of the MPLR website

[Mrs F Controller]

I meant to say that nearly all our buildings stay outside all year. that was why we decided to use real cement and stone. We had partly used the same method on our original station building 7 years ago by painting a wooden building in a PVA cement dust mixture to look like masonry. then we actually painted it with masonry paint. All I have done this year is repaint it in exterior white paint. the building can be seen behind the church. It was the first building we made and it is a little oversized.

[benchmark]

I was at the pet shop and when i walked past the rodent section, a couple of items caught my eye.
Very cheap too , i will see how they hold out to the elements. Here are a couple of pictures in their original state and after i coated them with lacquer to make them last longer
.





Necessity is the mother of invention as they say :-)

[St.Michael]

Thank you for the good ideas. It´s i giant project to build the churches. I have just calculated the size, and the smaller one, the Mariachurch will be aproximate 140 x50 cm. and about 80cm height. I still want to build them, but I think I have to shrink the meassures quite much And because of the dimentions they have to be built in styren or light weight material. I do think its a good idea to glue natural stones on the surface...

[IrishPeter]

Churches tend to be quite large structures. The first church I served as a minister was a preaching box some 35' by 50.' That would translate to 18" by 30" in 15mm scale. It was considered rather a small building. However, a lot of village churches tend to be rather small, and mediaeval churches tend to be patient of all sorts of eccentricities. There is a rather delightful Anglican church I know of in Wales which is about 20' by 60' where you cannot see the altar for a restored mediaeval shrine! I have a vague ambition of modelling my home church whch was a very funny thing before the Victorians sorted it out with a square nave and a box chancelwith the tower in the corner,

+Peter in AZ

[St.Michael]

As I mentioned earlier, the churches will just be too big So I have been thinking in a much more easy, and garden railway-way of doing things: I shall instead build them in an apropriate size for the ØVJ (my railway) and I use theese as support for the churches:
π
I´m still thinking of the sisterchurches here in Norway, it is the St.Nicolai church to the left, and the Mariachurch to the right
π
This construction is about three feet tall and 1,5 broad. I have also started moulding some jigstones and tried some natural small stones (pebbles?)
Jigstone moulding will give me gothic church windows, so I´m going to saw the top of them and put in something to make them more roman style.
π
But today I got my new loco:Leader and churchbuilding has stopped for a while

[St.Michael]

Hello everybody.. It´s been some time since I´ve posted something, so I thought I might show you some slow progress in my churchbuilding project: The yellow crate on the top of the hill is the base on which I am building, and I have also chopped down a tree at the same spot, so the stump of the tree is inside the crate.
π
(a lot of smoke from the train, but the crate is behind the smoke..)
By now I´m counting twelve wall elements, but I still have some more to build. It´s one of my winterprojects so there is no hurry
π
Not a good picture, but it shows three elements before I start with windows and doors..
I will appreciate comments and hints on how to progress, and how to make the walls frost proof.
Regards