General Discussion (Model Railroader)

Some of you been following the progress on my roundhouse renovation, and now I would like to solicit your assistance on this puzzling question I have about a roof to put on the roundhouse.

Existing Roof 

Been renovating the roundhouse, it is an old Suydam metal kit and I removed the cardstock roof to clean it up and make it into a detached roof so that it can be picked up and you can look into the interior details.

Roof removed

Want to keep the existing cardstock roof and put on a new roofing material, only thing is I cannot decide what kind of roof to put on.

Added some tar shingle roofing from masking tape and painted it with some Grimy Black for the office section of the RH, but that will take too much time to do the same on the roundhouse roof.

Roundhouse Office Roof 

So I was thinking of using this material from GCLaser. Each sheet includes 108 laser-cut pieces; instructions and drawings. Each of the six sheets of laser-cut shingles measures 11-1/2" long; coverage of over 84 square inches. Walthers has them for $17.99 a set, I think 2 sets would cover the entire roof.

3-tab Shingle

Diamond

Scalloped

Any ideas which one or method might look better on the RH?

Ryan, this just a guess on my part, but I'd imagine that the railroad would go for a quick, but funtional roofing material over three tab or other more labor intensive types.

For a round house, I'd go with rolled out tar paper with tar mopped over it.  It would go down with minimal labor cost, but would effectively seal against the eliments.  I wouldn't think a railroad would be too interested in an aesthetically pleasing roof.

Of course, it's not my railroad.  Among the three offerings, I'd go with the three tab shingles.

Just my thoughts, for what it's worth.

I found plain white wrapping paper cut to size and laid over a good coat of wet flat black paint then brushed out with a fresh coat of black paint. And it works on all scales and it's cheap.

CHUCK

PS also add a little white to the black helps.

loathar wrote:

Honestly, I don't think shingles would look appropriate on the round house roof. Roll roofing (or plain metal) would be more prototypical. If your set on using shingles, I'd go with the 3 tab. (more industrial looking) I would expect to see the other 2 styles on a station building. I think the other 2 would make it look too European. (unless that's what your going for)

I'm modeling the Southern and Norfolk Southern merger era, so around the 1980's time frame.

mls1621 wrote:

Ryan, this just a guess on my part, but I'd imagine that the railroad would go for a quick, but funtional roofing material over three tab or other more labor intensive types. For a round house, I'd go with rolled out tar paper with tar mopped over it.  It would go down with minimal labor cost, but would effectively seal against the eliments.  I wouldn't think a railroad would be too interested in an aesthetically pleasing roof. Of course, it's not my railroad.  Among the three offerings, I'd go with the three tab shingles. Just my thoughts, for what it's worth.

That is exactly my thoughts too about cost and function. The Southern Railroad kept their infrastructure in great shape, but this structure was starting to show some wear, and I wanted to model the idea that NS has taken over now for a few years and the roundhouse was starting to decline, so the NS set out to renovate, but want to keep costs to a minimum as well.

Based on the initial responses, actually, now I am thinking of going with a metal roofing material available from http://www.papercreek.com/

207 - Corrugated Metal Roofing - Medium Rusty  

Cheers,

Ryan

Ryan, the roundhouse in Spooner WI.still stands, with some metal and some roll roofing.(due to ,I imagine additions etc.)If youare set on shingles I agree with the 3 tab.

Terry

I was going to suggest tar paper and tar also, but since you mentioned modeling the 1980's I think the sheet metal roof will fit nicely.

Bill

PS.  I just completed assembly of the two Suydam structures I purchased at a train show - furniture factory and warehouse.  I was able to solder the wall braces to the wall on the furniture factory by tinning both the wall and braces.  However I could not get the wall joints to solder.  I used 5 minute metal epoxy and was able to join the walls and roof.  On the office doors and the sliding door track I used thick gap CA.

The warehouse was assembled entirely with thick gap Ca without any issue other than the CA taking a longer time to cure than solder.  Need to see how the CA holds up over the years. 

Made the decision to go with a corrguated roof and found a cheap material at Michael's Arts & Crafts, total project cost for the roofing is about $5.00.

Roofing material arrived by Southern flat car! Now how about that!

Roofing material on front section of the roundhouse

Test fiting the roof caps

Now a little mini-clinic on how I made the roofing materials.

Went to Michael's Arts and Crafts on the weekend and in the paper section found about 3 colors of corrugated paper card stock. I bought the white, black and green ones, about 4 or 5 sheets of each. They range on price from $0.59 to $0.99 each, some are 12"X12" and some are 8 1/2"X11".

This is the black 8 1/2"X11" corrugated sheets that I spray painted with some metal silver paint first.

Black corrugated card stock painted metal silver then allowed to dry

After the paint was dry I take a sheet and scribe the measurements at a scale 12' apart, and make the cuts with an Exacto knife.

Measured 12' scale feet HO and made cuts with Exacto knife

The 12' scale feet HO yields 6 panels for each full sheet.

Yields 6 panels at 12' HO scale width

Then I make the 4' HO scale wide cuts to yield around 15 of the 4'X12' HO scale panel sheets. Therefore, each 8 ½" X 11" sheet of card stock yields about 90 of the 4'X12' panels.

Making the 4' wide panel cuts

A small stack of fabricated 4'X12" corrugated roofing material

Cheers,

Ryan