Model Railway Forum

brian1951 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 26, 2018 9:57 am David i know the castle well, the walls are constructed from slate, so roof tiles would look totally original.

Thanks, I think we'll give that a try

David

Nice work Keef, I hope I can do as well

David

The reason I suggested you find a supplier was you could then go and have look in there yard and skip as and find something in their skip. There is normally some broken stuff around.
Another way to find slate would be to break up a roofing slate. I trod on one in my garden other day and it produced just the sort of thing you are looking for but sorry before you ask I swept it up and put it in the bin. But I am sure you will get some broken slates in a skip near you or a local builders merchants bin or house nearby having new roof repaired.
My last lay out I wanted some old second hand kitchen base units so I had storage a plenty as well as something to put the Base boards on. I rang up local kitchen shops if they knew of any people having kitchen taken out, and one of them put me in touch with their joiners shop and they had lots going and glad to get rid of them. Left overs and returns, You just have to go out look around and ask.
Don't ask don't get, as my dad used to say.

The strange thing about the real slate is that it doesn't quite look like slate when used as part of the scenic background. Simply because it is 12" to 1' scale and all the irregularities in it are "full size". We tried pieces of a genuine Welsh roof slate to create the sides of a disused quarry - just didn't look right. So we have resorted to modelling clay in a lot of places and it just seems to look better. There is another issue with it as well - in my original picture, the walls are about 3' high which means the individual slates are about 2 - 3" thick. At 4mm to 1' that is less than 1mm thick and I just can't get real slate to produce slivers that thin.

So clay it is carved with a small wire brush I think

Cheers

David

Well mine produced the perfect scale for 4mm to ft. when I trod on it by mistake. Slate is very easy to split if you know how it is done using very sharp small chisel. That was what prompted me to tell about it. ...John

Personally given the scale problem as mentioned by rynd2it I'd go with modelling clay to reproduce what you want. It's a bit similar to using real wood in scale models - unless you pick a very fine grain wood for your modelling task the final result is going to look over scale and very coarse.

Interesting project. One can only imagine the original builders faced similar challenges. For example, when building Stonehenge, why did these intrepid fellows believe it necessary to float and drag those enormous cut stones all the way from Wales? Might have been much easier to build it on site, as many Egyptian Pyramids and monuments.

rynd2it wrote: ↑Sun Nov 25, 2018 1:50 pm Thanks to you both, good ideas. I do have some real Welsh slates but they looked a bit too dark, we have used then for quarry walls etc.
I'll look at the DAS clay as well.

Any more ideas out there? All welcome

David

Hi, I was in tofs today, and they had some slate coasters for , I think, 3.99. Not too dark and looked as if they might flake OK. Don't know if you have one o their shops near you? Good luck.
Ted

rynd2it wrote: ↑Sun Nov 25, 2018 1:50 pm Thanks to you both, good ideas. I do have some real Welsh slates but they looked a bit too dark, we have used then for quarry walls etc.
I'll look at the DAS clay as well.

Any more ideas out there? All welcome

David

Hi, I was in tofs today, and they had some slate coasters for , I think, 3.99. Not too dark and looked as if they might flake OK. Don't know if you have one of their shops near you? Good luck.
Ted

twalton1145 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 28, 2018 8:45 pm

rynd2it wrote: ↑Sun Nov 25, 2018 1:50 pm Thanks to you both, good ideas. I do have some real Welsh slates but they looked a bit too dark, we have used then for quarry walls etc.
I'll look at the DAS clay as well.

Any more ideas out there? All welcome

David

Hi, I was in tofs today, and they had some slate coasters for , I think, 3.99. Not too dark and looked as if they might flake OK. Don't know if you have one of their shops near you? Good luck.
Ted

See above, real slate doesn't work