This is going to be a diary style how I complete a kit to the standard you see on my website.

I have just released the "Table Edge Terrace" and I need to have it painted for the Exeter Legionary show in two weeks. As I have a lot of other terrain items to complete, I will be getting the effects I want, in rapid time using as many time saving techniques as I can. I assembled the kit as per the instructions, leaving off the chimneys, dormers, doors, windows and shutters. This took 15 minutes.

I then trimmed the corners off the dormers and chimneys to get a close fit to the roof. I used a small Stanley knife and then sanded the edge with an emery board. I prefer these to sandpaper as being more rigid, I do not round the edges off when I want them to be square. 

Then I used quick drying polyfilla to cover the jonts and tag gaps. I also filled the chimneys and dormers at the same time. Approximate time to fill 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, I gave the filler a light 5 minute sanding to smooth the walls ready for priming. 

At this point I was going to spray and paint however I could not resist using my card tiles to texture the roof. I did this with the dormers off to save time "cutting in" gluing straight runs made for a quick job and the roof was complete in under an hour. There is very little waste when tiling the roof as any offcuts are used to start the next row.

Lining up the tiles was easy as I just followed the engraved lines. The card tiles are the same size as the engraved ones so you do not have to adjust the size. If you look to the left of the roof you will note I left a small overhang with the card. I plan on cutting this off when they are dry. This will save time on trying to line each strip up accurately.

When the roof was complete, I glued on the chimneys and dormers. I lined the dormers up using the tile edges as reference. I then placed a 12" ruler over the top to ensure all 3 dormers were even in height.

The dormer tiling was easy....if you follow these steps. Cut a straight edge with a full tile to your left. Cut the tile strip slightly over size after "offering it up". Place the tile edge on the outermost edge of the dormer roof then using a fingernail or pencil point crease the card into position. You will then pick up the correct slope to get a good fit to the roof. When you have this line, trim to size with scissors.

As you need 6 of this piece, DO NOT GLUE IT ON. Rather than make more work repeating the process, simply draw around the tile strip you already have. Glue in place and repeat for the next course of tiles. In the picture you will see my top rows of tiles. Once I cut the slope to fit the roof, I offered it up to the dormer and drew a pencil along the back to know where to cut. Again you do not need to be mega fussy here. Any gaps at the top will be covered by the plastic ridge tiles.

To complete the dormers and ridge tiles I took 60 minutes.

 I cut the plastic angle pieces to approximately 10mm using a razor saw and a bench hook I designed with measurements on. The roof is just a matter of straight cuts while the dormer needs more work. I glued on the outer one so I did not have any fiddly small bits on the edge. I then trimmed a tile with a Stanley knife to fit the roof end. I infilled the last one by either adjusting the gaps between the tiles or trimming to fit. A tiny amount of quick drying polyfilla on the tip of an old paintbrush was used to fill any minute gaps. I used the same wet paintbrush to smooth any raised polyfilla lumps.

This now needs to be set aside to dry.

More on this project will follow .......