Starting a fresh fantasy terrain set part four - Building one (veerhuis) making doors and windows

I left off work on my veerhuis (ferry house) building with gaping holes where windows and doors should be. After a bit of head scratching and designing I rejected the idea of putting in windows made from balsa wood. With all the lattices it would take too much time to do it. Luckily I found a bag of HO scale industrial windows in my bits box. I think I added it to an online order to hit the free shipping limit. Lets see what I can do with these...

The things I find in my bits box often manage to surprise me.

Now these windows have a rounded upper sill, no problem for the smaller house, but I want the big house to have rectangular windows. That should be easily fixed by applying scalpel and side cutter.

Cutting some windows to size.

After snapping the upper part of the window off, I used the scalpel to flatten the bottom, then I added some plastic glue to get the shapes I needed.

Glue the frames together using plastic glue. Note the second window from the left, I learned from this one that I had two sizes of window in my bag of windows...had to redo that one.

As I was rather far off the (unplanned) plan, my windows needed some expanding to fit the plastic frames.

Using a math triangle (still unsure what the proper English word is for that thing) I cut the windows to a new size while at the same time making sure the bottom sills where parallel again.

With a steady hand and quick use of the scalpel this was easily accomplished.

And my large windows are neatly in place. I decided against shutters at this point, it would add to much clutter to the building.

And my windows fit quite nicely in the gaping holes. Now this is starting to look like a house...

I don't want to talk in too much detail about the amount of misery the dormer windows gave me...

Getting the rounded windows in place in the second building took a bit of extra cutting, and please don't get me started on the small windows in the dormers. Next time I should consider the bits I have before constructing a building. Luckily the next step was on familiar territory.

Door frames added. This will make it all look nice and properly angular once painted.

Just grab a coffee stirrer, cut it to fit the top sill of the door and glue it down with PVA. Then cut two more strips and glue them down the sides.

Fitting the planks using the highly scientific method of just shoving them in place, drawing a line and cutting slightly above it (a door shouldn't fit too snugly).

Having built the frames I took a small bit of 5mm broad balsa wood (1mm thick) and measured the length of the barn door. Now it was time for my tried and tested door making technique...

Cutting balsa wood to size is ridiculously easy, making it a joy to work with.

Step 1 - Cut enough planks to fill out the door frame. The nice thing about balsa is that you can easily cut it to size with a scalpel.

Scoring balsa wood to make it look a bit more interesting after painting is as easy as cutting it to size.

Step 2 - Shave off the straight sides of the pre-produced balsa strips. It may seem over the top now, but it will look excellent once paint is applied.

Now for the magic trick: turning balsa planks into cute little doors.

Step 3 - Place some masking tape upside down on your cutting mat. It should be wide enough to fit the door.

USe a bit of masking tape to hold the planks together (note the cut to size cardboard strips laying ready at the sides).

Step 4 - Stick the planks of the door side by side on the masking tape. In this case I left a gap in the center because I want this to be a double door. Also note that I cut the left and right sided balsa strip in half otherwise the door would be too broad for the frame. 

Glob on some serious blobs of PVA glue. 

Step 5 - Glob on a large glob of PVA glue. Don't stint, this is what gives the door its actual strength.

Use a bit of water and a q-tip to spread out and thin down the PVA a bit.

Step 6 - Use a wet q-tip to spread out and slightly thin down the PVA glue. The balsa wood will act like a sponge and soak it in.

Adding some interesting details to the door.

Step 7 - Time to make it look believable. Add some 1mm cardboard strips to the door to look like the long metal bits of big hinges (there's probably a better word for this). Do this while the PVA is still drying and they'll stick reasonably in place.

Adding more interesting details to the door...

Step 8 - Add very small bits of the same cardboard strips to the end. This is a bit of a test, but I expect it will add to the hinge-like look I'm going for.

And adding even more interesting details to the door. 

Step 9 - Really important: a door will only start looking like a door if there's something to open it with. In this case I cut three small rings from a small PVC hobby tube. I glued two of the rings to each of the door halves and then cut the third ring in half. I glued these two halves on top of the other rings. Then I took five minutes to smile with a lot of satisfaction as I rather like the effect (this was the first time I tried this).

Adding the doors to the building

After the PVA has dried carefully add a second (much thinner) layer of PVA to help all the cardboard and extra's stick. While this dried I added cardboard backing to all the windows and doors. Then I peeled the masking tape off the doors. All had gone well and the PVA soaked through the balsa sticking the individual planks solidly together. I glued the now reasonably solid doors to their respective frames. I could have just gone ahead and glued the doors to the cardboard in the frames in the first place, but working like this makes it possible to move the door a bit and fit it in the frame 'just so'. Also it gives me the option to stick a leftover bit of foam board behind it to give the impression it is half open.

And run out of balsa wood in the process...now this is where I stand at this point in the project. More to come.

I ended up with a small problem: running out of balsa wood. With the stores long closed, and getting slightly impatient I ended the evening sticking the buildings to the base and adding a first coarse sand layer to the bits not covered by paving stones. Now to find the time to pick up more balsa wood, make the last door and the gate and finish up the bell-gable, then I can move on to the other fun part: basing, painting and flocking...