Home Racing World

Home for a little bit of R&R for a couple of days. So I thought share the construction of my old shed. I really thought I'd posted it here already. The shed itself is complete, but its surrounding "yard" will be getting a rework sometime as it never really got finished and I've learned a lot in the interim period.

The project came about because I wanted somewhere to photograph cars. My track lighting is less than perfect and I wanted a diorama that I could take outside into the daylight. I also wanted to try constructing a building and there was absolutely no room for one on my track.

We all know that some of mankinds best engineering breakthroughs have been made by guys tinkering in their shed/garage, so this seemed like the perfect building for the experiment.

This is one of the farm sheds in the region that inspired this project.


I started by calculating a few sizes based upon some standard material sizes. Everything is based on 8' x 4' sheets, or 10' and 12' lengths. I made up some patterns in cardboard. The roof pitch is a little steep because I only had a 45 degree mitre at the time.


And put a mock-up together to check for size.


Happy with the scale, I disassembled the mock-up and used the pieces to cut timber for the frame from spruce.


The framing timber was then aged with a stain mix I concocted (I'll post the stain recipe separately if anyone is interested).


Frame glued together.


Roof trusses.


Full frame.

On to the fun of cladding with balsa wood weatherboards. These were cut and profiled with an emery board. They were then brushed with a wire brush to make them look a little older and roughened by weather before being stained. Then came the long slow process of gluing them in place.







Window frame from balsa with acetate window pane.

The dirt on the window is just some grey paint smeared on the inside of the window and lightly rubbed off with a cotton-bud when dry.

Cladding continued up the gable. The wish to keep the roof removable made this a little more awkward.

Building corners are finished with 2mm square section spruce.

Roofing sheets are corrugated craft paper sprayed silver and cut to scale 8' x 4' sheets.

The photo also shows test fitting of the doors. Although it was quite a while before they were hung properly.

Roofing completed, the capping and flashing are made from a strips of heavy weight paper with a bamboo skewer glued in the middle.

Weathering was done with dry pastels ground, mixed with a little methylated spirits and painted on.


Frame added for the door and power connection.


Just to prove that the roof is still removable.

Hanging the doors took me forever to work out. I wanted to be able to open them.

Hinges made with brass shim and tube.


Brass dressmaking pins have been used for other door furniture.






And what shed is complete without some tools.

White metal tools purchased on eBay and painted.


Guttering is recycled from the ribs of a dead umbrella.

WOW its way over the top, I love it :clap:

THAT IS JUST INSANE :music-rockon:

I'm in the insane camp! All you need now are some 1/32 termites and a fox looking out of the hole.

:idea: For 12 euro you could get some bulk dung! :lol:



At 7 pounds the collie dog is almost the real price?

I've got the fox.

That's spectacular. :)

Ah...I wondered when this was going to show up! Fabulous work and quite a tutorial for us to follow. Thanks for posting this!

What a great project. As always you do a great job at telling the story and showing how it came to life.

Beautiful job, Embs. You really are an artiste.

That photo of the prototypical shed actually has a historical element. The Damocles Stake (as in Sword of Damocles), at the peak of the roof edge is an old British trait in country buildings. It was believed that it acted as a lightning rod and pointed lightning to the ground. When electrification came about, it became a handy spot to hang exterior wiring from, as in the photo. It would seem that someone built that shed with a design that came from a picture or a memory of great granddad's shed in England or something along that line.

Just another exhibit from the Waaytoomuchintothis Memorial Museum of Useless Information.

I just got rid of my seventh raccoon in my garden. You need a 1:32 scale one to have his head poking out of a hole in the bottom of the shed.

Thank you for the very kind words guys.

And for the extra information on shed and barn design. The English link is certainly not a surprise in this area. Many of the town and shire names are English, Scotts or Irish. The area was generally settled by second and third sons of British aristocracy who came out here to try their luck, intending to make their fortune in sheep or wool and returning home to the Mother Country. When gold was discovered, most of their fortunes were assured, but obviously not through prospecting.

Some photos of the finished shed...

The light inside is a small 'grain of wheat' globe. I like the warmth it gives rather than the LEDs.


And the tools hang neatly on pegs on the back wall. There is a peg board on the side wall that will get some more tools at some stage.















As I mentioned before, although I am happy with the shed I do intend to redo the base. There were so many things that I wanted to do with the yard area. So, at some stage, it will be replaced with a bigger slab of wood rather than the corflute and polystyrene base it sits on currently. The place needs a proper yard parts collection.

Very impressive, Ember. What's amazing is how you built your own hardware out of left-overs around the house. Actually, that's not the only amazing thing. Every time I look at the photos I see more things that make me shake my head in disbelief. The little bits of detail that you threw in such as the rotting wood on the edge of the door really adds to the realism. There are a couple of photos that you posted that would fool me in to thinking were shots of a real 1:1 structure if I didn't know better. You're easily the best modeller (or is it modelless?) who I've encountered on this here internet. Your work is the stuff of museums. :clap:

Fantastic!