Shingles

[Rivalingparis]

Allrightythen,

I've read enough now from the great mini gods and godesses to expect to punch myself in the face when it comes time to shingle my fairfield. I've read everyone's debates on hotglue vs woodglue vs tackyglue, etc. But what is everyones opinion on how to prepare the shingles before attaching them - more specifically do you guys sand then all and what is the easiest way to stain the shingles? please advise.

Oooo....my flooring just arived (punching the air while singing the rocky theme song). Now I just have to wait for wallpaper and the money to buy a lighting kit and the Houseworks upgrade - I figure if I'm going to make a display dollhouse I might as well go all out.

PS Anyone in England please read my post in the chit-chat forum.

[nuttiwebgal]

several methosd of preparing shingles

this is what I do

I take my sheet of shingles and carefully bend a section till they come out of the sheet...the more that come apart in one section the better. the longest run of shingles I have gotten is 8...this makes it easier for me to shingle and you can forgo putting the tape on it to keep them together.

than I lightly sand any of the ends that need it...no need to sand the top of them as they will be covered by the next row of shingles when on the house. I do all the prepwork on the shingles at one time and put them in a ziploc baggie.

I use tacky glue when I apply them....I put the glue on the whole row that I will be shingling than spread it out evenly...using an old credit card or one of those cards that come with CC offers. you could use a brush

than starting from the outside bottom I work my way in and up. I find if you let the tacky glue sit a min it holds the shingles better....also too much glue make the shingles warp....but I find when I stain them later they kind of warp back into place. while shingling I also keep pressing on the shingles I have already put on to make sure all is stuck on well.

I know everyone else does them differently so you will have more advice than you will know what to do with.

I look forward to seeing your house come together. that is the sweetest little house!

nutti

[havanaholly]

I enjoy shingling VERY much; I love tedious stuff because I lose total track of time & "zone out" whilst focussed on whatever I'm doing (shingles, "bricks", whatever...).

I assume you're using the shingles the kit came with? What I do is put on a pair of rubber gloves, grab a piece of teeshirt, stir up a can of stain and take one sheet of shingles at a time and dip the rag into the stain and then rub it into the sheet of shingles until I like the color, then set each sheet aside to dry. If there's some color variation, so much the better!

I save the used printer paper sheets and line one edge flush with the edge of the roof section I want to shingle and crease the rest of the paper so the fold gives me the angle I'll need to cut the shingles to fit at that end. I use my EZ Cutter for the actual cutting. If I want to be really fancy I'll cut aluminum foil into 1" wide strips and glue them along the roof "seams".

I use carpenter's wood glue (the yellowish-tan stuff) and run a bead along the roof edge, another one parallel to the edge where the top edge of the first row of shingles will come, and another in between, applying it fairly thinly. I begin at the square corner/ outer corner at the bottom and lay a row of shingles, cutting to fit the ones that need to lay along the angled part. I stagger every row so that if I start a row with a whole shingle, the next row will start with a half-shingle split vertically; if you use the curved bottom "fish scale" type shingles you'll want to make sure you use the half that will match the adjoining shingle to it: JU

Because the wood is fairly thin I don't sand it, I move my thumb back & forth over the edges & the little "hairs" rub right off. I go for as long a row of shingles at a time as will remove from the sheet, like Nutti. Masking tape usually comes in handy because no matter how hard I try or want the shingles to stay together I oftener than not wind up with onesies & twosies.

Then I take a straight edge and a pencil and mark the rest of the roof panel into parallel rows to line the tops of subsequent rows of shingles.

I run susequent rows' glue bead along the top of the preceding row of shingles and just below the line above and glue on that row of shingles.

The third row will again begin with a whole shingle.

Written out it looks like a lot more than it is when you're doing it...

[Deb]

I enjoy shingling VERY much; I love tedious stuff because I lose total track of time & "zone out" whilst focussed on whatever I'm doing (shingles, "bricks", whatever...).

That's the perfect way of expressing it Holly! I love shingling for the same reason. It's like a jigsaw puzzle for me and very soothing and relaxing. I think part of it is because I know when the last shingle goes on, the house is done, but for the most part, I just like the meditational feel of shingling.

I use a glad bowl to dump my stain in and a slotted spoon to dip them out and lay 'em out on newspaper to dry. (you can already tell I'm doing this the hard way, huh) After they've dried, I glue them on one by one to the roof. It's the only thing I use a hot glue gun for.

Deb

[grazhina]

Seeing as how I've only used wooden shingles so far, I glue them on with wood glue, keeping them set in place by using square dowels the width of my roof. I clamp the dowels along the edges of the roof.

When the shingles are all glued down I brush on my stain.

[havanaholly]

That's such a cool idea! How do you clamp where you have gables?