Shophouse becomes an Art Gallery.

Now we are settled back in Wales, time to get on with the miniatures.  Gek has been painting, over 120 miniatures to date.

A room of Turners,

 a room of Renoirs

This is one of my favorites which I nicked to hang in the black and white house.

Completes the room, I think

Shop House - Up Date

The facade decorated,

and the kitchen/toilet  completed and awaiting furnishing.

New Project - Modular Shophouse.

 

The quintessentially Malaysian/Singaporean version of a shop house is a very versatile building.  Can be a general goods store or a workshop or a car repair shop or a restaurant or a posh rich man's house. The ground floor can be an art gallery with the upstairs the artist's home.  All these I have seen in the peninsular.  The shop house is always long and thin, with air wells along it's length every 20 or 30 feet or so.  Why modular?

Well, I had the idea that by joining additional mid sections,  you can create a house as long as you like, whilst it will always be 15 inches wide.

You can also place it against a wall without losing any design detailing.  The back of the model is a plain wall.  The 'front' can  be fitted with 'doors' with windows as can be seen on the real end-of terrace shop houses.

The shortest model could be just the front, a starting point from which the model could extended.  The interior can be in the modelers gift, including walls, layout etc.

The card model is a proofing for the design.  Detail drawings already done for the front section. But the proofing build will have to wait for our return from our NZ trip.  Hopefully in April.

Shop House - The beginning

The wood, as per the cutting list. The cutting list can be down loaded from HERE along with a Zip file of the drawing-set for the front section of the Shophouse. For Penangites, Darren Thum's furniture making workshop is the place to go to get a  good sawing job done.   Darren's place is in Love Lane, toward the top end.  The cost of the sawn wood was RM 160.  The dimensions were accurately cut, making the job of assembling the Shophouse quite straight forward.

Well the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say.  The cutting list proved to be accurate, even if the drawings needed a bit of correcting.  After a couple of days sawing and gluing, the front section of the Shophouse is ready for painting with primer.  And the drawing-set corrected!!! But first, how to do?  The following posts are a step by step guide to make this assembly.  If do not want to make and put the assembly together yourself, I am sure that any competent furniture maker could do the job for you.  This would, of course, add to the cost of the raw materials mentioned above.

MSH - Ply wood.

There a number of different grades of plywood, the best, and hence most expensive being marine ply used in boat construction. The plywood used here is of the grade used in furniture making here in Malaysia.   This plywood has a 'good' side and a 'not so good' side. this is the good side.....

and the reverse side for comparison.  The components have been drawn  so that the marking out of the ply for cutting should always be done on the 'good' side.  This is the side that will be in view once the components are assembled.

MSH - Tools

Tools need for assembling the model. The nails should be 16mm pins made of stainless steel.  If these are not available, then galvanised nails, know locally as ..... are a good second choice.  Steel nails rust very quickly, with the rust discolouring any subsequent paint covering.  This is particularly true since we will be using water based emulsion paint to finish the models basic shell.  The glue is acrylic, also know as white glue.  Most hardware stores will stock these items.

MSH - Assemble the base, Drg 04-101, 04-104.

Bring together the ground floor, Drg 04-104, piece and a piece of the 2x1 inch planed 35-5/8 inch.  2x1 planed is always less that 2inch x 1 inch.  The 2x1 refers to the size of the un-planed wood.  Makes for a little complication in assembling the house but is easily compensated for.  Draw a pencil line the thickness of the 2x1 along the long sides of the 04-004 ply.

Using 1mm diameter drill, drill a series of holes in the ply between the pencil line and the ply's edge,  down both sides of the ply.  Place the holes roughly 50 to 100 mm apart and stagger they as shown in the picture above.

Cover the mating edge of the 2x1 with acrylic wood glue.  This is also know as white glue.

Using a square or ,as here, a 2x1 off cut, position the ground floor ply on top of the glued 2x1.  This is a fairly critical point in the assembly and needs to be fairly accurately done, otherwise  the side walls of the model will not be square to the base.   Place a nail in the first hole of the ply and hammer half way into the 2x1 just to locate this end of the joint.  Do not nail home yet.

Move to the other end of the joint and repeat the step above.

Move to the centre of the joint and repeat the steps above.  Once you are happy then the ply's edge and the 2x1 are aligned, nail home the three 'tacking' nails and complete the joint fixing by nailing  through the rest of the drilled holes.  This process to be repeated on both sides of the ground floor ply.

The cutting list called for three pieces of 2x1, 15 inches long.  To allow for the variation in 2x1 actual dimensions, these pieces need to be trimmed to fit as three cross braces for the base as shown in Drg 04-101.  Place a 15 inch piece of 2x1 between the inside edges of the base and mark the length required as  shown above. Use the square to indicate the cutting line. Saw the piece to length along the cutting line.  Repeat the process used to fix the base sides to secure the cross brace to the ply.  Repeat for the other two cross braces as shown in Drg 04-101.

MSH - Establishing the base line and marking out.

 Before starting to mark out the houses components on the ply wood blanks, mark on the blanks for 04-102 and 04-103 the base level as shown above.  The base thickness will vary according to the 2x1 dimensions as mentioned previously.

Once the base line is established, continue to mark out the component out lines on the 'best' face of the plywood blanks.

MSH - Mock up.

Once marking out is complete, do a quick mock up using masking tape to temporarily hold the components together.  Gives you an opportunity to spot any potential errors at this early stage of the build.

MSH - Cutting out.

 Do not cut out the openings in 04-103.  This facilitates assembly.  But for the other components, using a jig saw, cut along the mark out lines.  Always cut so that the saw blade is on the OUTSIDE to the component.  A little practice will have you cutting really straight.

 For cutting the window and door openings,  drill a hole big enough to take the saw blade into opposite corners of the opening.

 

   Sawing between the holes will complete the  process.

Assembly.

 

 Starting with the base on a flat even surface,glue and nail 04-102, 04-103 and 04-106 to the base using the same method as the ground floor ply component to the base frame assembly.

Once glued and nailed,  leave for 24 hours for glue to set. 

This stabilses the model before you proceed to add the first floor and roofing components.

After 24 hours glue drying time, position the first floor by using the 12 inch dimension of component 04-107 to gain the right height between components 04-102 and 04-103.  Glue and nail as before.

Assemble rear.

Component 04-108. Before assembling into the house body, check that this component will position the roof component 04-110 at the same height above the first floor component as the front 04-106. Check the drawing for detail. This is important, otherwise the roof line will not 'look' right.

Roof Assembly.

to assemble the roof,  find a piece of wood  that is the same depth as that created between the roof component and the top of the side component, 04-103, at the front of the house.

Use this piece of wood top then position the roof component along its joint with the side component.  Mark, glue and nail in the usual manner.

Cutting the side voids.

The house as assembled so far.

The last cutting job is to make the voids in component 04-103.

Puch in nail heads.

 

Where ever there are nails that will show on the viewed part of the model, punch them below the ply woods surface.  

Painting

For the first coat of paint, use a prime.undercoat.  We are going to use emulsion paint which is water based and needs the wood to be effectively sealed.  Paint every surface,  exposed or not.

Using filler

Once the primer/undercoat is dry,  use filler/putty to fill the nail head holes.  You can also take the opportunity to make good any imperfections in the ply wood grain using the filler almost like a thick paint.  Once dry,  sandpaper the filler to a flush finish with the ply surface.   I use emery cloth in [lace of sandpaper.  I find that it last longer and is more effective in this climate. Sandpaper tends to disintegrate in the humidity.