An Early Church - 3

Assorted embuggerances to do with selling a house took up a lot of time today, most of it wasted, but I managed to squeeze in some work on the Romano-British church.

The roofs are now on and the side porch shaped and fitted. Roman roofs had a shallower pitch than more modern styles - a souvenir of the Mediterranean climate where heavy snow isn't a factor - and I've worked to create the same angles here.

The main roof was a doddle. A couple of triangular rafters were glued in place at even intervals along the top of the walls and left to set before the roof was put in place. I used hot glue to fix it in position whilst the regular white (Aleens') adhesive set.

The semicircular apse roof was a bit tricky. The apse is an inch wide, so I drew a circle of an inch radius on cereal card and cut out one third of it.

Curling it into a half cone I applied Aleens' glue to the apse wall edge and fixed the roof in place along the main wall seams with hot glue. More Aleens' glue was smeared into the crease once the hot glue had cooled and set.

[One thing I've found about using hot glue is even card this thin will insulate fingers from the scalding hot stuff, allowing it to be held in place whilst it sets. Disclaimer: Please note I'm writing about what works for me. It goes without saying all appropriate care should be taken when working with hot glue.]

The side porch is an off cut of 3/16ths foamcore with a piece of card for the roof. Again I fixed it in place using hot glue whilst the regular adhesive set. It appears porches around main doors were something of a rarity in British churches of this period so I'm going to fashion a simple surround for it instead.

The next stage for this model will be to apply a layer of liquid nails to the walls. This is my new go-to stuff for making adobe/mud walls as it's strong, workable and doesn't warp thin cardboard. After that comes the tricky part of fashioning Roman pantiles on the roofs. At the moment I'm thinking in terms of using an old comb to create the distinctive ridge-and-furrow appearance on the main and aisle roofs, and a toothpick to work the apse roof.