SAGA Challenge

This week I’ve been putting together a couple of squat Dark Age buildings for the Anglo-Saxons based on these images off Google.

The steps will be familiar to most people, I think, but I will present my approach which is quite picture heavy.

Materials are 5mm foam core; Pan scrubbers; coffee stirrers; some balsa wood; and glue. (Usually I use PvA for buildings, but I had none so used a UHU type glue instead. I don’t think it makes a particular difference.

The first set of images are the materials and basic construction.  The pan scrubbers are 10x15cm and about 5mm think. I trimmed off 5mm from one of the scrubbers so that they would form a need angle of equal sides when glued down.

The two triangle end pieces were measured from the “inside” of the triangle formed by the two pan scrubs, and were 9.5 cm on two sides as shown.

As it turned out, I ran out f foam core, so instead of one solid piece for the roof supports, I used a couple of smaller pieces.  It was still secure, so no harm done.  I did not put an additional piece in the middle of the house, although that could be done to add additional support.  I’m not sure it’s necessary

The end pieces and roof pieces were glues into place and pinned to hold the shape while the glue dried.  One this was done the roof pan scrubs were also glued down individually and I left each side to fully dry with small weights on them to ensure a good bond.

Of course I realized afterwards that I should have completed the finishing of the two end walls before doing this!  It just made the construction of the end walls more difficult. I’ll explain further below.

The wooden end walls were done with coffee stirrers. As I alluded to by gluing the roof on too early I had to think of a way to get the coffee sticks onto the wall supports. I think I over-thought the solution!  But here’s what I did.

I measured onto a board the shape of the end walls and put a small piece of double sides tape in the middle. I used this as a template for the construction of the walls and once they were all in place, I used further double sided tape to secure the sticks together. I originally thought to simply stick these in place with the tape, but later changed my mind – so any ordinary tape would do here.

I eased off the taped wall pieces and glued these into place on the foam core, and used some small clamps to hold them in place while these dried.  The “door” was a piece of thin balsa wood.

Once everything was completely dry, I removed the tape.

Painting was done with diluting a Contrast Brown paint into a weak wash and simply painting this wash on the wooden sticks to allow them to form their own finish.  I used different paints on the door and door frame.

The roofs were already green from the scrubs, but I added a mix of dried herbs (from tea bags) and thin wood shavings at the bases, and different mixes of colored sand on the roofs themselves. Not sure about how accurate this is historically, but I didn’t want to paint these pan scrubs and the glue/sand seemed a decent solution.

Next up I’m thinking of making a ruined tower.  I don’t know how this would fit into the period, but as there were certainly castles of some sort in the 10th century, I’m sure a half-built or ruined tower could have been a feature.

Anyway, in the meantime, Happy Gaming