Saltbox House Scratchbuild

[eightyeightfan1]

After seeing a program on Home and Garden TV about Saltbox Houses, I thought it would be a cool scratchbuild project, and since Saltbox Houses are found mostly here in New England, it just seemed fitting.

Saltbox houses were first built in the late 1700's to early 1800's. Though there are a few earlier examples, and some new 21st century designs. Saltbox houses are more common in New England, but in my research, I have found a few examples in other parts of the country, and some in Canada.
Saltbox houses are named, because the design resembles a saltbox, where in earlier times people would keep salt for cooking.Most common type of Saltbox house has two floors, but there are a few single floor spread around the country.
This is a Saltbox house that is located not far from where I live. The picture is from the Library Of Congress website.

 

[eightyeightfan1]

I picked a single floor design for my project. Of course the first step is to cut the walls. I used my favvorite medium-plastic. Its easy to cut, and all the popular plastic cements can be used. I used Evergreen Styrene Sheet, # 4061 Clapboard siding.

 

[eightyeightfan1]

Next I cut openings in all the walls and fitted them for Tichy windows(Look for my review in the January E-Mag issue). Since homes were built on fieldstone foundations in the 1700's, I used Plastruct fieldstone, laminated on a .040 sheet of styrene for the foundation. It was painted gray form an earlier project.

 

[eightyeightfan1]

After all the openings for the windows and doors were cut and everything fitted, I assembled and squared the walls. Since the clapboard sheet was only .030 thick, I rough framed the walls for more strength and give some support. It was here, that I rounded foundation corners by sanding them.

 

[eightyeightfan1]

3/4 view.
I left the windows out for ease of painting.

 

[eightyeightfan1]

Back wall.

 

[eightyeightfan1]

Here's the basement acsess door. I also used a Tichy for this.

 

[eightyeightfan1]

Here the roof is tempoarily fitted so as to check the placement of the chimney, which was made from spare DPM pillisters, capped with a styrene cap and a short section of tube.
Next up: Prime, paint add windows and place on the layout.
Watch this thread fro more developments.

 

[Tyson Rayles]

Looking good Ed!

 

[spitfire]

Looks great so far Ed!! I didn't know Tichy made windows.

Val

 

[Fred_M]

You got quite a bit done in an hour. Looking good. Fred

 

[ak-milw]

Ed, I really like the windows on each side of the door! great touch.

 

[eightyeightfan1]

Thanks everyone!
Sorry Val...Gonna have to wait til next month.

 

[Ralph]

That is shaping up very nicely Ed and you've written a great "how-to" build it! I've seen a lot of interest in scratchbuilding on the forum lately. Your project should get some of those modellers into it big time!
Ralph

 

[SAL Comet]

Nice work Ed. I noticed your model has the roof overhanging the walls, one feature of the saltbox style is there's no overhang, just a rake mold that the clapboards run up under. ( Just me being an architecture freak) It's said this is a result of thrifty yankee builders making no more roof than necessary.

 

[Matthyro]

Nice work Ed.

 

[eightyeightfan1]

Thanks again everyone.
Didn't know that Scott. But I made a story for the house to CMA that.

After test fitting the roof, I painted the whole house primer gray. After that dried I masked the foundation, and gave it another coat of primer. This is SUPPOSE to seal the tape, and prevent paint from bleeding through the edge.

 

[eightyeightfan1]

When the second coat of primer dried, I then put on two coats of Barn Red, waiting for the first coat to dry before shooting the second coat.

 

[eightyeightfan1]

While the house was drying, I then painted the window frames and doors Gloss White.I stuck the windows to the sticky side of masking tape to prevent the parts from flying everywhere. Hint: Make sure you place the windows the right way on the tape.(Experience is the best teacher...We'll leave it at that!)

 

[eightyeightfan1]

After the paint had dried over night, I then installed the windows and doors. As you can tell, that idea of spraying over the masking tape to seal it didn't work all that well.