In an earlier topic I mentioned that the MTH "farm house" series don't lend themselves readily to cutting apart into flats to go against the wall or backdrop. Since I have a few unused farm houses sitting under the layout, I decided to take another look.
In this picture its easy to see that cutting along the high roofline would not be practical since you would wind up with two half porches; one with no door! Also it makes no sense to try and separate the short roof section wing, since patching the roof would be difficult. And the main house would wind up loooking exactly like the row house series, but you can buy them already to go, so why bother?
But if we cut the front section off just in front of the side wing, we wind up with a usable piece, and we miss the side wall windows.
If we cut the side wing along the roof centerline, right through the main building, we have a complete back of the house to use. This also misses all windows and other appurtenances.
Now notice that the back section will have no door......
.....unless we re-locate this door from this section which will be waste anyway.
We can insert the door in the spot indicated in the above picture easily as the door and window openings are exactly the same.
The steps are part of the lower gray rock trim piece, and that can also be easily re-located to the back piece.
Here are the main parts dissassembled ready for cutting.
There was no need to remove the front porch.
Here is the cut line for the front cut. Carefully duplicate this on both sides as well as the roof.
If you are using a band saw or a table saw, keeping it square is pretty easy.
Ok the surgery is done! The building and roof pieces at the front are what we will use; the pieces at the back are waste.
Here are the parts assembled.
Note the re-located door and steps on the right hand section.
And the chimney salvaged from the waste roof section and glued onto the roof on the left hand section
Here the windows have been removed and the interiors sprayed gray to reduce light transimission.
Here the windows and the one door that has "glass" have been sprayed with Krylon flat matte, so as to look kind of hazy.
Here are the completed sections ready to go on the layout.
EAch has a light installed with wiring, and a heavy paper backing glued on to eliminate light leaking out onto the backdrop.
Notice also the dormer window salvaged from the waste roof section and installed on the larger section.
That's it! Took about 2 hours start to finish, and now we have two thin building sections that will install flush to the wall or backdrop.
Anyone can do this on almost any MTH building.
Rod
