Shoe's 30 for 30, day 5: tavern

Great, now I need a drink.

Remember when I said "tomorrow will probably be something simpler?"  Really, I should know better.  This is a half timbered building similar to the last, this time with a stone foundation.  It's about twice the size of the merchant's house with the same two playable floors.  The top floor overhangs one side by about two inches (on purpose) and is slightly jettied on the other sides.  Posts go with the base in the hopes they won't be quite as easily broken.  There's no stairwell in the upper floor because I forgot to hack one in thought it'd be better without it.  The upper floor windows are offset indicating the side it'd be on, so there's that.

This is by far the most complicated thing I've built in this medium.  Given the difficulties I had with the previous build, I took extra time to experiment with some different techniques which made some stuff go faster.  In particular, the timbers are a heck of a lot thinner which I'm hoping will speed up painting.  My "research" seems to indicate that the outer walls are flush with the timbering.  The next half-timbered building may be another experiment.

Two playable floors!

I textured the bottom floor base with the same flagstone I used in the last build.  I added a textured base to this one featuring the pavement texture which I quite like and don't think I'd ever have the patience to do by hand. The upper floor similarly continues with wood and all of the playable space is nearly full 2"x2" squares.  I note that thin sheets of XPS like to warp all on their own.  This becomes far worse when you run a textured rolling pin over them.  I can't recommend 1-2-3 blocks more.  On top of having multiple usable 90 degree angles for convenient building, they're heavy enough to weight crap down as it dries.

Even though it takes way more time,
I like the look of drawn stonework.

The stonework walls on the bottom floor was done by hand watching The Chain - episode 5 last night.  I spent extra effort making sure it wrapped around each wall properly.  I got it mostly right.  I don't think I mentioned it on the last build, but the plaster walls are textured with a rolled up wad of aluminum foil.  With the right colors and a reasonable wash it's pretty convincing.  This time around I did the roof with crafter-approved Readi-Board from the dollar store rather than thinly-milled XPS.  This roof was big enough that I couldn't easily mill single pieces large enough on the Proxxon.  This had the double bonus of being a) really easy to prepare (cut the right size thing then pull the paper off on one side) and b) being easier to mark rows on.

Upper floor structure complete.

Shingles, as mentioned before, are bullshit.  Luckily, they're now less bullshit than they were.  This time around I did a thing that I don't often do:  I measured stuff.  New shingles weight in at half an inch wide by strictly more than half an inch long and like a sixteenth of an inch thick if anyone's keeping track.  While you can mill things thinner than this on the Proxxon, I haven't found a use for them yet.  If I had used only new shingles it would have kept each row very predictable resulting in less time spent hunting for appropriately sized- or cutting- shingles.  Keeping the paper on the roof added a more durable surface which allowed me to add the requisite two beads of tacky glue per row of shingles directly on the work area instead of first in a pile and then with a brush.  Not having any protrusions (more on that later) also meant that all areas of the roof were accessible.  Total shingle time:  ~75 minutes, so still bullshit, just a lot less of it.

...goddamn it.

Other than random bad measuring and construction there are two issues I'd fix for next time.  First, the jettying is wrong.  The 45 degree corners are coming right out of the stone.  You can explain that away easily enough (the stonework has gaps for it) but that's not really convincing and I hate covering up my handiwork.  I laminated a bunch of coffee stirrers last night to make proper beams but ended up not using them because I forgot I made them it was easier with foam even if it doesn't look as nice.  I've got the tools so that's no excuse.  Second:  there's no chimney.  I guess everyone's going to freeze in the winter.  Yes, I obsess over this kind of stuff.  It's probably not healthy but verisimilitude is important.

Overall I think we got to a good place.  Total build time was eight hours split over two days including a bunch of unnecessary milling.  Have I mentioned how much I love my Proxxon?  Readi-board for the roof, simpler timbering, and quicker shingles resulted in a lot of time savings even if hand-drawing the stonework took longer.  Painting might happen tomorrow.