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I would appreciate hearing of your experience with shingles in HO scale.
Which suppliers product has served you best? Of those that I have used, the best came in a kit from Scale Structures Ltd. But, they do not offer the shingles as an individual item.
Also, if you have developed a method of installing ridge caps that appear to be realistic, I would like to know of it.
I've used the Campbell shingles that come in a roll. They work well but are bit time consuming to put on. Fine Scale Miniatures also included them in many of their kits.
I've recently used the ones from Branchline and they offer a few varieties of the architectural types. The Campbells are basically brown sealing tape you'd use to seal a box for shipping and are self stick once you wet the back of them. Branchlines are pre cut plain paper types that require gluing them down with white glue or similar. Both brands can be stained or painted after they are applied and this is best done in thin fairly dry coats to prevent warping or softening of the adhesives. I haven't as of yet found a really good way to finish the cap at the ridge pole other than a folded plain sheet with some line detail added with a pen or pencil.
There are some sheet plastic and sheet vinyl roofing materials too. Contact cement or Walthers Goo works on them.
I have used the Builder's in Scale shingles on a couple of projects and have been very pleased with the results. They are peal and stick and come in a wide variety. I used them on the freight station in the foreground:
All of my experiences have been with the Campbells. I have to say that if done correctly, ie applying the shingles, painting, staining, and weathering them, they are hard to beat.
If you dig back through the forums here, this question was asked before. The reason I bring it up is because someone had found some real cedar shingles in scale. Can't find the link right now...
I use real cedar shingles for all my structures. They still look the best of anything I have tried. They take a bit more work but once you get the hang of laying them it goes fairly quickly. I do them while watching TV. I get mine from Sierra Scale Models. They come in packages of 5 sheets and you cut them to size.
Thanks to ya'll for sharing your experiences. Right now the Bar Mills product looks good. I have used the Builders in Scale wood shingles.
They were tough to get into place and stay. Probably my ineptness.
I had a case of the shingles once! Not pleasant. Get your shots if you had the chicken pox as a kid! Sorry! Couldn't resist, since you got the best real answers...
All of my experiences have been with the Campbells. I have to say that if done correctly, ie applying the shingles, painting, staining, and weathering them, they are hard to beat.
You can't cap with shingles, as the brown paper represents wood shingles, so you'd cap with some material that resembles flashing. In olden days they would use long sheets of lead or individual lead pieces. These would be folded over the top to look like individual shingles. It was held in place by nails that had a secondary head of lead around it so when the nail was driven into place the nail's lead would bond with the flashing so there wouldn't be a leak. Nowadays, they use what are called capping shingles, which fold over the top and made of the same material. So really, any material that would fold over the top would be appropriate. You can do individual pieces or just a long sheet.
I haven't tried the commercial ones, but following an article several years ago I cut my own from manilla file folders. See more on my blog http://armchairmodelbuilders101.com
