Rose123 Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 Hi, I just purchased the San Franciscan 555 house and was wondering what materials should I buy to build the house. This will be my first attempt to build something of this magnitude. Looking forward to it and hopefully my daughters will love it once it is completed. Advice on what works best before i dive into this project. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selkie Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 Welcome to the GL family. We have a lot of great miniaturists with a huge variety of talents and ideas here. I'm sure someone has built this house before and can give you more detailed ideas as time goes along. For starters, never use hot glue for constructing your house. That is a really important basic thing. Choose a wood glue or a white tacky glue for the construction process. Blue painters tape is a great thing to use to clamp things together while they dry. Books and canned food can help flatten out a warped piece. Things like wallpaper, flooring and trim work can be made by hand or purchased at a local shop or at a online store like Hobby Builders Supply. There are MANY places online such as Ebay and Etsy to look for special items for furnishings or, again, you can make your own. Before you put the outside together, think about what spaces might be hard to reach after construction, so you can do the necessary decorating or electrical work beforehand. Some folks do all their decorating first and others to it all afterwards. But for me, some of both is the usual decision. Use a sketch book or a computer program (if you are so inclined) to try out ideas and colors and so on. I collect inspiration pictures from the internet to help with that process as well. Always remember that mistakes are learning experiences and everything can be fixed. The other important thing that Havanaholly always reminds us is that there is no such thing as a stupid question. So feel free to ask anything because someone here has probably had the same problem and question in the past. It's a good idea to take lots of pictures for your own records for future reference and also because we all love eye candy around here. (tee hee, hee) Good luck and as soon as you have 5 posts, you can start an album of your progress. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GirlPiper Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 Great advice from an experienced and talented builder, Selkie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KathieB Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 Selkie's advice is a good beginning. As to what works best -- that's up to you. There is no right way to do something.Tthere is no right way to apply wallpaper, there are several ways to do brickwork or stonework, there's no right way to electrify, etc. Therein lies the beauty of this forum. Ask all the questions you like about specifics, and you'll get several answers, each of which worked for one or more members. You can choose what's likely to work for you from a range of proven techniques. And what you choose didn't work, we can tell you how to fix it. Doll houses are very forgiving when it comes to oopsies. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
havanaholly Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Hi, I just purchased the San Franciscan 555 house and was wondering what materials should I buy to build the house. This will be my first attempt to build something of this magnitude. Looking forward to it and hopefully my daughters will love it once it is completed. Advice on what works best before i dive into this project. Thanks. The SF555 was the first kit I built and as I posted elsewhere I built it with Elmer's all-purpose white glue, a steel carpenter's square, an Xacto saw, a Stanley utility knife with retractable blade (and several blades) and lots of masking tape. I used emery boards for sandinig. Since then I have discovered carpenter's wood glue, a flush cut saw, a mini miterbox, painter's tape and bar clamps, among other things. Oh, and spackle! If I were to build another Dura-Craft kit with the sectional walls I'd most certainly spread spackle over the inside walls and sand it smooth to fill those cracks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soapz Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Welcome to the forum, Denise!!! I cover my basic glue needs with Gorilla wood glue, tacky glue and yes paste. Haven't needed anything else yet.... have fun building. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
havanaholly Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Chris, doesn't Gorilla Glue foam/ expand? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soapz Posted July 27, 2014 Share Posted July 27, 2014 I use the white Gorilla wood glue - I like it so much better than Elmers and there is no foaming or expansion. It goes on smoother and easier than Elmers, especially on wood trims and small parts. I can apply it with a fine brush Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.