CHAPTER XXVII

BUILDINGS AT HOME AND ABROAD

=A Farmhouse.= Young children, having cut out of cardboard or fret-wood the animals and trees described in Chapter XX, having constructed a bridge, a well, a dove-cot, and other small models scattered through this volume, take considerable pleasure in arranging their toys into pretty groups and attractive combinations. At this stage the lack is often felt of some object of central interest, of something to 'pull the composition together,' as an art critic would put it: the farm scene requires a farm, the domestic scene a villa, the Eastern animals and trees an Indian temple, or some such building, to complete the picture.

With regard to home scenes, children may be advised at this stage to make for themselves any house or building that suits their fancy. The basis of the toy will always be the four walls plus a roof described in the Noah's Ark (Part I, Chapter X); more complicated cardboard work has already been studied in the castle (Part II, Chapter X), so children who are ambitious to achieve something more picturesque than the Noah's Ark may be advised to go out into the suburbs or the country, and sketch any simple building, or set of buildings, which they would like to reproduce. Such work, once attempted, becomes extremely fascinating, and leads to very picturesque and delightful results. To do really good work, however, children must accustom themselves to _plan_ very carefully what they propose to do, and to convert their sketches into a set of drawings to scale, which, in the case of a building, should include at least a ground plan and a couple of elevations.

Figs. 530 and 531 show how to lay down the plan and elevations of a simple building of the 'Noah's Ark' type, to which have been added a front and a back door, with porches, bay and storm windows, chimney-stacks, and an outhouse at the back. Fig. 532 is the front elevation to half scale.

The addition of another entirely detached outhouse with wide door at one end, for a cowshed, to face the back of the main building and form the third side of a square, will give the nucleus of quite an attractive farm.

When once the plans have been drawn, a scale is plotted below to suit any size to which it is intended to build; all the dimensions shown in plan and elevation are then taken as required with dividers, read off on the scale, taken anew on a foot-rule, and transferred to the wood or cardboard.

The scale given on the figure is for quite a large house, the ground plan of the main building measuring 15 inches by 10 inches, and that of the outhouse 10 inches by 5 inches. These two buildings had best be constructed on separate bases, and need not be permanently joined; the roof of the outhouse can be carried rather further into that of the main building than is indicated by the line C H E, and the main roof alone cut carefully to the line C H E. If the main roof is made detachable, building A B C D will form a receptacle for the outhouses and the whole farm stock. The broken line surrounding A B C D and C E F G indicates the dimensions.

A house of this size is best built with a base and walls of wood obtained from some grocers' boxes.[2] If the scale be marked so that points 0, 10, 20 read 0, 7-1/2, 15, giving a reduction to three quarters, the main building will measure 11-1/4 inches by 7-1/2 inches, and may be built entirely of cardboard. If the scale be marked so that points 0, 10, 20 read 0, 5, 10, A B and A D measuring respectively 7-1/2 inches and 5 inches, we shall have a small model that can be built of very light materials, such as stout cartridge paper on a cardboard base.

[2] An excellent and very strong material for model-building is manufactured by Messrs James Spicer and Sons Limited, under the name of Rough Cast Building Board. It has a most realistic white 'rough-cast' surface. It is obtainable in the size 18-1/2 inches × 24 inches from Messrs Richardson and Co., Stationers, 176 Charing Cross Road.

The bay window will, of course, be made separately, and gummed into position by means of flanges. The porches may be detachable, like the outhouse; the front-door porch is built of eight pillars of stripwood, nailed and glued to a wood or cardboard base and to cross-beams above; between the pillars may be fixed a couple of seats, one on each side of the door. The back-door porch is supported by four pillars. The roofs are of cardboard. The ground-floor windows, indicated at W, may be either painted or cut out; in the latter case they may be made to open or may be fitted with celluloid window-panes; these you can beg from any amateur photographer of your acquaintance; he is sure to have plenty of 'waster' films. The doors should, of course, be made to open.

The storm windows are easily made; the sides, K L M, are cut with angle L K M = half the angle K O P, the latter being in the present instance 72°. The shape of the window roofs can be arrived at by experimenting with a paper template, but more accurately by plotting them out to scale.

Thus: draw Q' R' V' = Q R V, R' T' = R T, Q' S' and V' S" = Q S; join S' T' and S" T'; then Q' V' S" T' S' (Fig. 533) is the exact shape (leaving the flanges out of account) to which the storm-window roofs should be cut. The roofs over the front porch and the bay window, the chimney stacks, etc., are thought out and plotted in the same manner, the solving of these little problems being excellent practice, which may be turned to good account in after life.

The village church, the village inn, if it is old and picturesque, should form good subjects for study and reproduction on the lines indicated above. For young people who have exhausted the possibilities of their immediate surroundings we give a few models from lands more remote.

=The Taj Mahal, Agra.= This is one of the most famous buildings in India, and was erected by the Emperor Shah Jehan over the body of his favourite wife. A very pretty model which closely resembles it can be made as follows:--

In Fig. 534 the dome, A, is a plain india-rubber ball, circumference about 11 inches. Four india-rubber balls, circumference about 6 inches, are needed as B B, and four, circumference about 4-1/2 inches, for the four columns (C in Fig. 534) which surround the temple. Cut a piece of fairly thick cardboard, 7 inches square, for the roof of the temple. Cut off the corners as in Fig. 535. In the centre describe a circle with radius 1-3/8 inches, and round it four smaller circles of radius 7/8 inch.

Cut a strip of thin cardboard 9 inches by 2 inches. Cut as in Fig. 536, leaving flanges of 1/2 inch. Roll round and fasten together with seccotine and two small paper-clips, size 00. This forms the part of the temple marked D in Fig. 534. It is glued to the roof by the flanges, etc., and ball, A, is glued into it.

Before fastening it together, mark on it in ink the pattern indicated in Fig. 536.

Cut four strips of thin cardboard 5-1/2 inches by 1-1/4 inches; mark off 1/4 inch for flanges; cut each as in Fig. 537; bend them round and fasten together; glue the smaller balls, B, B, into them and glue them on the roof just over the smaller circles.

Cut four strips of cardboard 5 inches by 1 inch; cut and mark as in Fig. 537, and glue this round the smallest balls, C. Measure distances _ha_, _ab_, _bc_, _cd_, etc. (Fig. 535), on a piece of cardboard, and mark out as in Fig. 538. Make half cuts along the dotted lines and leave flanges as shown. Distance _ak_ = _ah_ and _lb_ = _bc_ = _cm_ = _nd_.

Make and cut out the windows and arch.

Cut another piece of cardboard similar to this. These two bent round and joined together form the sides of the temple.

Now cut a piece of cardboard as in Fig. 539, leaving flanges all round.

Bend it round and gum it together. This is gummed underneath the roof, before fastening on the outer walls, and serves a double purpose; it helps to support the roof on which the domes rest, and prevents the temple from looking too hollow when the windows are cut out.

=To make Tower=, C E (Fig. 534). It consists of three rolls of thin cardboard, E F G, each about 2 inches high, circumference 4-1/2 inches.

Circular pieces of cardboard, big enough to project about 1/4 inch beyond the columns, form the platforms, H, J, K. Underneath each platform triangular pieces of cardboard are glued, as in Fig. 540. Four of these columns stand round the central building.

It is a great improvement if rings of cardboard, 1/4 inch wide, are made and glued round all the smaller domes, as shown in Fig. 541.

Round the sides of the building strips of paper, L, M, N, O (Fig. 534), are gummed, rising about 1/2 inch from the roof, with patterns drawn on them as in Fig. 543. Little cardboard turrets (Fig. 542) are cut out and gummed in each corner, P and Q (Fig. 534). Little cones of paper, made by rolling together a circle cut as in Fig. 544, may be glued to the tops of the domes.

The whole should be mounted on a platform made of a piece of stout cardboard, X Y, about a foot square or a little larger, supported on match-boxes placed two together. A row of these across the middle will prevent the platform from sagging. Trees can be cut out as in Chapter XX, Figs. 431 and 436, to stand round the temple.

=A Pagoda=, or memorial tower, in the province of Quei Chow in China (Fig. 545). This is made of nine hexagonal prisms. The bottom one is 2 inches high, the sides being also two inches; the dimensions of the next are 1/8 inch less, the next another 1/8 inch less, and so on. The last prism has side 3/4 inch, height 3/4 inch. An ornament for the top can be filed from a cork or piece of round wood. The platforms project about 1/4 inch beyond the prisms; the supports may be cardboard or pieces of thin wood. The prisms are fastened together as described in the case of the lighthouse (Chapter XIII). The whole should be painted to represent stones, and doors marked on as in Fig. 545.

Fig. 546 shows a =Mosque= in an oasis in the Sahara Desert. Here the dome, A, an india-rubber ball, is let into a circular hole in the roof. The towers or minarets are prisms of cardboard on top of each other, surmounted by a piece of dowel rod, one end being rounded to a point. Trees can be cut out as in the figure to form a background.

Fig. 547 shows a =Japanese Pagoda=. This is built up in a similar manner to the Chinese pagoda. Parts A B C D are square prisms about 1 inch high; E F G are truncated square prisms. They are made like the reservoir described in the models worked by sand (Chapter XXI), but the upper parts have been cut off; they are glued to the squares of cardboard which rest upon the tops of A, B, C and D.

A piece of cardboard is glued over the top of E so that B can rest upon it, and so on with the others; pieces of paper cut out as at H J are gummed round the edges. There are many interesting models that can be made in this way. Almost any good illustrated geography book will provide plenty of material from which pretty and interesting foreign scenes can be built up.