Dollhouse critique

[Joe Hillmann]

I designed a doll house yesterday, other than two slots being in the wrong place it went together surprisingly well. In the photos the two large pieces on the upper roof are not glued down yet because I need to remake them with the slots in the proper place.

I plan to sell these as kits in my store front, and at craft sales and I would like suggestions or critiques on how I could make it better.

I would also like to ask If I should engrave shingles on the roof or leave it as is and let the customers add shingles to it if they want. I am thinking if the customers add their own shingles it will cover up the slot and tab construction on the roof. The slots and tabs on the corner of the house can be hidden by painting the corner trim and then the only place where the slots and tabs will be visible is on the sides where the floors tie into the walls and that could be hidden a bit by sanding of the burned edges of the tabs before assembling.

I intend to sell the kit in the $35 range. It is roughly 1/2 scale and about 11" tall

So give me your thoughts, don't hold back. The more points of view the better.
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[Mike Null]

Joe

My thought is this. Post the pictures.:)

[Joe Hillmann]

Joe

My thought is this. Post the pictures.:)

Now you are just being way to picky. :)

[Walt Langhans]

I like it. It's pretty similar to what I use my machine for (wargaming terrain). The only thing I don't like is the joint the connects the front wall to the side wall. I would reduce the number of finger joints to as few as possible, maybe one on the top and bottom and one in the center assuming that will still hold it together.

Regarding the roof, I think your missing an opportunity to make your product stand out more and / or make some extra $. You could make your own shingle sheets and sell them along with the doll house and give people a choice of which one they want, or you could make a few different roofs and the customer could pick what one they want, or buy some extra ones so they could change up the look if they wanted.

That's my 2 cents hope it help :)

[Joe Hillmann]

Walt, I will play around with ways to get rid of the finger joints on the corners, but since this is more of a beginners (low end) kit I want to make assembly as easy as I can. I know from other projects I have done that If I drastically start reducing the number of tabs even a small bow in the plywood makes gluing very difficult. Maybe I will try looking into adding corner trim pieces cut from 1/32" thick veneer that would make it more realistic as well.

As far as shingles go I am building a jig for may lathe that hopefully will allow me to cut individual shingles so they can be glued on one at a time. I have thought of engraving a shingle pattern into the existing roof boards but then there are 16 tabs on the big part of the roof that will show. As far as offering sheets of roofing, I have no idea on where to start.

I also am working on accessories. Now I am working on a kitchen set, and plan to do a bedroom set and maybe a bathroom set. And then sell each accessory set separate.

Could you put up a few pictures of what you make?

[Chad Fitzgerald]

Very nice Joe.
Finger joints on the corners, i think trim pieces to cover them would look best, that style house trim pieces fit perfect.
slots/tabs on the side of the house, could be cover with a "skirt trim" board. again this is common with the style of house. Both near the bottom, and seperating the two stories.
as far as the roof, can you engrave "shingles" on it that are close to size and shape of your tabs, lined up with he tabs, just to help camoflauge them. and then offer "extra" if they want something different.
The only other thing i would mention is the slope on the porch roof. Too steep in my opinion. Porch roof is usually less pitch than the main roof.
All in all i think it looks great. Nice job.
Chad

[Joe Hillmann]

Chad,
As far as the pitch on porch roof goes it would take redesigning the entire structure to change it so I will leave this one as it is but keep that in mind for the next one I design. I think a trim board on the bottom floor would look good but I can't think of ever seeing a house that had the trim board on the second floor as well.

[Mike Null]

Joe

Nice work. I like shingles. It seems incomplete without them.

[Joe Hillmann]

Here is a test with laser cut shingles. Enough of these to cover the whole roof would add about $5 to the cost of the kit. Is the extra detail worth it?

These should be put on with hot glue, I put them on with wood glue and the water in it caused them to warp.
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[Mike Null]

Joe

To me it's well worth it. A finished look with the shingles and even more realistic.

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

Here is a test with laser cut shingles. Enough of these to cover the whole roof would add about $5 to the cost of the kit. Is the extra detail worth it?

YES! The dollhouse is a cute design. With all the little added accents around the windows, railings and such, the bare roof looks unfinished and out of place.

[Chad Fitzgerald]

shingle are well worth it. looks awesome. Your right Joe about the second floor trim, i was thinking wrong, I was thinking of the trim dividing the gables when you see shakes on the gable. wouldnt work to cover the slots.

[Vicki Rivrud]

Very nice dollhouse and the kit at $35.00 is very inexpensive and will be affordable to a large market.

We just finished our first custom - major dollhouse project, huge and it was only in the medium scale. We laser etched the pattern of the shingles and bricks.
Still have some improvements to make. It took over 5 sheets of 1/4ply so it wasn't cheap. Now making all the little furniture to go with it. Haven't found "doll family" yet but the little girl was very happy with her purple shutters.

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Vicki

[Joe Hillmann]

Vicki, What did you use for windows in that doll house? Do you have any more pictures of it?

[Walt Langhans]

As far as offering sheets of roofing, I have no idea on where to start.

I would use 1mm grayboard and engrave / cut the detail you want into it. Kind of like this stuff:
http://www.antenocitisworkshop.com/wargaming-materials-tools/sheet-materials/embossed-styrene-sheets.html

The stuff I make has a puzzle piece backing so you can make different shape / size buildings here's a few examples:

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The big buildings break down into the two smaller ones, I also do a ruined version of each style of building
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[Larry Robinson]

Joe,
I think you have done an excellant job, I too have to agree that shingles are needed and the ones you added look great. I would suggest that you offer them as an add on option. Bet you will have a lot of customers coming back to add them when they are done building the house.

Larry

[Peter Meacham]

Joe

For roofing, could you not vector engrave the roof panel with a shingle or tile type of pattern? That would add a small amount of time to the making of the project but not add any materials.

Pete

[Joe Hillmann]

Here are pictures of the fully shingled house. Once the glue dried the bow got pulled out of the shingles and they are all laying nice and flat now. I still need to cut and paint some trim pieces to cover the tabs where the floors stick through the sides.
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I think in order to keep the cost of the basic kit low I am going to include the individual cut shingles that I will make on the lathe with the kit and then sell the laser cut shingles as an accessory.

[Mel Fulks]

It's nice,hope you do well with it. Just wondering about the scale,I think most of the furnishings available are are 1 inch to one foot.

[George Brown]

Now it looks really sharp. Covering up those black edges really helped.

What material is is made of, looks like thin baltic birch plywood?

[Joe Hillmann]

Mell, 1":1' is the most common, the problem with that is the bed on my laser is only 18x32 so at that scale I am very limited. This is 1/2 scale or 1/2":1" which ends up being very close to G scale in model trains. If I get rid of the tabs I can and a back wall, scale it down by 50% and then I end up with O scale, and if I reduce it another 50% I end up at HO scale. I could go smaller and get into z and N but at some point the detail will be lost. This allows me to hit 5 markets with one design.

[Mel Fulks]

Makes perfect sense now. The new pictures are remarkably real looking !

[Joe Hillmann]

This one is made of reject door skins from a factory near me, they are maple on one side and hardboard on the back. They are .11 thick so I can make a half scale model of this for o scale by laminating two pieces of .027 veneer and a Ho scale by using a single thickness of .027 veneer and all the tabs fit without modification. But the problem is I only have a few dozen sheets of .027 veneer and after calling around everything else I can get it .022 unless I have it custom made.

[Joe Hillmann]

And a 1/88 model (1/87 is HO in model railroads, I don't think the difference will matter)
It's 2 1/2 inches tall. It is the same file as I used for the bigger one just shrunk to 25% size. I need to make the dividers in the windows bigger and the top and bottom of the shutters bigger, for the most part they were burned away. I also need to make the deck railing a bit fatter, it is very fragile.
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[Joe Hillmann]

I just rechecked my math and the small one is actually 1/96 scale, not 1/88 so it is quite a bit smaller than HO scale. That May be an issue.

[walter hofmann]

Hi
first I like it very much I wana try this how you guys design it what do you use ? do you use ready made templates?
for shingles I would use selfadhesive veneer strips first engrave the shingles outline then cut a hole row they can then
cut by the customer to size.
greetings
waltfl