All railway layouts need dwellings whether it is a grand manor house, castle or rows of terraced houses. Metcalfe produce a range of “half relief buildings which are ideal for finishing a scene at a wall or layout end. I have described below details for building the terraced house backs.

As with any building project ensure that your space is clear of any previously started but unfinished kits!!

The fist task is to assemble the inner grey card strengtheners this is a straight forward job and should pose no real problems. Set this to one side and proceed to cut out all the glazing sheets and carefully cut out the curtains from the sheet provided. There are many different colours of curtains to choose from. Glue the glazing to the inside of the building with the MATT PRINTED side facing outside, I have never understood why but I do it anyway. To achieve a realistic looking curtained window small strips of waste card should be glued between the window and the curtain. I used the waste from the windows themselves cut into thin strips.

The curtains will then look to ‘hang’ away from the window pane creating a small shadow

Assembly from here on is straight forward. Fix the left and right angled brick strips to EACH side of the centre strengthening wall.

The outer gables already have the brick strip which should be folded back on themselves and glued. The rear of the terrace is should be glazed and curtained with whatever combination of colours, but care should be taken to match the window sill colours.

When fitting the back of the house fold the ends round the cardboard strengtheners and carefully slide the building up to the front this will ensure that you will not smear the glue if you “sweep” the wall sides in

Fit the roof panels so that the long edge of the card overhangs the windows as shown below

When fitting the smaller roof sections make sure that they sit on the wall tops but UNDER the brick strips on the centre card strengthener. this will become apparent when you do it.

Next fit the chimneys and their tops. The large chimney is folded round and fixed using the chimney joiner provided, (this is when a tidy workplace is a bonus). The chimney pots are cut from the paper sheet and colour the backs black with a felt pen, this will then soak through the paper slightly giving a weathered sooty appearance when rolled into a chimney pot. I used an old piece of 3 mm doweling to roll the chimney pots which would be in scale to a 9” pot in real life.

All that remains now is to fit the base card, walls, wall tops and gates

These kits are modular and each kit contains two modules ie; 4 houses.

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