Impress marking styrene sheet - advice sort

[Vagabond]

I am going to have a shot at making a stone building from the blue foam and pencilling in the stone work. This will be a first for me.

For the corners of the building if I do a butt joint I will get a line up the wall, the only way I can think to get round that is to do mitre joints but I have no jig to cut a good gluing joint at 45' and I don't want to brace it inside because I want to have internal playing access so for it to look nice.

How do you get around this?
Thanks for any suggestions

[Cory]

Downspouts, signs, and vines work well for hiding butt joints.

A good 45 degree angle can be had by sanding instead of exact cutting. I use a piece of 2x4 with a side cut to 45 degrees. I glue a strip of sand paper to it. Any woodworker can knock one out of a scrap of wood in a minute or two on a table saw.

You can also carve a few holes out that span the butt joint and fill the space with stones either carved from scrap foam or made from green stuff. This breaks up the vertical line.

[Vagabond]

Thanks for the info. It's going to be a Saxon church so downspouts etc won't help, but the idea of carving out holes might be a winner because Saxon buildings had very specific corner stone work.

I am thinking about giving it two roofs, a thatched one and a slate or tiled one so it will work from about 800 to today.

 The 45' sanding block also sounds a good idea, I didn't realise you could sand the stuff.

Thanks for your advice

[FifteensAway]

Or you can just plan on layering on a very thin layer of plaster that just might hide your joints and make the foam a tad bit more durable.  Personally, I'm trying hard to avoid foam in my modeling - messy crap.  When I do still use it I only use the type for insulation, local source is a dirty yellow.  (still messy!)

[Vagabond]

Or you can just plan on layering on a very thin layer of plaster that just might hide your joints and make the foam a tad bit more durable.  Personally, I'm trying hard to avoid foam in my modeling - messy crap.  When I do still use it I only use the type for insulation, local source is a dirty yellow.  (still messy!)

The layer of plaster won't work for me because I want to inscribe stone into the foam, and have that showing otherwise what you suggest would be fine.

I don't have much experience of using foam as a modelling material, I can see lots of disadvantages but as loads of guys are using it and getting good looking results I thought I should try it but as I said originally the corners seem to be my first hurdle to cross.
The next one is creating the indented depth so that I dont end up with just  texture on a flat face of the walls if that makes sense

[Mako]

Try freehand cutting, on a 45 - 60 degree angle with a boxcutter, or X-Acto knife.

The angle doesn't have to be perfect, but should be >= to 45 degrees for each cut.

Glue can be used to fill in any gaps.  Strengthen the join, if needed, with a square strip of the same material, or with thin, angled triangles.

This technique is one I learned when cutting mat board for modeling projects.  Works well for that.

Make sure you have a fresh blade, before starting.

[sukhe_bator]

I have the same problem and find that butted joints can work if sanded. BUT you must sand before gluing as PVA is a terror to sand once hard. Do a dry run assembly beforehand.
Saxon stone buildings had stripwork quoins so it would be relatively easy to cut out the equivalent of finger joints.
http://www.extraordinarybookofdoors.com/siteimages/baldwinbrowna3master2.jpg
If using thick (20 to 30mm) foam panels for the walls, try cutting out square notches on the inner faces of the corners to make the finger joins thinner and easier to carve. Then you can glue a square section reinforcing strip inside the corner and stiffen the joint (see sketch diagram)

[Vagabond]

Mako - thanks for the advice. From what you and Cory have said it sounds like cutting a freehand 45' angle and filling with glue might not be as difficult as I envisioned.

sukhe_bator I think this idea of finger joints might be a winner to do the Saxon stone corner work. It will also give extra strength to the joint if I make a decent job of cutting the joints. Thanks for the sketch, made it much more comprehensible.
Still undecided if I want to do a Barton on Humber style with tower or an Escombe one without.

Cheers