I'm still hammering away at the N scale build of the Gorre Engine house, and I solved a problem with the shingles. At 1/160th, it looked like it was going to be a BEAR to edge all those individual shingle with gouache to prevent the white paper edges from showing. I thought I'd use some colored cardstock, but I had nothing that matched the colors of the rest of the building.

I looked around my workspace and saw the brown paper bag from Trader Joe's I'm using as a wastebasket for recycling. BINGO! The paper trimmer easily cut one side down to 8.5 x 11, and the printer, after a couple tries, printed on it just fine. The result looks like fairly new wooden shingles.

I'm a little concerned about the acidity of the brown paper, but I assume it will be fine in the long run.

Blog post with photos to follow soon, but today is a bit busy.

Dan,

Georgia-Pacific has colored card stock in various weights and shades of brown that is acid free.For dealers call 800-635-6672.

John

Craft stores ( Michaels, AC Moore etc) have a wide selection of scrapbooking paper, some are even textured. I'm sure you could find shades that represent all ages of shingles, & they are acid free. For a couple of dollars you could shingle a whole town in N scale.

Here's a post showing one shingled side of the roof.

http://miniaturearchitect.blogspot.com/2015/08/gorre-engine-house-pt-iii-shingles.html

Jerry, I've got a stack of colored cardstock from Michaels, and I may use it for terra-cotta tiles in the future, but none of it looked right for shingles. The brown kraft paper looks perfect and cost nothing.

Given the lifespan of a typical model railroad building, I don't think the acid in the kraft paper is going to be a problem. Worst case scenario, the brown paper will turn slightly more brown.