Toilet sheds.

One of the first buildings I made was a humble, but very necessary ‘two hole’ toilet shed. I model the 1880s in Colorado and the Rockies , where things were very basic! From looking at photos off the area, there were always a large number of small buildings (or sheds) dotted around. These are just the sort of little buildings for trying out construction idea’s and also new materials as well.

I made this building from Plastic corrugated card; a trade name for this is ‘Korroflute’, I use the 5mm thick version. It can equally be built from 1.5mm plasticard: I buy large sheets of plasticard from Eileen’s Emporium – that way it is cheaper, and my buildings can take quite a lot! The design came from a book called ‘Early Structures of the Old West’ by Joe Crea.

Korroflute can give a quite reasonable planked exterior finish. For the walls I used the 5mm ‘Korroflute’at ‘estate agents’ signs are made from; this is available in 3 versions - 3mm, 5mm, and 10mm. It can be bought from the sign makers for the estate agents. Expect some funny looks, but you want the name of the sign maker from your local estate agent – they are usually a silk screen printer, give them a ring and see if they have the 5mm thickness, which I find to be the best for my purpose. The latest that I have bought is 4 sheets 4ft by 3ft and that was £12.00; 25p per square foot. You may be able to get it for nothing as ‘old signs’ that are going for scrap I wish I could, but so far I have used new sheets. The doors on this building are made from the normal 1.5mm plasticard. I use ‘Evo-stick’ as glue. The brown coloured building behind the toilet shed is another version that will be described in a separate article.




This is nice and small (6” x 3”) building; the interior shot shows how I have rebated the corners into each other to give a greater gluing area, and then the corner is re-inforced. Here I have used some scrap Korroflute (a commercial name for the plastic corrugated board), on larger buildings either wood or extra stiffening is needed. I have used some scrap PVC cladding which is very good; this stuff is the PVC planks that are in fact hollow, and made from approx 1/2mm PVC; they can be cut up and used in all sorts of ways. The blocks (there is a cross piece to be glued to these) show the section of the ‘Korroflute’ board.



The exterior view shows the plank effect; and what the corners look like before the (6.4mm) plastic angle is added. The two doorknobs are made from glass headed pins with a tiny piece of tube then a .030” plasticard backing plate. Fit them through a hole in the door with some glue, then when dry cut off the projecting piece inside. The two vents in the ends are made from two layers of plasticard, one in black with the framing for the other layer. This is easier than cutting a small square through, and also looks better.

The roof covering is roofing felt laid onto a 1.5mm under roof; and this is the green sanded roofing felt version, I think this is a bit thick, I will go back to the slightly thinner & also the cheaper ‘shed felt’ in future. The green version was used as an experiment; the cheaper thinner version has been used on a larger shop that I have since built; with that I painted the surface of the (supposed cedar) shingles (rooftiles) with acrylic paint which went on very well. The shingles are glued on with brown frame sealant – available in cartridge form, and finally given a coat of Thompson’s Water Seal.

A final photo shows the building painted, the very light grey trim colour looks better than white, and does not go yellow with age. Finally the walls are covered with a couple of coats of the Floor covering Liquid by Johnsons called ‘Klear’, this dries to a very hard surface and dries in 20 to 30 minutes. I use it all the time before adding transfers as well.



To keep the building in place there is a couple of pieces of scrap ‘Korroflute’ on the interior with a 5” long piece of bicycle spoke fixed into each; these will be glued inside the ends when it is complete as they will get in the way meanwhile. These are pushed into the ground and the building is quite secure with these as fixing points.



Since this building was made I have found another building material, that is a PVC solid foam board that has the trade name of ‘Vekaplan SF’. Again I use the 5mm thick version, and also for the under roof the 3mm thick version. Your local plastics supplier should have some equivalents of this material


©Peter Bunce 2005