The most useful tint of this paper is the one already described, as it can be easily tinted to represent bricks or rubble, &c., should it be necessary,—for instance, in a building where the quoins, dressings, &c., were in stone, the rest in random rubble or brick, it would enable you to mark them with a HHH pencil, and tint before your work was made up. I have constructed several models in pure white Bristol board, but it is a tedious hard material to work in, though the result is very fine.
The next most important auxiliary is an adhesive material for fastening the sheets together to produce the necessary thicknesses of cardboard, and to fix the whole together and the several parts in their places. For the former a paste of flour made in the following manner, will be found to be the best. To every two tablespoonfuls of the best wheaten flour, add a teaspoonful of common moist or brown sugar, and a little corrosive sublimate, the whole to be boiled, and while boiling continually stirred to prevent lumps, till of the right consistency. If a few drops of some essential oil, say lavender or peppermint, be added, the usual mouldiness will not appear, and the paste will keep for a great length of time. For the latter, a gum must be used, prepared by the following proportions. To each six ounces of the best gum arabic, add an ounce or less of moist or lump sugar, one teaspoonful of lavender or other essential oil, and a table-spoonful of gin, the whole to be mixed in _cold_ water (no heat being in any way applied) to the consistency of a thick syrup.
Other requisites are sheets of mica or talc, to be procured at the ironmonger’s, and used for windows, skylights, &c.; pieces of soft deal or beech wood, to form any small detail such as pinnacles to barge boards, &c., that it may not be advisable or possible to form in paper; wire, lead, cord, velvet, and numerous other nick-nacks, which will occur to the modeller as his work proceeds, and which will hereafter, in their place, be carefully described.
The first thing the artist must procure must be a board of fine, close-grained wood, free from knots, to prepare and cut the several parts of his work upon. The best for this cutting-board is beech, sycamore, or pear-tree wood; it should be, at the least, one and a-half inch thick, by twelve inches broad, and about eighteen inches in length. I should prefer it even thicker than stated, as continual planing of the surface to erase the marks of the knife soon reduces its thickness. Let it be squared perfectly every way to allow the T square to work accurately along its edge. As before stated, care must be taken, when the surface has become too much cut up, to have it re-planed, or otherwise the knife is apt to follow the marks in the board, and cut the paper irregularly upon the under side. The size of board mentioned will be found most useful for all ordinary purposes; should the work be of very large dimensions, of course another must be procured, proportionally larger. Two or three boards of close-grained deal will also be found of service for cutting obliquely, &c., &c.