Tutorial: Building a Roman Triumphal Arch

 

The 1/32 scale (54mm) Arch constructed by Fritzious Magnus

Every Roman city of repute must have its own triumphal arch located in the center of the city. It is an iconic Roman look and so I decided to build an arch for my growing 1/32 scale (for 54mm soldiers) city.

I based my arch somewhat on the Arch of Titus in Rome. See below:

The Arch of Titus

Materials Needed

1/2-inch foam core board (purchased from Blick's artist supplies store)

1/4-inch foam core board

Balsa wood of various sizes

Wood trim that I found at Home Depot

Coins (pennies and dimes) to use as images of leaders found on the sides of such structures

Sewing pins

1/2-inch wide masking tape

Circle Template (found in art supply stores or Michaels Stores)

Hot Glue Gun

Wood Glue

Box cutter knife

Exacto knife and Exacto mitre box and mitre saw set

Construction Details

The walls and roof are made from foam core board which at 1/2-inch thick is sufficiently strong to withstand any rough handling or storage/transport from my house to the game convention site.

Front walls: 9-inches wide by 8-inches high

Arch: 2-1/2 inches measured in from each edge of the foam core board and 5-1/2 inches to the high point in the arc of the arch.

Side walls: 4-inches wide by 8-inches high

Roof: a piece of 1/4-inch foam core board cut to dimensions that will give it a 1/2-inch over hang once the four walls are assemble. Another piece of 1/2-inch thick foam core board will later be attached to the top of the roof to provide structural support for the cornice trim on the top edges of the arch.

Trim for the cornice and columns: I found some really useful pieces of miniature wood trim at Home Depot. It is hard to describe what they are and how they look, but they provide a classical look to the arch. You can find these in the area where ceiling moulding and floor trim are found in the store.

Constructing the Arch

The first step is cutting out the wall pieces from the 1/2-inch foam core board. I recommend using a metal T-Square tool to ensure that you get straight cuts in the material. Once I pencil out the cutting lines, I remeasure everything to make sure that the dimensions are true and correct. Then I place the metal T-Square along one of the drawn lines and cut the board with your box cutter. Do not use any of the Exacto knives for this process. The box cutter provides a neatly cutting whereas the Exacto knife can result in a rough looking cut with chunks of foam cut out the board.

Next, I take some of my sewing pins and stick the four walls together to see how the structure will look. I then raise one of the walls a little bit so that the sewing pins are still sticking into the foam. I apply a liberal amount of hot glue and then push the pieces together. I do this for each edge of the walls that are being glued together. Next, I pry the sewing pins part way out of the foam core board and snip off the flat head of the pin with a wire cutter. Then I push the pin back into the board to provide support for the glue join.

Following this, I cut a piece of roof from 1/8-inch foam core board, making sure that this roof piece overlaps the edge of the walls by 1/2-inch.

Attaching the cornices and columns

Here are some close up pictures of the trim pieces. They are all 1/2-inch wide.

Close up view of the trim piece used for the vertical columns on the front and 
rear sections of the arch. Note the Lincoln penny that I glued to the board.

Here you can see the three different trim designs that I found at Home Depot. The beaded
trim is glued horizontally and abuts the 1/4-inch foam core board overhang.  Then the trim 
piece that resembles a vertical column is glued to the arch and abuts the beaded trim. Finally,
a piece of dental moulding is glued to the top of the foam core board to provide the crown of
the arch.

All of the wood trim pieces are attached to the walls of the arch using wood glue. Hot glue is messy and I have found that sometimes the glue doesn't stick and the piece eventually falls off. Wood glue will attach the pieces permanently and it sets in about five minutes.

The tedious part of the trim assembly occurs when the pieces of trim are cut. I used the mitre box and mitre saw for this and cut the pieces at a 45-degree angle so that they fit together seamlessly. Exacto makes a nice miniature mitre box and saw and I use it on many of my building construction projects.

Be sure to measure the trim pieces at the same length as of roof section. Anything less will result in a gap where the pieces should join together. I learned this the hard way and had to throw out several pieces of trim that I had cut. Also, double and triple check to make sure that you are cutting the mitre angles on the rear side of the trim rather than on the front side of the trim. I made this mistake several times. Doh!!!

The bead moulding under the roof overhang is easy to do as you have two surfaces to glue together ( the wall side and the over hang piece. I use wood glue for this.

The crown piece, or dentile moulding, is glued to the top of the roof. I begin by laying out the four pieces of wood together on the roof. Then I use some sewing pins as guides for the location of the pieces. I stick the pins into the inside edge of the wood moulding so that when I glue the wood to the foam core board, I have a guide for its placement. Once the guide pins are in place, I glue the crown moulding pieces to the top of the roof. After the pieces are glued together I stick more pins into the inside edge of the moulding to help it stay in place.

The final stage of the roof cornice sections is to cut out a piece of 1/2-inch foam core board that will fit inside the four edges of crown moulding (5-1/2 inches wide by 9-1/2 inches long). I use hot glue to attach the piece to the top of the roof. This insert piece abuts the the interior of the crown moulding and provides extra strength to the crown. Without this, there is too much free standing wood on top of the roof that could break off with rough handling. Since the insert fits snuggly against the crown moulding, it is like adding a support wall that will prevent any breakage.

Adding details on the walls

The next step is to add some details to the walls of the arch that fill in some of the blank wall areas and give the arch a finer look. I use Lincoln pennies and Roosevelt dimes and glue them onto the wall with hot glue. I place Lincoln on the front and back sides and Roosevelt on the sides. I actually place two dimes on the side: Roosevelt's head and the reverse side ( I forget what it is called; phalange?).

Once the coins are painted over and dry brushed with white paint, the heads will be picked out and easy to see. However the paint softens the head image so that it looks like some Roman dude rather than an American president.

I cut pieces of balsa wood to make a frame over the top of the arch opening. The frame measures 4-inches wide by 1-inch high.

I use wood glue to attach the pieces to the surface of the foam core board on the arch. Usually the arch would have some words within this frame, either identifying the emperor that built the arch or it might have "SPQR" engraved inside the frame.

The side walls use a similar frame of balsa wood, but these are larger at 3-inches wide by 6-inches high.

Balsa wood frame with two dimes glued inside the frame, Note also the piece
of wood at the base of the model. This base kind of ties everything together.

The final construction step is to glue a piece of bass wood or balsa wood around the base of the arch, as shown in the picture above.

Basically, any join that involves pieces of wood should use wood glue and any join that puts two pieces of foam core board uses hot glue.

The finishing touches: painting the model

Now that all of the bits and bobs are glued together, it is time to paint your model. I use "chalk paint" that you can purchase from Michaels or purchase on line from Plaid Paints. Don't ask me why I use chalk paint, just trust me that it looks better/more realistic than acrylic paint. I used three coats of paint on the arch, largely to hide the primer paint that I used on the arch. I reasoned that primer should cover the wood bits and the coins before I could paint them. A light grey primer is the best color because grey sort of looks like stone. On other buildings I don't use primer, just painting over the surface of the foam core board.

The final part of the painting, of course, is dry brushing the model with a lighter color. Use dry brushing sparingly because it makes the details "pop out" from the darker undercoat. During each stage of painting, I use my finger to wipe the paint from the coins, otherwise the two or three coats of paint will obscure the images on the coins. It is only when the highlight color is dry brushed to the surface that I don't wipe off the paint.

That pretty much finishes the arch model. I want the "SPQR" letters inside the frames above the arches. I don't trust my freehand painting skills enough to hand paint the letters, so I will either find images on line to down load onto paper or maybe use Word software to print out the letters in the correct size. The paper will be glued to the surface using spray on rubber cement (spray the paper with glue, not the surface).

Here are some pictures of the finished arch (sans the SPQR lettering) shown in situ in my Roman town.

The finished arch. Note the sections of aqueduct in the background. I made those
prior to making the arch and they gave me practice in making arch openings
similar to that of the triumphal arch.

A view of the town center, or forum, showing the location of the arch. I think that 
the arch really improves the visual look of my Roman town. The cobblestone mat
is made by Cigar Box Battle Mats.

You can see that there are a number of buildings that are in various stages of "work in progress". The black models still require some final assembly and painting. The two larger buildings on the right hand side of the picture need to have their roof tiles painted so that they look like the tiles on the building on the lower right hand side of the picture. Herb Gundt made that building for 28mm figures and I have used some of the buildings that he made for my long ago Late Roman Project as templates and ideas for my large 1/32 scale Roman building models.

The cobblestone surface in the town is a Cigar Box Battle Mat that I purchased recently. The civilian figures are a mostly from King & Country in Hong Kong and they are 1/30 scale (about 60mm), but I find that they fit rather nicely with my 54mm figures. The Egyptian Obelisk was purchased from the New York Art Museum on line store.

Conclusion

I know that there aren't too many of my readers that will have a need for 1/32 scale building models, but I thought that the step by step construction tutorial would transfer easily to smaller 28mm models. On the other hand, there are quite a few laser cut Roman buildings that are available from some of the more notable and usual providers of such things. I really like the Sarissa models that are sold though Footsore Miniatures in the UK. Click on the link below. I only wish that Sarissa made some of these models in 1/32 scale, but I know that there is a limited market for models in my size.

Footsore Miniatures

My Roman town continues to grow. I need more apartment buildings and then I would like to tackle a temple with columns or a Roman bath building.

salve!