📐 The 10ft Rule. When is Accuracy Doomed to Fail

[Hines (Bill)]

I’m interested in how you balance accuracy vs longevity when building wooden structures for the garden.

I’ve received a set of fairly detailed plans for a mine poppet head, and some of the specified plank sizes come in as narrow as 1/16". On paper—and on the bench—that level of fidelity looks spot on.

But it raises the bigger question: where does the 10 ft rule come into play?

Im worried that at normal viewing distance, a lot of that fine work won’t really register, and over time outdoors those smaller sections are also the most vulnerable to losing definition or simply breaking.

I’m keen to get some advice on how others approach it, especially if their structures live out side.

[mickb (Mick Benton)]

Bill how many people who will see this would know what the timber sizes shold be. Also a lot of these structures would have been built out of what was on hand.

[John_Wilda]

For me, it’s honestly more about what I want to do. I am designing a building where I’m doing to be doing work that no one will ever see, but I know its there and I want to do it right for myself, more than anythijg. Having said that, if a beam is a little short, or a doorway ends up being framed a little narrow, I likely womt worry about it. No one will know, they certianly won’t measure it, and at the end of the day, it’ll still be a decent model of a historic building.

[Korm (Korm Kormsen)]

@Hines

The 10ft Rule. When is Accuracy Doomed to Fail

first - you are building a non-elevated gardenlayout.
so you can forget the 10 foot rule. why? - because everything, that is nearer than 10 foot away is invisible.
from roling stock and houses you see nothing but roofs, from figures the hats.

and from farther off than 10 foot, you see no details.

@Hines

how you balance accuracy vs longevity when building wooden structures for the garden.

striktly speaking - you can’t.

any wooden part, that is “to scale” is much too thin for stability.

just calculate the scales.
for instance the frame for a wooden house-wall.
in scale 22.5 the standard 1 x 2" beams should be as wide as a matchstick, and half the thickness. and a normal board of 1" thickness results as “fat”, as a single layer from a plywood sheet.
a normal coffee stirrer results in a plank of 1½" thickness.
in 1:32 the coffee stirrer results in a plank of 2".

so, if you want something, that lasts an entire season, you’ll have to lie!
(like sawburner does: 10mm or ½" for posts, and everything else in an optical relation to it)

with Grüßen from the breeding station

[Cliff_Jennings]

Bill,

Regarding longevity, I’ve used acrylic (sheets & strips), and it’s lasted well. However, I lasered it. If you can find a source of plastic strip that you can chemically weld, or make a stockpile of it, you should be able to make a headframe that lasts a long time.

Re accuracy, I agree with what’s been said. If you make or acquire a stockpile of bondable plastic strip (acrylic, ABS, PCV, styrene), I’d suggest making as few profiles as possible, cuz that makes things easier, and no one will notice (except for us, since you brought it up ).

[capecodtodd (Todd Haskins)]

Details don’t last outdoors in my area where we have a true 4 seasons with temp swings from 0-100F. I generally build things to convey an idea of what they are for and the details are skipped because they will eventually disappear. They will rot away, the glue will fail, a critter will chew it off or the leaf blower will blast it away.

If you do go with really thin wood strips you could reinforce them from behind to make them tougher. In the States we have Tightbond3 wood glue which is great for outdoor use but it will eventually fail too. I have a few board and batten buildings where I used coffee stir sticks to make the battens. I literally painted the glue under and on the edges to seal them then painted the whole building and they still came off but it took about 8 years.

I think that if you can convey the theme of the build your brain will fill in the gaps where the details come up short even at closer distances than 10’ .

[John_Bouck]

No details or accuracy on my buildings.
All are built to last outdoors year round and weather naturally.
Aluminum or cedar roofs, cedar sub structure and cedar siding.
A good quality exterior paint.