A characteristic feature of Welsh narrow gauge railways is slate; most of them were built to haul slate and they all used it extensively in their buildings. So a good looking slate roof is essential for an authentic look. This page shows a slate roof under construction.
The "slates" I am using are actually vinyl tiles intended for use on doll's houses. These are printed with a pretty convincing slate effect and are easy to cut and stick: they come pre-glued. They are a little on the large side for 16mm scale (20mm x 30mm) but make a good representation of larger slates that were used for roofing industrial buildings: these are approximately the Small Duchess size (22" x 12").
The roof shown here is for the Dolfor Junction carriage shed, although the same technique was used for Dolfor Junction station. First a word of warning. These tiles don't stick well to Styrene/Platicard. Here's a Platicard sheet that had been fully tiled, as you can see, most of the tiles have slipped off:
After that fiasco, the next attempt was made using card to attach the tiles to. This is much more successful. Here's the card cut to size. This is cut from a cardboard box:
Next, I start to lay the tiles. Working from the bottom-left corner, I lay the tiles so they over-hang the edge of the carboard:
The first row of slates is now complete. Cutting the slates is easy: one pass with a craft knife, then snap them. This allows me to fit the slates to the exact width required:
The second row overlaps the first. To start this row, cut a tile in half and start with a half-tile, then add full-size tiles next to it. The other half will complete the row. The files also overlap those on the bottom row, so that you get the characteristic lay of a welsh slate roof:
The third row starts with a full tile to maintain the overlapping pattern. You can see that the tiles are not of uniform height. This doesn't matter: just keep the bottom edge straight, the fourth row will hide the uneven top of the third:
Here is the finished roof. It looks pretty good:
Now that the roof panel is covered in slates, it is easily glued to the building structure. It is important to lay the panel flat and glue the building on top of it. A fully roof panel is surprisingly heavy and if the building is upright while the glue dries, there is a danger that the panel will slip and dry in the wrong position (or fall off entirely):
And here's the finished carriage shed with slate roof in place:
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