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Prepare a good working place for yourself, best place will be the one nobody will sack you from and where your works will rest and get dry. For the moment you don't even suspect of the glue treachery, so better cover the table with some paper or cloth. Take several pieces of paper you can pour the glue over. The best way to take the glue off the paper is with cloistered matchstick or thin stick (toothpick).
You should also provide yourself with a razor blade, sharpened knife (scalpel).
Then you should thoroughly pick out the matchsticks. Only the matchsticks with flat surface of the brink can be used for the right side.
If you want building to look good and neat, than cut the matchstick heads off. Take the matchstick, the razor (knife) and cut the head with a firm sliding downward movement. The same way you can slice the matchstick for 2-3-4… parts. You can use those slices for marvelous parts as decorations, moldings, etc. BUT BE VERY ATTENTIVE AND CAREFUL if you don't know the samurai arts perfectly of course! We afraid your works will not look that good, decorated with cut fingers and seas of tears.
Draw a plan of what you want to make. It would be good to have en face and half-face drafts of all the sides of your building. It will help to avoid mistakes in proportions and to ensure the window openings, doorways and embrasures on time.
There are several methods of making walls
Method 1:
Matchsticks are joined together by bricklaying method. Overlaying matchsticks upwards layer-by-layer increases height. Doorways and window openings remain empty. First you should make a naked framework without any bold parts. When the framework is laid and it dried (minimum for a couple of hours), all the surface irregularities are leveled with file or flint-paper.
After that the smaller parts are pasted.
If you want to have a complex building which has several stores it's better to make each floor or fragment separately.
Big flat parts (walls) can be made step-by-step on the carton sheet. Leave your work under some press - a couple of big books - when you make a break. Otherwise the glue will twist the matchstick and it will be difficult for you to make your masterpiece neat.
This is the method almost all presented at this Website works are made by.
First
Steps
The distinctive feature of Method 2
is that you need minimum glue and you don't have to cut the matchstick heads off. The essential principle is block building of matches.
Prepare a building site. Take a small 60mm x 60mm plank hammer in four 50mm nails with 2mm diameter. Using PVA glue (it's very reliable, it dries fast and leaves no marks) put together 3 matchsticks with heads cut off. Attach the skirting to the plank so it would tightly side with nails
(Pic.1).
Now start to build a cube. Put 6 matches with heads in one direction on the skirting, then put 6 more matches criss-cross the previous ones
(Pic.2).
At this footing start to build a well: building the first set direct 2 matchsticks with their heads to the same direction as you did with 6 lower matches of footing, 2 other matches should coincide with the upper 6 matches of footing
(Pic.3).
This is the way all six sets of the well are build (Pic.4). Put six matchsticks on the top of the well the same way you did it at the footing, criss-cross (Pic.5).
Put a coin to the top 6 matches. It will press your construction a little bit, what can prevent from collapse. Put a matchstick to every corner of the well
(Pic.6).
Now start to put the matches with their heads up along the
inner perimeter
of the well, so each matchstick would be in its cell between the footing and upper matchsticks of the future cube. (Pic.7) With your left forefinger slightly press the coin, and slide apart the footing and top matches with your right hand.
When you are through with filling 4 vertical lines of the future cube, squeeze it with your fingers and take it off the construction site carefully. You don't need the coin any more. The cube has the following view (as
Pic 8 shows): in two vertical adjoining surfaces (2nd and 3rd) and upper horizontal one (1st) the matchstick heads make squares. In three other surfaces (4th, 5th and 6th) the field is still thin. Position the cube with the lower horizontal surface (6th) directed to you and fill in two facets, the ones where it is still possible to stick the matches between the matchstick heads of adjoining surfaces. Than turn the cube with the 4th surface directed to you and fill two facets, where matchsticks still enter between the matchsticks of adjoining surfaces. The same way you should fill the facets of the 5th surface. In order to staff the cube with matches rather tight, squeeze it with your fingers after each line is laid. Every new layer should be criss-crossed with the last one. Finally fill in two remained facets, start with the one at 6th surface and follow it up with the 5th and the 4th ones. Now the matchsticks in all 6 surfaces form squares. We used 180 matchsticks for this cube.
In case all the matchstick have all the brinks flat and square, the cube can bear 20-30 kilos. Matchstick heads act as locks.
The tighter you staff the cube the better, as when you have to pull the matches out of the cube to make the roof pitch the whole structure will not collapse. Some parts can be glued in order to ensure the steadiness.
The following are the instructions on making the house of the cube, we've just created. Put the cube with the smallest square of matchsticks (7 x 7) down, note that the heads of the last layer matches of this surface should be directed at you.
Thus each side of the square in upper vertical surface will complete with 9 matchstick heads. Central matchsticks in two opposite square sides (on short- and long-distance sides to you) should be pulled out as high as possible. Than symmetrically pull out other matchsticks from both opposite facets to the left and right of the central matchstick, so they could form the sloping roof pitches. All the matchsticks heads of the upper surface square cheeks should be pulled out to the same height as the left and right edge matches of the roof slope. Put 4 matches in a row with heads backwards on 5 matches in a row with their heads forward, on both sides from one central matchstick of the roof slope to another. Put 8 matchsticks with their heads up between pulled out 9 matches. They will lock thus forming the roof the house. Glue 2 matches up to the slope on both front and rear sides of the roof. With cut off matchstick heads mark windows and make the chimney of 5 matches. Glue a carton plate to the house basement and insert a match at each side.
It's very convenient to pull out matches for the roof slope of the future house with construction site.
You can find more detailed information about one of the experts, using this technique, on our
"Towers of I. KNYAZEV"
The third - the BEST - method
is the one that you will be able to invent!
And now
HOW TO MAKE THE MASTERPIECE OF YOUR HOUSE?
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