Psycho House Wood Miniature 1:87 scale

Lots of tweezer work and no laser cutting!

One of the very first completed structures I ever made back in 1982 was the Norman Bates house from the movie Psycho. The only reference I had back then was a straight on front photo because I had never seen the original movie at that time (we didn't have VCRs etc yet so it would have been just a rerun on TV).

Literally right after I made this model, "Psycho 2" came out and that's when I saw what I got wrong but I was still pretty happy with how the miniature came out.

I keep this here in my office as it marks 40 years (1982-2022) I've been building miniatures.

Everything is basswood strips & sheet stock and the windows are each custom made. The tiny balusters & spindles on the porch had to be individually inserted with tweezers & just a tiny dot of glue. The shingles are blank typewriter paper cut in strips with tiny notches Exacto knifed to look like hexagons. I put some solvent in the backside of the clear acetate windows that made it craze just like mini cobwebs & cracks in glass.

I planned on the entire hotel at the bottom of the hill but that never happened. I did at one time have a part of the "psycho-path" (the stone stairs that lead up to the house) when I had this under a glass dome bell-jar display but unfortunately that broke 30 years ago along with the lower front steps up to the porch.

click to enlarge attic window details: