Well sports fans, we have a rare Saturday report. It was the women's finals at the Miami Tennis tourney and my wife is a big fan, so I was given the okay to work in the shop today. I'm only a short time from completing the boiler house as a result of today's efforts.
All the roofing is finished and weathered. The stacks were sanded and installed. The corridor roof was completed and the parapets capped, and I got a good start on the downspouts.
I wet sanded the stacks with an 800 grit sanding stick until I could just see the rust underneath starting to poke through. In addition to exposing the rust, the sanding brought out the aluminum metallic effect and they even look more like a sheet steel stack than I would have expected.
I inserted small eyebolts and pushed over their ends in the tubes using a wood dowel. This will keep them from pulling out and I may not have to use CA on them. I screwed up one aspect. I didn't pay attention to the positioning of the three eyebolts when I drilled their holes. I was so proud of the perfect 120° spacing that I forgot to check their relationship to the beveled end. I wanted them to be arranged a certain way on the roof, but now, it's sort of helter-skelter. I could re-drill the holes. They're so small you can see them. Or I can just live with it. I'm living with it.
I finished all the remaining shingling and put the foil capping on the small side roofs which finished that phase. I then added some Bar Mills "tar paper" roofing onto the small corridor roof. To get nice clear folds as they run up the parapet, I used my "hold-n-fold" precision clamping tool used for bending photo-etched parts. I measured the width with the caliper and marked this on the roofing. I folded on this mark and got a nice tight fit. I painted the roof with Tamiya "Rubber Black"—another new color they're offering—and went back and hand brushed the tar seams using Tamiya Semi-gloss Black. I made the roof caps from .040" X .250" styrene strip, which I painted before installation using a homemade "concrete" mix with Tamiya Sky Gray, Dark Brown, Yellow and White. BTW: I also used the "Hold-n-Fold" to make nice clean and straight seams on the long pieces of black paper flashing under the clerestory walls.
With all the roofs in place I added weathering powders as I did on the main building using white, grimy black, dirty gray, and mildew green. I also added some rusty brown around the base of the stacks simulating rusty water deposited there. It's not scientific, and weathering is not my strong suit. After weathering, I used medium CA to install the stacks in their respective spots.
In this overhead shot, you can see what I mean when I said that the flat black interior of the tubing would completely obscure the real wall thickness of the CPVC water pipe and the thinned ends carry the day. I tried using the patina cream on the bright foil peaks, but it didn't work. The weathering powders toned then down some. I'm going to buy some adhesive backed copper conductor foil to use for caps in the future. The foil does make a nice, clean peak cap.
It was time to start building gutters. I tried a new technique this time to speed up construction and reduce some of the solder joints. Instead of cutting separate little brass squares to close the ends, I cut away the channel sides and folded the remainder up to create an end, which I then soldered to close the seams. This worked pretty well and was less finicky than cutting the smalls squares. It also made it easier to solder the downspout near the end without worrying about the end de-soldering.
I finished the medium length strip, and got all the parts completed for the other two. I notch the tubes on a cutting wheel on the Dremel held in the Panavise. The Panavise is held to the work bench with a c-clamp so it doesn't walk around. After notching the tube, I finish the gap with a half round jeweler's file. The tube is still attached at the back of the gap, so again, it doesn't move out of position as I'm soldering it to fill the gaps. I'm using 1/8" brass tubing for the downspouts and drill the holes for it in the drill press so it's nice and square to the gutter.
I thought I was short on gutter stock. After cutting the long piece, the remainder didn't reach the walls extremes. Then I realized that the corridor side was in two parts with a missing piece in between. The result was I had enough material after all. Next session (Monday?) I'll finish the soldering, soak the parts in "Blacken It", and use the patina cream on them. I also already installed the 0.032" brass wire pins that will help secure it to the fascia boards. The gutters are a bit of work, but they really up the ante regarding the how authentic the building appears. When they're on, I'll finish the guy wires and take some beauty shots before installing it on the layout.
