More work today on the ops building. Got the clerestory constructed and installed along with the overhead garage doors. Prepared the building for roofing and realized I'm out of Evergreen Standing Seam Roofing and will have to buy it tomorrow. Came up with a better way to mount the building with a larger Masonite base which solves a couple of problems while creating a few more of its own.
I drew the clerestory design in Adobe Illustrator to get the window spacing and hole sizes. Since I already had an Illustrator version of the clerestory wall AND an accurate set of the laser-cut windows I was able to combine both in one drawing. I tried two ways to do it and chose the top drawing.
I then cut this pattern out and with a little spray glue attached to the clerestory wall. The butt joints in the wall were very weak since the surface area was almost non-existent. I cut out the entire window opening including the material between the windows since I felt it would be next to impossible to just punch out the window spaces without having the in-between pieces fall apart.
I glued the windows with a couple of drops of medium CA starting at the left end, and then added back the in-between pieces until I got to the other end. It needed just a very small amount of material removed to get the last window set in. The window sets were also glued to each other using Medium CA. This assembly was glued with solvent cement to the Plastruct cross-pieces. When set I added some 1/8" Evergreen styrene angle to trim off the corners.
I also added the same angle to all the corners.
For the overhead doors I'm using some Evergreen 1/2" spaced Standing Seam Roofing leaving out the thin plastic strips that simulate the seams. These look like very convincing overhead doors. Before installing I trimmed out the opening with angle. The doors themselves needed some internal adjustments to clear some of the reinforcing material inside the walls.
To better support the roofing I made some I-beam rafters (on their side) to fill out the inner portions. This is when I realized that the roofing material was absent. To keep the beams from interfering with the roof, I coped out the ends so they just sit on the 1/8" square wall reinforcement. It took solvent and CA to get these pieces to stay put.
I didn't like the floor idea I made yesterday. Instead I'm going to use a larger piece of Masonite under the whole deal and running back to the track. I'll fair this into the rest of the site with Sculptamold when I'm ready to install it. This will give me a better surface upon which to do roadways and landscaping. I'll cut this piece to shape when I do the filler piece for the fascia when #1 isn't home since the saber saw makes a terrible racket. In looking at the picture below, I'm realizing that the roof supports might be better if they're attached to the roof not the building since they're now going to get in the way putting in interior details and lighting. I would also need the same thing on the rear roof. I'll pop them out and do it differently stiffening the roof from its bottom.
During today's work I received an unhappy phone call that we were expecting. A very old and dear friend from Pennsylvania passed away last night after a terrible fight with metastatic pancreatic cancer. He was under treatment for over a year and half, which by itself is remarkable since from its detection it had already spread to the liver. As it was he had survived lymphoma for over 12 years. The two cancers were unrelated. So... we're heading back East on Sunday to attend the funeral and spend time with family and friends. I may get some work done tomorrow, but if I don't I be back is a while.
