Spent the session today fiddling with floors and the mansard pieces. Everything needed adjusting, but in the end I think I've got it where I want it. I forgot to have the upper roof cut so I made it out of 1/8" Masonite after I fit the front and side Mansard pieces to figure where the intersection points would be. My cut got a bit undersized, but it will not show and I'll be able to correct it moving one.
For the attic floor I needed some ledges to support it. I drew a line around the back two walls with the digital calipers and then moved that line down the thickness of the attic floor and scribed another line. It was this second line that the ledges were aligned with. I use Aleen's and then follow up with thin CA since it was difficult to clamp. I always have to check myself that I'm accounting for material thicknesses when putting stuff together. If you want the top edge aligned with something, you'd better put your glue line below that one material thickness. It's easy to forget.
The attic floor was laser cut and needed some slight mods including changing the position of the opening for the tower. Again I had to ADD wood where it was missing. I'm getting good at this…too good! This piece now fits like a glove.
At first I thought the front Mansard was butting up to the left side and mounted a bracket to support it, one ply thickness behind the end. After fitting it, I realized that the Mansard sits in front of the slant roof edge and goes to the extreme left edge. So I popped that bracket off and found I no longer needed it since there's sufficient glue surface on the wall edge. Notice the angle I sanded onto the lower lugs that support the bottom Mansard edge. I set the belt sander table to the mansard angle and sanded the square stock so it gives good glue surface.
The side Mansard is a flimsy piece so I need lugs on the attic floor and lugs on the top edge to support the top roof. When it's glued together it will be very sound.
To support the top roof again I needed ledges on the back two walls and lugs on the tops of the Mansard walls.
The top roof fits okay, but there are gaps on the front and side. The building is slightly out of square. It only shows up when I'm trying to fit a square piece into it. I had to adjust and adjusted too far. If this fit was critical, I'd make a new piece, but it's all going to be covered with "tar paper" so if I use some scrap to fill any gaps, it will all be okay.
All of these parts are just sitting there since nothing can be glued in up top until interior details are addressed. I'm thinking of making the first floor an art gallery like the prototype is and I'm designing the partitions for the insides. I want to fit all that and the lighting before gluing anything together. I can make it so the first floor pushes up from the bottom, but the ceiling lighting needs to be done. Hmmmm…. I could make the base and the first floor ceiling push up from the bottom. It would remove the need for floor ledges. I would have to break them out or have the first floor ceiling 1/8" lower. In that way, I can finish up all the wall work on the upper floors. I want to put on the fish scale shingles BEFORE the walls are glue in since it would much easier doing that while they're flat.
As I've said before: With scratch-building a unique structure, there's no fancy instruction book. You're writing it as you go. I have to keep doing things in my mind to figure out what goes before what.
