Happy Tuesday!
Spent a long and fruitful session building all of the gables and then putting the shingles on the Mansard front.
I added the side walls to the remaining three small gables and then added a rear "rafter" since the curved roof was going to need something in the back to form the roof. I traced the front curve of each and made an exact replica for the rear former. I squared the ends and solvent cemented them at the rear of the gable. For the double gable, I made a plywood piece held with Medium CA. Speaking of CA; I replaced all of my CA at the hobby shop yesterday. The medium had turned to jello, the thin was a mess, and the thick was getting thicker by the day. That stuff does have a shelf life once it's opened. I also added a bottom stringer to ensure that this fragile structure remained square.
The front and side edges of the gables has trim. I'm using 0.030X 0.060" trim for the sides and a piece of 0.015" sheet that I cut to the specific curve of each gable. Since all these were hand cut, each gables curve is slightly different. I traced the curve on the sheet and cut it to that curve. Then I used the caliper set at 0.060" and scribed a parallel line which I then cut.
I glued the curved trim on first with the ends extending off the edge. Then I butted the side trim up against the front trim and trimmed the front trim close to the side. I also cut the side trim flush with the gable's back.
For the roof I chose a double layer of 0.015" sheet stock. In looking at the prototype pics, the roof extends past the trim by about 3" so I cut the pieces to extend over all the edges about that amount. The plan was to glue the first layer on, and then after drying, laminate the 2nd layer to it. I used rubber bands to hold the roof to the curve and put them on on the front edge first and glued that. When it set, I moved one rubber band to the back edge and glue that and the sides. This worked perfectly!
When dry I cut another batch of roof pieces the same width, but left long, and slathered some Testor's Tube Cement over the entire roof (with my finger) and adhered the roof to the sub-roof. This too went flawlessly.
When the roof was dry I cut off the excess and then sanded the front and sides so you couldn't see the doubling. I also sanded the sides so they were parallel to the gable's sides. Last thing I did was add some windowsills with 0.060 X 0.030" styrene.
After these small gables were finished I did the same procedure to the double gable, with the exception that I used CA to hold the first roof in place. I did the upper roof the same as the small gables.
I had to open up the side Mansard's gable spaces since the roofs and their trim was not fitting without distorting the thin ply. I again scribed a parallel line, but after attempting to cut it with an Xacto and the razor saw, I simply engraved a good cutting line and used the Dremel with a carbide mini-router and a sanding drum. I then covered the Mansards with black construction paper (tar paper) and got the fish scale shingles on the front Mansard. It was very easy to just pave the shingles right over all the holes and THEN cut out the black paper AND the shingles in one go.
Those gables are not glued in place. There's a lot of white trim that goes all over the front and sides that will hide all the raw shingle edges, so I'm not worried about them at all. All the gables will be finished painted white next session in preparation to receiving the windows. Speaking of windows, I have six more to make.
The gables was a challenging part of the project; first due to the laser pieces being useless and having to scratch-build them all, and then the intricacy of the build with all the curved cuts. Curve cuts are never easy. All's well that ends well. Tomorrow have a lunch with a buddy so may or may not get much done. Thursday is an early afternoon cardiologist visit, but shouldn't take all day, so we'll see.
